58 ERRATA RECEFTA. 



Instead of "wild fields of etber," the standard editions of the 

 ' " Spectator" give here "wide fields of ether," an expression that cer- 

 tainly commends itself as far more probable than the other. 



As an example of the immobility of matter when once got into 

 type in a particular way, I add from my old copy of Milton's "Par- 

 adise Lost," of the date of 1678, four years after the poet's death, 

 two lines in the tenth Book, printed thus : 



"Childless thou art, childless remaine, 

 So death shall be deceiv'd his glut and -with us two," &c. 



Here " So death " belongs to and completes the metre of the preced- 

 ing line. The fault began in the first, and was repeated in the second 

 edition, during the lifetime of Milton, and is here continued in a 

 third put forth four years after the, pq:et'-s decease. 



Sometimes a whole impression will exhibit a mis-reading from the 

 too implicit adherence of the compositor to his copy. The edition of 

 Littleton's Latin Dictionary of the year 1678, is said to contain 

 among the meanings of concurro, the rather singular one oicondog. 

 Having ventured the question " did not 'concur' come in among the 

 English meanings of concurro?" the amanuensis received from the 



"lips of the lexicographer the somewhat Johnson-like response "con- 

 cur ? — condog ! " The note facetiously taken thereof, in due time 



, found its way into the Dictionary sub vooe. 



In the printed copies of the Public Liturgy of the English Church 



'one or two errors of the press have been so often and for so long a 

 time repeated that they may be almost considered as belonging to 

 the class of established mistakes. By a typographical oversight some 

 years ago, in what is known as the General Thanksgiving, the word 

 "may" was left out. In editions of 1733 and 1762, which I happen 

 to have at hand on my shelves, the language is all right — "that we 

 may shew forth Thy praise." But in tens of thousands of copies 

 issued in England during a century past, the omission of "may" ia 

 perpetuated. In the Liturgy as used in Scotland and in the United 

 States, the word has never been missing. 



' The cha'nge in the Marriage Service of " depart," as it stands in my 

 copy of 1616, into "do part," as we now see it in modern editions, 

 looks at first sight, very like a misprint. But the alteration was 

 made, it appears, intentionally, just before the so-called Act of XJni- 



-formity. It was a condescension to popular misconceptions ; very 



