ERRATA RECEPTA. 63 



appellative made to represent " land of the Philistim ; " sometimes 

 rather boldly Latinized into Palcestina, also. '^ 



There is one place in the English Bible where, in very many of the 

 modern editions, a misprint -wiir'bfe observed, about which there can 

 be no question. It is in a part of the History of the Jewish Judges 

 (ix., 53.), where an old Saxon expression occurs, which, from its hav- 

 ing now become unfamiliar, is liable to be wrongly understood by 

 printers. I find the passage incorrectly given in my copy of Bag- 

 ster's carefully executed Polyglot, of the date 1831 ; and in other 

 editions of the Bible which I have at hand. In Bagster's Quarto, 

 generally known as the " Comprehensive," and in such of the author- 

 ized issues as are, at this moment; within my reach, the printing of 

 the sentence is accurate. — Abimelech, a usurper, while beseiging a 

 walled city, is struck on the head by a heavy stone, thrown down, as 

 it happened, by a woman. The incident is thus narrated : " A cer- 

 tain woman cast a piece of mill-stone upon Abimelech's head, and all 

 to-brake his scull." The misprint, when it occurs, is found in and 

 about the expression " to-brake." The compositor, not versed in the., 

 ancient Saxon phraseology, is inclined first to expunge the hyphen 

 and to set up the remaining vocable, as though it were "break." 

 The passage is then made to read as though it were simply a state- 

 ment of the intention of the woman, in casting down the stone, not 

 of the effect of the blow. But the old English verb " to-break " (its 

 parts thus connected together by a hyphen), is an intensive of 

 "break," just as in the Anglo-Saxon to-hrcscan is of Ircecan. The all 

 which precedes renders the word more emphatic still. So that " all 

 to-brake his scull " is an exceedingly strong statement of the injury, 

 not simply intended, but inflicted. This use of the Anglo-Saxon pre- 

 fix to is to be met with in Chaucer. Thus, in the Knight's Tale, L., 

 1G99, we read : — 



" With mighty maces the bon^s they to-brest; " 

 that is, completely burst or crushed. In Shakspeare, also, in the 

 Merry Wives (iv., 4. 11., 56, 57.), one of the directions about to be 

 given to certain supposed urchins, ouphes, &c., in regard to Falstaff, 

 is this : — 



" Then let them all encircle him about, 

 And, fairy-like, to-pinch the unclean knight." 



Here the usual varieties of printing will be found. Warburton, evi- 

 dently not being aware of the. idiom, suggested "fairy-like, tpo ; '* 



