ON ERRATA RECEPTA. 143 



That there may be no exception to the general return of the letters 

 to a condition of propriety and truthfulness, one erratum in the deli- 

 neation of the capital G may be worth pointing out and marked corri- 

 gendum. It is seen sometimes as if it had taken a leap in the air, 

 and there been detained, whereas its bulky form should rather be at 

 rest, down among its lesser fellows, with its distinctive but very subor- 

 dinate little cedilla (so to call it) dropping below the general line. 

 Capital Y is also sometimes seen, in like manner, unduly exalted. 

 Its loop is simply a mark of difference between it and the letter U, 

 and is not to be taken to represent the stem of the printed capital. 

 Capital Q in script has irrecoverably departed from its essential type. 

 Its beautiful circle is destroyed, and the very sub-ordinate little mark, 

 which here again was simply to be diacritical, is flourished out into 

 great conspicuousness. On the whole Q which used numerally to be 

 worth 90, has degenerated into a large 2. 



One more erratum, also certainly to be marked corrigendum, and I 

 close my remarks on the modifications undergone by the letters. 



Since our adoption in money-matters of the decimal system, the 

 time-honoured but never-to-be-forgotten £,. s. d. have withdrawn a 

 good deal from the public view. About them there was little mistake. 

 It may be remarked as curious that whilst denarii were closely asso- 

 ciated with the idea of military pay, being the Uips which formed the 

 stipend of the soldier, the term " soldier " itself sprung out of solidus, 

 an enduring trophy of success in some strike on a large scale, although 

 after all, again, it is to solidus we owe our sou i.e. sol. 



But what means the symbol ^ ? It ought to be more self-inter- 

 preting than it is. An Egyptian or Chinese linguist might detect in 

 it "honesty the best policy" — the upright roan standing firm in the 

 midst of a serpentine tortuosity, and resolving so to earn his dollar. 

 Sometimes in script he is seen to incline — to be almost overthrown in 

 the coil. We have here, however, nothing of this sort, but another 

 of our errata recepta. The curve which looks like an S in this 

 character is properly no S. It should be made in the reverse way. 

 It will then be seen to constitute, with the vertical or verticals around 

 which it twines, a kind of double P — a character which reads P which- 

 ever way it stands This dual P is the initial of the Spanish name 

 of the coin which we call a dollar, viz., Peso, which is literally ^era- 

 sum, all but identical with pondits, ov pondo, i.e., our Pound: so that 

 strangely enough our £,, which denotes the same thing, viz.. Libra, a 



