FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
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served as a guide to the bookbinders ; but after the unireisal adoption of the signatures, catch- words, cyphers, and numbering the pages, regis- ters were omitted as unnecessaiy.
1478. The first Errata which is known is a Jioenal, printed at Venice, with the notes of Merula, by GabrieUs Petrus. In this book the ensta occupy two entire paces.
To the correctness of their impressions the earliest printers in general, and those of Paris in particular, appear to have been especially at- tentive. An impression of Virgil from the press of Gering and Rembolt, in 1498, 4to. is parti- cularly specified as a work of great accuracy. It is in r^ty admitted, says Cnevillier, to be me tre$ belle edition, printed in the finest Ro- man character, and agreeably to the testimony at the end of the volume, (^nu tertisrime tm- p reuum. In an epigram, of which Jean Auber, a friend of the editor P. Maillet, was the author, it is asserted that the work is absolutely fauldess.
Another "quadrain," or epigram, makes a similar assertion respecting the Corjmt Jurit Canmici from the press of Rembolt.
These, and similar assertions found at the close of other works specified by Chevillier, he is disposed to consider as "jeux des verses" and "licenses poetiques." It is entertaining to fol- low him tnrough an ample chapter, in which, bj the united testimony of authors, editors, and typographers, he undertakes to prove, that a book absofntely without errors of the press, is indeed a rora avit ; and next to an impossibility. We of the typographic art, may indeed exclaim with Pope,
" tnioever ttiink* • tknltlM* piece to aee,
Thinks wliat ne'er was, nor li, nor ne'er shall be."
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In works of the remotest dates, tablet of errata are seldom, perhaps never found : but the faults of the impression were corrected with the pen previously to the dispersion of the work. This IS exemplified in the earliest editions of Gering, Caxton, and several others. A similar mode of correction appears to have been adopted, so late as the year 1634, by the editor of the Discourtes of Clictou. But the labour of manual correction was of short duration. Through Uie ignorance of sordid printers, errors of the press soon be- came very numerous, and to correct them with the pen was but in other words to disfigure the volume throughout, and make a disgusting dis- play of its imperfections. The custom was con- sequently adopted of affixing the most impor- tant corrections under the title of errata, at the end of the volume.
If indeed the lapse of time had brought any alleviation of this evil, the French bibliographer above cited wonld not hare found occasion of filling up a ^rreat part of a chapter, with a kind of chronological enumeration of quarrels which have taken place between scholars and the con- taminators of their lucubrations. He would not have recorded the charge brought against the printers of Geneva in particular, "execrable paper, and intoUerable incorrectness." Joseph
Scaliger particularizes the celebrated Lexieon GnBcvm of Robert Constantine, as a work abounding in typographical errors. And, adds Chevillier, it must be acknowledged that this work has not fewer errors of the author, than of the printer. Lastly, he relates that cardinal Bellarmin was so much offended by the inaccu- racies which negligent printers of his time had introduced into his controversial works, that he determined to write out a copy uf the whole, so exactly, that not a single error should remain uncorrected. This he performed, and trans- mitted to a printer of Venice ; hoping at length to procure an unpcrverted and perfect edition. But to his great disappointment, he found this impression, when completed, more erroneous than any of the former.
Besides the ordinary errata, which happen in printing a work, others have been purposely committed that the errata may contain what is not permitted to appear in the body of the work. Wherever the inquisition had any power, parti- cularly at Rome, it was not allowed to employ the Vvord fatum, or fata, in any book. An au- thor, desirous of using the latter word, adroitly invented this scheme: he had printed in his book /ar<a, and, in the errata, he put, for facta, read/ato.
Scarron has done the same thing on another occasion. He had composed some verses, at the head of which he placed this dedication — A GuilUmette, Chienne de vta Scmr ; but having a Quarrel with his sister, he maliciously put into tne errata, instead of Chiemte de ma Sour, read ma Chienne de Saw.
Ltully at the close of a bad prologue said, the word ^n du prologue was an erratum, it should have beeny! du prologue.
In a book there was printed, le doete Morel. A wi^ put into the errata, for le docte Morel, read £ docteur Morel. This Morel was not the first docteur not docte.
When a fEuiatic published a mystical work full of unintelligible raptures, and which he en- titled Let Delices de VEtfirit, it was proposed to print in his errata, for Deliret, read Delirei.
The author of an idle and imperfect book ended with the usual phrase of cetera detideran- tur, one altered it nan detiderantur ted daunt ; the rest is unntittg, but not wanted.
At the close of a silly book the author, as usual, printed the word finis. — ^A wit put this among the errata, with this pointed couplet: —
Finis I an error, or a lie, my iHendl
in writing foolish books— there is no Bud!
The baron de Grimm, in his Memoin, men- tions the extraordinarr circumstance of an irri- table French author naving died in a fit of anger, in consequence of a favourite work, which he had himself revised with great care, having beenp rinted off with upwards of three hundred typographical errors; half of which had been made by the corrector of the press.
A furious controversy raged between two famous scholars from a very laughable but acci-
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