FullReads

Of all literary blunders none equalled that of the edition of the Vulgate, by Sixtus V. His Holiness carefully superintended every sheet as it passed through the press; and, to the amazement of the world, the work remained without a rival–it swarmed with errata! A multitude of scraps were printed to paste over the erroneous passages, in order to give the true text. The book makes a whimsical appearance with these patches; and the heretics exulted in this demonstration of papal infallibility! The copies were called in, and violent attempts made to suppress it; a few still remain for the raptures of the biblical collectors; not long ago the bible of Sixtus V. fetched above sixty guineas–not too much for a mere book of blunders! The world was highly amused at the bull of the editorial Pope prefixed to the first volume, which excommunicates all printers who in reprinting the work should make any alteration in the text!

In the version of the Epistles of St. Paul into the Ethiopic language, which proved to be full of errors, the editors allege a good-humoured reason–“They who printed the work could not read, and we could not print; they helped us, and we helped them, as the blind helps the blind.”

A printer’s widow in Germany, while a new edition of the Bible was printing at her house, one night took an opportunity of stealing into the office, to alter that sentence of subjection to her husband, pronounced upon Eve in Genesis, chap. 3, v. 16. She took out the two first letters of the word HERR, and substituted NA in their place, thus altering the sentence from “and he shall be thy LORD” (Herr), to “and he shall be thy FOOL” (Narr). It is said her life paid for this intentional erratum; and that some secreted copies of this edition have been bought up at enormous prices.

We have an edition of the Bible, known by the name of The Vinegar Bible; from the erratum in the title to the 20th chap. of St. Luke, in which “Parable of the Vineyard,” is printed, “Parable of the Vinegar.” It was printed in 1717, at the Clarendon press.

We have had another, where “Thou shalt commit adultery” was printed, omitting the negation; which occasioned the archbishop to lay one of the heaviest penalties on the Company of Stationers that was ever recorded in the annals of literary history.[37]

Herbert Croft used to complain of the incorrectness of our English classics, as reprinted by the booksellers. It is evident some stupid printer often changes a whole text intentionally. The fine description by Akenside of the Pantheon, “SEVERELY great,” not being understood by the blockhead, was printed serenely great. Swift’s own edition of “The City Shower,” has “old ACHES throb.” Aches is two syllables, but modern printers, who had lost the right pronunciation, have aches as one syllable; and then, to complete the metre, have foisted in “aches will throb.” Thus what the poet and the linguist wish to preserve is altered, and finally lost.[38]

It appears by a calculation made by the printer of Steevens’s edition of Shakspeare, that every octavo page of that work, text and notes, contains 2680 distinct pieces of metal; which in a sheet amount to 42,880–the misplacing of any one of which would inevitably cause a blunder! With this curious fact before us, the accurate state of our printing, in general, is to be admired, and errata ought more freely to be pardoned than the fastidious minuteness of the insect eye of certain critics has allowed.

Whether such a miracle as an immaculate edition of a classical author does exist, I have never learnt; but an attempt has been made to obtain this glorious singularity–and was as nearly realised as is perhaps possible in the magnificent edition of Os Lusiadas of Camoens, by Dom Joze Souza, in 1817. This amateur spared no prodigality of cost and labour, and flattered himself, that by the assistance of Didot, not a single typographical error should be found in that splendid volume. But an error was afterwards discovered in some of the copies, occasioned by one of the letters in the word Lusitano having got misplaced during the working of one of the sheets. It must be confessed that this was an accident or misfortune–rather than an Erratum!