he 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!_

One of the most remarkable complaints on ERRATA is that of Edw. Leigh,
appended to his curious treatise on "Religion and Learning." It consists
of two folio pages, in a very minute character, and exhibits an
incalculable number of printers' blunders. "We have not," he says,
"Plantin nor Stephens amongst us; and it is no easy task to specify the
chiefest errata; false interpunctions there are too many; here a letter
wanting, there a letter too much; a syllable too much, one letter for
another; words parted where they should be joined; words joined which
should be severed; words misplaced; chronological mistakes," &c. This
unfortunate folio was printed in 1656. Are we to infer, by such frequent
complaints of the authors of that day, that either