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HISTORY OF PRINTING.
dental erratum; and threatened serious conse- quences to one of the parties. Flarigny wrote two letters, criticising rather freely a polyglot Bible, edited by Abraham Ecchellensis. As this learned editor had sometimes censured the la- bours of a friend of Flarigny, the latter applied to him the third and fifth verses of the seventh chapter of St. Matthew, which he printed in Latin. Ver. 3. Quid vides festucam in oculo fratrit tui, et trabem in oculo tuo nonvidet Ver. 6. Ejiee primum Irahim de oculo tito, et tunc videbu ejicert fettucam de oculo fratrit tui. Ecchellensis opens his reply by accusing Fla- vigny of an enormous crime committed in this passage; attempting to correct the saured text of the evangelist, and daring to reject a word, while he supplied its place by another, as impi- OM as obscene! This crime, exaggerated with all the virulence of an angry declaimer, closes with a dreadful accusation. Flavigny's morals are attacked, and his reputation overturned by a horrid imputation. Yet all this terrible reproach is only founded on an erratum! The whole arose from the printer having negligently suffered- the Jirtt Utter of the word Oculo to nave dropped from the form when he happened to touch a line with his finger, whicn did not stand straight! He published another letter to do away the imputation of Ecchellensis ; but thirty years afterwards his rage against the negligent printer was not extinguished; the wits were al- ways reminding him of it.
The number of typographical inaccuracies which abound in the bibles printed at different times and places, are remarkable ; but of all the literary blunders none equalled that of the edition of the Vulgate, by pope Sixtus V. 1590. In an edition printed at London, in 1632, where " Thou shall commit adultery" was printed, omitting the negation.
In the version of the Epistles of St. Paul into the Ethiopic language, wnich proved to be full of errors, the editors allege a good-humoured reason — ^" They who print^ 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 uie 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.
The celebrated Campanus, bishop of Crotona, did not disdain to become the corrector to Ulric Han, the second Roman printer. It is alike honourable to the bishop and the printer to have formed a union, and so long to have prosecuted it together, which had the benefit of learning in
view. The most famous epigram, subjoined by Ulric Han to most of his txraks, was written by Campanus, in compliment to his friend : —
Anaer Tupeil cnttos Jovis nnde qood alii ConstrepeiTs, Otllo* deddlt, alter adest
ITldrlchns Gtdlos ne qnem posantnr in usom Edocnlt pennii nil opaa cue tnis.
As much as to say, the art of Ulric Han ren- dered all use of goose quills, hereafter, superflu- ous. Femus, the biographer of Campanus, re- lates a facetious story of his having neard the above epigram for the first time from a Turk, with whom he accidentally travelled, but whose desire of seeing Campanus, had caused him to visit Rome, where he obtained copies of his works. So incessant was the employment of Campanus, as corrector of the press to Ulric Han, that he allowed himself no more than three hours sleep in a night. This is given from Mattaire, who cites the authority of Zelt- ner. Campanus died at the early age of 50, at Siena. OfUlric Han little is known ; he was a German, a native of Ingoldstad, and a citizen of Vienna, and was also the second Roman printer, though it has been contended, but erroneously so, that he was the first
It is not a little remarkable, that the two first printing presses established in the metropolis of Italy were superintended and corrected by two individuals of episcopal rank. But it may also be observed, that in the infancy of printing, and indeed long afterwards, the occupation itself was considered as highly honourable, and only undertaken by well educated persons — it became the glory of the learned to be correctors of the press to eminent printers. Physicians, lawyers, bishops, and even popes themselves, occupied this department. The printers frequently added to their names those of the correctors of the press ; and editions were valued according to the abilities of the correctors. " Typography, if I may use the expression," says Mr. Beloe, in his Anecdotes of Literature, " had sent its colonies from Ger- many, to Subiaco, to Rome, to Venice, to all parts of Italy, to France, and even to this conn- try, before even the laborious part of the pro- fession had been delegated to ignorant mecha- nics. Its professors were distingubhed by the kindness, and honoured by the familiari^ of the great;" many of them were of illustrious fa- milies.
Chevillier, from whom many of these remarks are borrowed, tells a facetious story of Robert Gaguin, who having printed his first edition of the History of France, was so disgusted with the number of typographical errors which ap- peared, that he determined to print his second edition at Lyons, and accordingly did so. But the second edition was also so deformed by er- rata, that he expressed a wish to have the whole five hundred copies in his chamber, to bum or otherwise destroy them.
In the year 1561, was printed <l work, entitled the Anatomy of the Mass. It is a thin octavo, of 172 pages, and it is accompanied by an errata of fifteen pages! The editor, a pious monk, in-
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