es Rodman
Drake who did "The Culprit Fay." Perhaps it was the printer's fault
that the poem is accredited to Dana. Perhaps Mr. Saunders writes so
legible a hand that the printers are careless with his manuscript.

"There is," says Wheatley, "there is a popular notion among authors
that it is not wise to write a clear hand. Menage was one of the first
to express it. He wrote: 'If you desire that no mistake shall appear
in the works which you publish, never send well-written copy to the
printer, for in that case the manuscript is given to young apprentices,
who make a thousand errors; while, on the other hand, that which is
difficult to read is dealt with by the master-printers.'"

The most distressing blunder I ever read in print was made at the time
of the burial of the famous antiquary and litterateur, John Payne
Collier. In the London newspapers of Sept. 21, 1883, it was reported
that "the remains of the late Mr. John Payne Collier were interred
yesterday in Bray churchyard, near Maidenhead, in the presence of a
large number of spectators." Thereupon the Eastern daily press
published the following remarkable perversion: "The Bray Colliery
Disaster. The remains of the late John Payne, collier, were interred
yesterday afternoon in the Bray churchyard in the presence of a large
number of friends and spectators."

Far be it from the book-lover and the book-collector to rail at
blunders, for not unfrequently these very blunders make books valuable.
Who cares for a Pine's Horace that does not contain the "potest" error?
The genuine first edition of Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter" is to be
determined by the presence of a certain typographical slip in the
introduction. The first edition of the English Scriptures printed in
Ireland (1716) is much desired by collectors, and simply because of an
error. Isaiah bids us "sin no more," but the Belfast printer, by some
means or another, transposed the letters in such wise as to make the
injunction read "sin on more."

The so-called Wicked Bible is a book that is seldom met with, and,
therefore, in great demand. It was printed in the time of Charles I.,
and it is notorious because it omits the adverb "not" in its version of
the seventh commandment; the printers were fined a large sum for this
gross error. Six copies of the Wicked Bible are known to be in
existence. At one time the late James Lenox had two copies; in his
interesting memoirs Henry Stevens tells how he pick