f one line in "Samson
Agonistes" are dropped down into the next, making the two lines of
uneven length and very much hurting the emphasis. The three-volume
reprint of this edition dutifully copies the misprint. In the Standard
edition of Dr. Holmes's "Works" printed at the Riverside Press, in the
unusual case of a poem in stanzas being broken up into a dialogue, the
end of one speech, carried over to the following page, has been assigned
to the next speaker, thus spoiling both the sense and the metre. The
most extraordinary instance that has ever come under my eye occurs in a
special edition of John Hay's "Poems," issued as a college prize volume
and very elegantly printed at a well-known press. One poem has
disappeared entirely except a single stanza, which has been attached to
another poem with which it has no connection, not even agreeing with it
in metre.

The list of errata, the printer's public confession of fault, is rather
rare in modern books, but this is due as much to the indifference of the
public as to better proofreading. When Edwin Arnold's "Light of Asia"
took the reading world by storm, a New York reprint was issued, which we
commend to anyone looking for classical examples of misprinted books. It
averages perhaps a gross misprint to every page. Possibly extreme haste
to beat the Boston edition in the market may have suggested dispensing
with the proof reader. Of course a publisher who could so betray his
customers would never offer them even the partial amends of a list of
errata. Sometimes the errors are picked up while the book is still in
press, and in that case the list of errata can be printed as an
extension of the text; sometimes the best that can be done is to print
it on a separate slip or sheet and either insert it in the book or
supply it to purchasers. Both these things happened in the case of that
early American book, Mather's "Magnalia." The loose list of errata was
printed on the two inner pages of one fold the size of the book. In the
two hundred years that have elapsed, most of these folded sheets have
been lost, with the financial result that a copy of the book with them
will bring twice as much as one without them, these two leaves weighing
as much in the scales of commerce as the other four hundred. Sometimes a
misprint establishes the priority of a copy, the error having been
silently corrected while the sheets were going through the press, and
thus adds to its value in the eyes of