Page:De Vinne, Invention of Printing (1876).djvu/159

Rh The copyists of the middle ages may be properly divided in two classes: the class that considered copying an irksome duty and that did its work mechanically and badly; the class that treated book-making as a purely artistic occupation, and gave the most time and care to ornamentation. The book-makers who made search for authentic copies, comparing the different texts of books and correcting their errors, did not appear until after the invention of printing. The mechanical drudges, who were always most numerous, not only repeated the errors of their faulty copies, but added to them. Errors became so frequent that some of the more careful and conscientious copyists thought it necessary to repeat at the end of every book the solemn adjuration of Irenæus:

I adjure thee who shall transcribe this book, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by his glorious coming to judge the quick and dead,