Page:The practice of typography; correct composition; a treatise on spelling, abbreviations, the compounding and division of words, the proper use of figures and nummerals by De Vinne, Theodore Low, 1828-1914.djvu/362

348 apology, the writer says the errors were caused by the malice of the devil, who had allowed the manuscript to be drenched with water and made almost illegible before it was placed in the hands of the printers. Not content with this, the devil instigated the printers to commit a surprising number of inexcusable blunders.

Books of authority and reference made in the sixteenth century were quite as full of errors as more unpretentious work. Joseph Scaliger said that he would frequently make a bet that he could find an error on any chance-selected page of the Greek Lexicon of Robert Constantine, and that he always won the bet. Chevillier adds that Constantine was responsible for as many errors as the printer.

In his Memoirs, Baron de Grimm tells of a French author who died in a spasm of anger after he had detected more than three hundred typographical errors in a newly printed copy of his work.

The Bible, as a bulky and frequently reprinted book, presents exceptional opportunity for error. An edition of the Vulgate printed in 1590, and said to have been made under the supervision of Pope Sixtus V, has the unenviable distinction of being full of misprints. Barker's edition of the Bible, printed at London in 1632, and notorious in the trade as the Wicked Bible, gives this rendering of the seventh commandment: Thou shalt commit adultery. For this error, undoubtedly made by a malicious compositor, the printer was fined three