But they were not all unintentional errors of the press in those days that appeared such. There were words and phrases interdicted by the Pope and the Inquisition; and sometimes by adroit management the interdicted word, though not inserted in the text, could be arrived at in the table of _errata_.
It is a singular fact, that the edition of the Latin Vulgate, by Pope Sixtus the Fifth, although his Holiness carefully superintended every sheet as it passed through the press, has ever remained without a rival in typographical inaccuracy. Still more curious was the fact, that the Pope, in the plenitude of pontifical infallibility, prefixed to the first volume a bull of excommunication against any and every printer, who in reprinting the work, should ever make any alteration in the text. To the amazement of the public, however, when the Bible appeared, it swarmed with errors too numerous for an errata. In a multitude of instances it was necessary to reprint whole passages in scraps, and paste over the incorrect verses. Great efforts were made to call in the edition; and it is now only to be found among rare collections, as a monument of literary blunders. If the Devil ever troubles himself about the correction of proofsheets, he was much more likely to be standing at the Pope's elbow while the Bible was printing, than to be bothering his head in regard to the poor monk's mass book to which allusion has been made.
Typographical errors happen in a variety of ways; sometimes by carelessness, sometimes by the ignorance and stupidity of the printer, and sometimes by design. Occurring in either way, they are often ludicrous, and sometimes productive of positive evil. A few examples of each variety will suffice.
In the fine description of the Pantheon, by Akenside, the expressive phrase 'SEVERELY great,' not being understood by the printer, who undertook to think for himself, was printed '_serenely_ great.'
An edition of the Bible was once published in England, in which the word _not_ was omitted in the seventh commandment. For this offence, whether by carelessness or by design, the archbishop imposed the heaviest penalty ever recorded in the annals of literary history. The edition was required to be called in and destroyed, and a fine imposed of £20,000 sterling.