F. MADDEN.

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REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES.

Passage in Hamlet (Vol. ii., p.494.).—­The word modern, instead of moderate, in my editions of Shakspeare, is a printer’s error, which shall be corrected in the edition I am now publishing.  To a person unfamiliar with printing, it might appear impossible that any compositor, with this copy before him,—­

  “While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred,”

should substitute—­

  “While one with modern haste might tell a hundred.”

And yet such substitution of one word for another is a constant anxiety to every editor.  Some may consider that a competent editor would detect such a gross blunder.  Unfortunately, the more familiar the mind is with the correct reading, the more likely is such an error to escape the eye.  Your correspondent who did me the favour to point out this blunder will, I trust, receive this explanation, as also your other readers, in a candid spirit.  The error has run through three editions, from the circumstance that the first edition furnished the copy for the subsequent ones.  The passage in question was not a doubtful text, and therefore required no special editorial attention.  The typographical blunder is, however, an illustration of the difficulties which beset the editors of our old dramatists especially.  Had the word modern occurred in an early edition of Shakspeare, it would have perplexed very commentator; but few would have ventured to substitute the correct word, moderate.  The difficulty lies in finding the just mean between timidity and rashness.  With regard to typographical errors, the obvious ones naturally supply their own correction; but in the instance before us, as in many others, it is not easy to detect the substitution, and the blunder is perpetuated.  If a compositor puts one for won—­a very common blunder—­the context will show that the ear has misled the eye; but if he change an epithet in a well-known passage, the first syllable of the right and the wrong words being the same, and the violation of the propriety not very startling, the best diligence may pass over the mistake.  It must not be forgotten that many gross errors in typography occur after the sheet is gone to press, through the accidents that are constantly happening to the movable types.

CHARLES KNIGHT.

Passage in Tennyson (Vol. ii., p. 479.)—­The following extract from Sir James Mackintosh’s History of England vol. ii. p. 185., will explain this passage: