In the eighteenth century printers and authors had become hardened in their sins, and seldom made excuses for the errors of the press, but in the seventeenth century explanations were frequent.

Silvanus Morgan, in his Horologiographia
Optica.  Dialling Universall and
Particular, Speculative and Practicall,
London 1652, comes before his readers
with these remarks on the errata:—­

``Reader I having writ this some years since, while I was a childe in Art, and by this appear to be little more, for want of a review hath these faults, which I desire thee to mend with thy pen, and if there p 86be any errour in art, as in chap. 17 which is only true at the time of the Equinoctiall, take that for an oversight, and where thou findest equilibra read equilibrio, and in the dedication (in some copies) read Robert Bateman for Thomas, and side for signe and know that Optima prima cadunt, pessimus aeve manent_.’’

The list of errata in Joseph Glanvill’s Essays on several important subjects in Philosophy and Religion (1676) is prefixed by this note:—­

``The Reader is desired to take notice of the following Errours of the Press, some of which are so near in sound, to the words of the author, that they may easily be mistaken for his.’’

The next two books to be mentioned were published in the same year—­1679.  The noble author referred to in the first is that Roger Palmer who had the dishonour of being the husband of Charles II.’s notorious mistress, the Countess of Castlemaine.  Fortunately for the Earl she no longer bore his name, as she was created Duchess of Cleveland in 1670.  Professor De Morgan was inclined to doubt Lord p 87Castlemaine’s authorship, but the following remarks by Joseph Moxon seem to prove that the peer did produce a rough draft of some kind:—­

``Postscript concerning the Erratas and the Geographical part of this Globe,’’ prefixed to The English Globe . . . by the Earl of Castlemaine:—­

``The Erratas of the Press being many, I shall not set them down in a distinct Catalogue as usually, least the sight of them should more displease, than the particulars advantage, especially since they are not so material or intricate, but that any man may (I hope) easily mend them in the reading.  I confess I have bin in a manner the occasion of them, by taking from the noble author a very foul copy, when he desir’d me to stay till a fair one were written over, so that truly ’tis no wonder, if workmen should in these cases not only sometimes leave out, but adde also, by taking one line for another, or not observing with exactness what words have bin wholly obliterated or dasht out.’’

John Playford, the music publisher and author, makes some remarks on the p 88subject of misprints in the preface to his Vade Mecum, or the Necessary Companion (1679), which are worth quotation here:—­