“I do believe that the devil never created or perverted such a fiend as the fool of a printer†. I am obliged to enclose you, luckily for me,
* He had, at first, after the words “Scott alone,” inserted, in a parenthesis,—“He will excuse the Mr.—‘we do not say Mr. Cæsar.’” |
† The amusing rages into which he was thrown by the printer were vented not only in these notes, but frequently on the proof-sheets themselves. Thus, a passage in the Dedication having been printed “the first of her bands in estimation,” he writes in the margin, “bards, not bands—was there ever such a stupid misprint?” and, in correcting a line that had been curtailed of its due number of syllables, he says, “Do not omit words—it is quite enough to alter or mis-spell them.” |
| 520 | NOTICES OF THE | A. D. 1814. |
“Burn the other.
“Correct this also by the other in some things which I may have forgotten. There is one mistake he made, which, if it had stood, I would most certainly have broken his neck.”
