errenevas indention, &c. These minutia, which are rather imperfections of workmanship, than teral errors, are apt to be overlooked and neglected by those readers who have no idea of the liability there is, even with the most careful compositor, occasionally to fall into them. Long and frequent habits of reading proof-sheets for the press, a quick eye, and a steady mind, will certainly enable a person, though not a compositor, to detect those Lior deviations from correctness, which the inexperienced and careless are apt to overlook. But while these habits are acquiring, without which no person can be safely entrusted to read a sheet for press, the labours of the printer are liable to go forth into the world in a manner that will reflect discredit on the employed, and give offence to the employer. A reader ought to be well versed in all the peculiarities of the English tongue -its idioms, its true genius, and singular adaptation to that variety of expression in which we embody our thoughts, and pourtray the human intellect. Instances will frequently occur, particularly in large printing offices, where a knowledge of this nature and extent will be almost indispensable. Many, even of our first-rate authors, are too apt, in the warmth of discussion, the flights of speculation, and the laborious exercise of the thinking powers, to pass over, unobserved, those deviations from pure diction and strict grammatical accuracy, which they have imperceptibly acquired the habit of falling into, by their rdinary conversation with mankind. Now although no corrector of the press can strictly be required to do otherwise than to follow his copy, that is, faithfully to adhere to the riginal, with all its defects, yet every one must perceive, that it would often be performing a friendly, and perhaps a charitable service, to point out, in proper time, imperfections and mistakes which have escaped the observation of a quick or voluminous writer. This remark will however chiefly apply to inaccurate orthography, and glaring instances of Toneous syntax. With the spirit, the opinions, the whims of an author, no corrector of the press has any business to interfere. Some writers, after all the labours of the printer, and the skill of the reader, are doomed to make their appearance before the world with many "imperfections on their heads," are condemned to bear the contumely, and face the broad eye of an unrelenting critic. Nothing can be more vexatious to an author, than to see the words honour, favour, &c. spelt with, and without the u. This is a discrepance which correctors ought studiously to avoid. The above observations equally apply to the capitaling of noun-substantives, &c. mone place, and the omission of them in another. Having made a slight comparison of the copy and the proof, the reader calls the reading-boy to read the copy aloud to him. The eye of the reader should not follow, but rather precede the voice of the boy; accustomed to this mode he will be able to anticipate rery single word in the copy. After the proof has been read with the reading-boy, the signatures, catch-words, headtitles, and folios of each page, should be most carefully examined; and the number, if more than one) of the volume, signature, and prima of the ensuing sheet, accurately marked on the margin of the copy, and a crotchet made between the last word of that and theirs of the next sheet, in order that the compositor, should he not have composed beyond the sheet, may know where to begin, without having the trouble of referring, either proof or the form, and the reader will be certain that the commencement is right when s the succeeding sheet-this prevents much trouble to the reader and compositor. The figures These Tables contain calculations of the number of letters, as cast up by the following rule. « SHEET of OCTAVO, TWELVES, and EIGHTEENS. 41 42 43 44 41 42 43 44 45 42 43 44 45 46 43 44 45 46 47 46 47 48 47 48 49 50 51 48 49 50 51 52 49 50 51 52 53 53 54 55 56 57 54 55 56 57 58 To find the letters in a sheet of Eighteens, take the measures of the Twelves, divide by 2, and Ez. Multiply 13 by 20, &c. 2)12480 6240 18720 COMPOSITORS' SCALE OF PRICES. In the early stages of the printing business the mode of paying the workmen employed in it must have been similar to those of every other business or manufactory in its infancy viz. on established daily wages. The idea of paying as for piece-work was not suggested for nearly two centuries after the discovery of the art. It is now the practice to pay the composition work by a calculation of the number of thousand letters which the compositor has to pick up: this is calculated by taking the width and length of the page in the letter m of the type in which it is set ; assuming that the average width of each type is half an m, or an n, the measure (or width of the page) is doubled, and then multiplied by the m's in length; as for example :-Suppose the page is 26 m's wide, and 50 m's long Total 16 pages in a sheet 15600 2600 41600 letters in a sheet, which (see Article 1. of the scale,) count as 42 thousands; and this, if manuscript leaded, is 54d. equal £1 Os. 11d this counts as £1. This may vary in price per 1000, according to circumstances explained in the rules. The charge cannot always be calculated by merely the number of lines appearing upon paper, because if space lines, or leads, are used, they form a part of the measure of length; therefore, the m's are laid down the side of the page, and the length thus correctly ascertained. A Table showing the Price of any Number of Letters, from 16,000 to 100,000, |