In the early days of printing, the proof-readers were eminent scholars, and it was no unusual thing for a proof to pass through the hands of several of the most learned men of the time and neighborhood before the sheets were printed. It is related of Raphelingus, a distinguished scholar who was engaged in reading proofs in Antwerp about 1558, that he declined the professorship of Greek at Cambridge, preferring to correct the text of the oriental languages. Plantin, of Antwerp, and Stephens, of Paris, used to expose publicly the sheets of their books, offering a reward to any who would discover errors in them. But it is very seldom, if ever, that a work is issued from the press absolutely typographically perfect. In this respect the Oxford edition of the Bible is said to be the most successful work published. Many are the ludicrous and mortifying mistakes made in printing. Erasmus, rather unfortunately for himself, corrected his own proofs, with such a result that he declared that either the devil presided over typography or that there was diabolical malice on the part of the printers. Perhaps the most astonishing example of bad proofreading was the edition of the vulgate edited by Pope Sixtus V. His Holiness carefully supervised every sheet of this wonderful edition before it was sent to the press, and to stamp it with his authority fulminated a bull that any printer who, in reprinting the work, should make any alteration in the text would be excommunicated. This was printed as a preface to the first volume of the work. Isaac Disraeli, in his "Curiosities of Literature," says, in referring to this circumstance, that "To the amazement of the world, the work remained without a rival--it literally swarmed with errata. A multitude of scraps were printed to paste over the erroneous passages in order to give the true text. The book makes a whimsical appearance with these patches; and the heretics exulted in this demonstration of papal infallibility! The copies were called in, and violent attempts made to suppress it; a few still remain for the raptures of the Bible collectors. Not long ago the Bible of Sixtus V. fetched above sixty guineas--not too much for a mere book of blunders." Another historical erratum was an intentional one made by a printer's widow in Germany, at whose house a new edition of the Bible was being printed. At night she stole into the office and altered the passage--Genesis III., 16--which makes Eve subject to Adam, by taking out the two first letters of the word _Herr_, used in German, and substituting in their place _Na_. The passage thus improved read: "and he shall be thy fool," instead of, "and he shall be thy lord," as it should have been. It is said that this woman was punished by decapitation. Perhaps the most striking error of all in any edition of the Bible was the omission of the negation in the seventh commandment in one instance. This edition was very effectively suppressed.