The above is very bad, even for a first proof,—but we have seen worse, and have, perhaps, ourself been responsible for some not much better. While the copy-holder is reading aloud the copy from which {p45} the above was set up, the reader is busy marking errors, and making such characters in the margin as will inform the compositors what is to be done to make their work correct. At the conclusion of the reading, the proof will present an appearance somewhat like this corrected—
SPECIMEN OF FIRST PROOF.
If the proof in hand be a reprint, and the new edition is to conform to the old, the copy-holder, while reading, pronounces aloud the points, capitals, etc., {p46} as they occur in the copy—saving labor and time by using well-understood abbreviations. Take, for instance, the second stanza of Tennyson’s “Voyage”:
“Warm broke the breeze against the brow,
Dry sang the tackle, sang the sail:
The Lady’s-head upon the prow
Caught the shrill salt, and sheer’d the gale.
The broad seas swell’d to meet the keel,
And swept behind: so quick the run,