10.
Substitution.—"He who has not repeatedly observed how a copyist, from inattention, sets down a word which his mind has presented to him instead of that which is before his eyes, must have seen little of copies of print or manuscript." These are the words of a Spanish writer, and they are of universal application. I remember myself once, with Herodotus before my eyes, writing Sestos for Abydos; and the changes I have made in copying passages for this work have amazed me. In Corneille's play of Rodogune (i. 1), we read enlever where the proper word is élever, and Voltaire justly suspected that it was an error of the original printer. Further on the reader will meet with a similar error in the original edition of Tasso's Gerusalemme.
The most ordinary case of substitution seems to be that of synonyms; at least there is none to which I have been so subject myself. In giving examples I will commence with Spenser.
A yearly solemn feast she wonts to make.
F. Q. ii. 2. 42.
Now, as the rimes are hold, told, the poet must have written, or have intended to write, hold.
That doth against the dead his hand uprear.
Ib. ii. 8. 29.
Here the word must have been upheave, the rimes being leave, cleave, bereave.
When walking through the garden them she spied.