from a difficult to an easier construction are not uncommon; and Renaissance scholars seem often to have been more concerned with making a readable than a correct text.
(3) Errors of substitution. This class of mis takes may arise from various causes. An ex planatory gloss may have been substituted for the word it explains, as in Vergil, Eclogues, 6, 40, pun per ignaros errelit unit/tune montis, where some manuscripts have rare per ignotos, etc., ignotus being evidently a gloss substituted by some copyist for the correct ignuros. In the case of archaic writers like Plautus, a classical word may have ousted the early form; an ex ample is furnished by A mphitruo, 631, where one manuscript has the classical simul for the archaic simnitu. The earlier form is correctly given by two manuscripts, while the writer of a fourth first copied correctly sintitu and then changed it to summit'. Not infrequently, also, a word has been substituted from the context or from a parallel passage which lingered in the copyist's mind. Further. the mediaeval scribes, monks, might corrupt a passage by sub stituting a word from a similar passage in the Bible. A famous example is that of Horace C., 3, 18, llf., where the monk who was writing a manuscript which afterwards became the arche type of a considerable class had in mind Isaiah xi. 6, habitabit lupus cam agno et pardus cum !iced° aecubabit, and so substituted pardus for pages in the passage festus in ;walls meat otiose cum bore pages. The most common cause of this class of errors, however, is the confusion of similar words: addit and (Wit, adessr and ad sese, hospitium and hostintn, and prwtor, etc.
(4) Errors of Transposition. These errors, whether of letters, syllables, words, or lines, are very common in classical manuscripts. They are due most. often to the carelessness of the copy ist whose eye traveled faster than his pen. Transposed letters and syllables are easily de tected by any one familiar with the language; transposed words are not so readily discovered in prose as in verse, where the transposition usually spoils the metre. e.g. the reading of certain manuscripts of Borace C. 3, 13, 14, ternos tcr attonitus eyathos petet rates will not 'scan,' hut the metre is perfect when the correct cjaithos attonitus is read. The transpo sition of entire lines is generally due to the fact that the copyist carelessly dropped the line or lines, and later. on discovering his error, in serted the missing lines out of place, often with out any indication of the misplacement. Lucre
tius and Vergil furnish many excellent examples. Finally, one or more entire pages may be mis placed either because the scribe carelessly omitted a page or because time sheets of the archetype had become disturbed before the copy was made. A well-known example of the last is furnished by Lucretius. where the error en abled Laehmann to determine the size of the lost archetype from which the extant mann eripts are descended.
(5) Errors of Emendation. This class has been touched on under Sections 2 and 3. They occur chiefly in manuscripts dating from the ninth century or later, and are especially com mon in manuscripts written by Renaissance scholars. These error's may arise simply from the wrong division of words, as in Seneca, Epist.
89, 4, where the copyist senselessly divided quid amet of his original into quidum et. 31advig, by a stroke of the pen, first restored the correct quid amet. While Alcuin's efforts to restore Latin orthography were for the most part bene lieial, they also led to certain errors, mostly due to the substitution of a familiar for an un familiar word. e.g. facile for Riede, etc. Re naissance scholars of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries not only 'corrected' passages. but also filled out lacuna., supplied missing scenes, etc.
(6) Errors Due to the Confusion of Letters and Contractions. These mistakes are few in capital and uncial writing. hut in minuscule writing the possibilities of the confusion of let ters are much greater, and the use of contrac tions constantly increased with the centuries. A treatment of the subject is impossible here, as it belongs to paleography (q.v.).
BIBLIOGRAPHY. For a bibliography of the text Bibliography. For a bibliography of the text criticism of the Bible, see articles on BIBLICAL CRITICISM, NEW TESTAMENT, etc. On the text criticism of classical authors, consult Boeckh, Encyklopiidie mud Methodologie der philolo gisehen. Missenschaften (211 ed., Leipzig, 1886)1 Madvig, Adversaria Critiea (1870) ; C'obet, l aria' Lectioncs (1873) ; Blass in vol. ii. of Von N ueller's Handbuch dcr klassischen Altertunis wis.scaschaft (2d ed. 1892) ; Lindsay, Introduc tion to Latin Textual Emendation (1896) ; and the best critical editions of the separate authors.
Such works as Skeat's edition of Chaucer and Furness's variorum edition of Shakespeare give an excellent idea of the textual problems pre sented by these two authors.