THE MISPRINTS IAN TENNYSON.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—The misprint in Mr. Tennyson's " Guinevere," noticed in your article on " Bad Handwriting," seems to have been corrected ; but another remains in the one-volume edition which is really too absurd,—namely, " modest " for "modish," in the " Talking Oak,"—
" The modest Cupid of the day,
And shrill'd his tinsel shaft."
This mistake has held its ground since 1872, for it appears in the large edition of that year, published by Strahan and Co. That such blunders should be made is, as you say, strange, but that they should remain for ten years is still stranger. Whose fault is it? Mr. Tennyson is known to be peculiarly sensitive to such slips. Can no one at the printing-office be found to relieve him and his publisher of the annoyance of such slips ?-
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