Richard Brathwaite, when publishing his Strappado for the Divell (1615), made an excuse for not having seen all the proofs.  The whole note is well worthy of reproduction:—­

``Upon the Errata.

``Gentlemen (humanum est errare), to confirme which position, this my booke (as many other are) hath his share of errors; so as I run ad prlum tanquam ad prlium, in typos quasi in scippos; but my comfort is if I be strappadoed by the multiplicite of my errors, it is but answerable to my title:  so as I may seem to diuine by my style, what I was to indure by the presse.  Yet know judicious disposed gentlemen, that the intricacie of the copie, and the absence of the author from many important proofes were occasion of these errors, which defects (if they bee supplied by your generous convenience and curtuous disposition) I doe vowe to p 95satisfie your affectionate care with a more serious surueigh in my next impression. . . .  For other errors as the misplacing of commaes, colons, and periods (which as they are in euerie page obvious, so many times they invert the sence), I referre to your discretion (judicious gentle-men) whose lenity may sooner supply them, then all my industry can portray them.’’

In The Mastive, or Young Whelpe of the Olde Dogge, Epigrams and Satyres (1615), an anonymous work of Henry Peacham, we read:—­

``The faultes escaped in the Printing (or any other omission) are to be excused by reason of the authors absence from the Presse, who thereto should have given more due instructions.’’

Dr. Brinsley Nicholson brought forward two very interesting passages on the correcting of proofs from old plays.  The first, which looks very like an allusion to the custom, is from the 1601 edition of Ben Jonson’s Every Man in his Humour (act. ii., sc. 3), where Lorenzo, junior, says, ``My father had the proving of your p 96copy, some houre before I saw it.’’ The second is from Fletcher’s The Nice Valour (1624 or 1625), act. iv., sc. 1.  Lapet says to his servant (the clown Goloshio), ``So bring me the last proof, this is corrected’’; and Goloshio having gone and returned, the following ensues:—­

     Lap.  What says my Printer now?
     Clown.  Here’s your last Proof, Sir. 
               You shall have perfect Books now in a twinkling.[8]

     [8]2 Notes and Queries, 7th Series, viii. 253.

The following address, which contains a curious excuse of Dr. Daniel Featley for not having corrected the proofs of his book The Romish Fisher Caught in his own Net (1624), is very much to the point:—­

``I entreat the courteous reader to understand that the greater part of the book was printed in the time of the great frost; when by reason that the Thames was shut up, I could not conveniently procure the proofs to be brought unto mee, before they were wrought off; whereupon it fell out that many very grosse escapes passed the press, and (which was p 97the worst fault of all) the third part is left unpaged.’’