Read it through once

Judging by the hundreds of Miss Mitford’s letters which we have handled, full of closely-written and often indecipherable characters, we are of opinion that she was singularly fortunate in finding a printer able and willing to ascertain their meaning. Her condolences with her friend, Sir William, on his “press-correcting miseries” are, though extravagant, very diverting and, in these days of trade-unionism, throw an interesting light on the _personnel_ of Valpy’s little establishment in Tooke’s Court. “I am well entitled to condole with you, for I have often suffered the same calamity. It is true that my little fop of a learned printer has in his employ _three_ regularly-bred Oxonians, who, rather than starve as curates, condescend to marshal commas and colons, and the little magical signs which make the twenty-four letters, as compositors; and it is likewise true, that the aforesaid little fop sayeth—nay, I am not sure that he doth not swear—that he always gives my works to his _best hands_. Now, as it is not mannerly for a lady to say ‘you fib,’ I never contradict this assertion, but content myself with affirming that it is morally impossible that the aforesaid hands can have that connection with a head which is commonly found to subsist between those useful members. Some great man or other—Erasmus, I believe—says that ‘Composing is Heaven, preparing for publication Purgatory, and correcting for the press’—what, must not be mentioned to ‘ears polite.’ And truly, in my mind, the man was right. From these disasters I have, however, gained something:—‘Sweet are the uses of adversity’; and my misfortunes have supplied me with an inexhaustible fund of small charity towards my unfortunate brethren, the mal-printed authors. For, whereas I used to be a most desperate and formidable critic on plural or singular, definite and indefinite, commas and capitals, interrogations and apostrophes, I have now learnt to lay all blunders to the score of the compositor, and even carry my Christian benevolence so far that, if I meet with divers pages of stark, staring nonsense (and really one does meet with such sometimes), instead of crying, ‘What a fool this man must be—I’ll read no more of his writing!’ I only say, ‘How unlucky this man has been in a compositor! I can’t possibly read him until he changes his printer.’” Nevertheless, and although there might be an occasional author glad to shelter himself behind such an excuse, the fact remains that the work which emanated from Valpy’s press is entitled to the highest encomiums—despite his three Oxonians who, choosing the better part, preferred to compose type rather than sermons.