Correct

When the corrector reads the proof, or the compositor mends the faults he marked in the proof, they are both said to correct; the corrector the proof, the compositor the form. — M.

In the first case, it is now styled reading the proof; in the next, the compositor has to put right the errors and mistakes he has made in the workmanship, previously to the sheet being sent to the author or editor; this he does by picking out the wrong letters or words by means of a sharp bodkin, and replacing them with the right ones; but if he have left an out or made a double, he then takes the matter into the composing stick, and over-runs it till he comes to the end of a paragraph; or the error may make one or more even lines, when the trouble is much lessened; still the length of the page must be had in view and kept right, either by branching out where it will admit of it, or by driving a line or two out, or getting a line or two in in the adjoining pages, according to circumstances, but never to make even lines too suddenly so as to cause the spacing to be unsightly, by being too close, or too wide, for the sake of saving a little trouble in over-running a few lines.

For the regularity and despatch of business a compositor should never delay correcting after he has received the proof: it causes disappointment to the author or proprietors of the work, and injures his employer in his business, by obtaining for him the character of want of regularity and punctuality; it injures the pressmen, by delaying the forms going to press; and it ultimately injures himself, by causing him to stand still for want of letter. It is a general rule in printing offices, that a compositor should always impose as soon as the sheet on which he is at work is out and made up, and that he also should correct his proof without loss of time. See Author's Proof. First Proof.