Note 20 — Chapter V · JOHN BALLANTYNE, PUBLISHER

Willison was his own press-reader. He was rigid in his ideas of punctuation, and gave much trouble to the Reviewers by his finical particularity in this respect. A story is told of his having on one occasion sent Jeffrey a second proof (technically revise) of a portion of one of his criticisms, with a note on the margin, that “there appeared to be something unintelligible in this passage.” Jeffrey returned the proof unaltered, with a note to the effect that “Mr. Jeffrey can see nothing unintelligible in this passage, unless in the number of commas, which Mr. Willison seems to keep in a pepper-box beside him, for the purpose of dusting the proof with.”