Annoying as they must always be to the author, are not always without a show of excuse on the part of the compositor. " Had " can be written so as to be perfectly made, and yet have the appearance of "has" to the typo, and "e'er" to look exactly like " e'en." Of course, if the compositor thought of anything else than to pick up each letter, he would know right from wrong by the sense. But when there is a choice, the wrong, path is generally chosen; and this is what happened in Mr. Harding's acrostic.