VII
VARIETIES AND CHANGES IN THE MATERIALS OF BOOKS
The materials upon which literature has been embodied, and the changes and improvements which these materials have undergone from age to age, opens up one of the most interesting chapters of bibliographical science and of the world's history. A knowledge of the materials successively used in the book-making industry, and of the improvements through which these have continually passed, together with the various kinds of the completed products, the style of writing (there is a "gait" of hand as well as of foot), and certain distinguishable characteristics of the literature of the different periods, all assist in fixing with approximate certainty the date at which a manuscript was produced.
In considering the materials of books it needs to be held in mind that the time of a manuscript's production was seldom affixed to it until a late date; that must be determined or inferred from collateral data. We would instance the "water marks" of manufactured paper as an example of these collateral data helping to determine the age of a manuscript. It is a well known fact that every paper manufactory has its own individual mark of identification for its output. This is its protective "water mark" and is impressed in the texture or fiber of every sheet made, and at regular intervals in the sheet. This is by no means an exclusively modern device of authentication, for these were known as early as the thirteenth century. In the fifteenth century, when the quality of the paper was improved, the "water marks" became more elaborate and, as early as the sixteenth century, the name of the maker of the paper was inserted. These marks of identification greatly aid the antiquarian student in fixing the date of any writing. They are often, too, of legal significance, inasmuch as important cases in courts of law in our times—and earlier times—have been known to turn upon such facts of evidence as the "water marks" of the paper used in documents, as other cases have turned upon the kind or quality of the ink or the "hand" in which the documents at issue were written. An incident narrated in a book by Dr. N. D. Hillis may not be historical though it does illustrate what has often actually occurred: "In looking at the thick white paper, upon a sheet of which the guide said that the deed had been written, John noticed that it was the usual parchment paper of the time—a paper strong, and made of linen, so that it might survive the rough usage of the settler's cabin. Holding it up between his eyes and the sun he noticed this water-mark and stamp—'C. Saur, Philadelphia, 1787.' The purported deed was dated 1740."23 The press dispatches some time ago reported a case before the Senate in one of our states in which the conviction or the acquittal of the defendant turned, largely, upon the quality of the ink which had been used in signing a certain check, given in payment of a claim. It was admitted by experts on both sides that the ink employed in signing the check was of a different quality than that upon which the stub of the check had been filled out, and that the writing on stub and check, respectively, had not been made at the same time.
It is evident then that the materials themselves and the changes through which they passed in the process of their improvement, the ink and its constituents, the "hand" of the writer and, as well, the peculiarities of the author's style of thought and expression as evidenced by his other and well-known composition (there is a "gait" of mind as well as of walk)—all become, so to speak, the "water marks" which determine or help to determine, approximately, the time at which a book or writing was made or produced. To illustrate: If the antiquarian should "unearth" a manuscript having evidences of great antiquity and should ascertain that it was written upon "cotton paper" that fact would assure him, without any additional evidence whatever, that the document could not be much, if any, earlier than the ninth century, for it was then that cotton paper began to displace the Egyptian papyrus. Or, if the writing was upon "linen paper" then he would be assured by the same kind of evidence that, probably, it was not made before the fourteenth century when paper made from linen rags first came into more common use.
VIII
PARCHMENT AND VELLUM
The skins of animals—sheep, lambs, and calves, and, sometimes, of antelopes, goats, asses, and swine—have served, and from the earliest use of written language, as the favored and the best material upon which to write. By different modes of treatment the skins of animals were converted into "leather," "parchment," and "vellum," respectively, as the finished product. Leather, tanned soft, and usually dyed red or yellow, was the material earliest used by the Hebrews. Upon this they wrote their statutes and religious history, and especially the Scroll of the Law. The Yemanite Rolls (Pentateuch and other writings) are all of red skin; and the Pentateuch rolls for the Jews of a certain section of China are of white leather.24 According to Ctesias and Herodotus, the royal archives of ancient Persia were written on leather. Extant leather rolls are ascribed to the date of about 2,000 B. C. And there are treasured skin-rolls, in the British Museum and elsewhere, which are believed to have been prepared and inscribed as early as 1,500 B. C.
Parchment, also made from skins, was prepared by a different process than the tanning of leather. The word "parchment" comes from the name of the city of ancient Mysia—Pergamos or Pergamum—where its manufacture was originated and was carried on for centuries. Parchment, though known for centuries before the Christian Era, was used by the Greek and Roman writers to only a limited extent for a period of some centuries, owing to their continued preference for the papyrus production. The more general use of parchment was finally accelerated by necessity, and on this wise: Ptolemy Philadelphus (prompted perhaps by envy for the growing literary achievements of the kings of Pergamos and by jealousy for the supremacy of Alexandria) laid an embargo upon the exportation of the papyrus, then exclusively produced in Egypt. This restriction necessitated and accelerated the manufacture of parchment and thus stimulated its use, though papyrus continued to be, until after the beginning of the Christian Era, the more common and the cheaper though less durable material for receiving and perpetuating literature.
Parchment is not only one of the earliest—and the very best—but next to the baked tablets, the most durable material for all written productions. The employment of parchment to record and preserve literature spread from Pergamos throughout Europe and, because of its superior quality and its greater durability, came into the preëminence which it held until the invention of paper. Most of the existing manuscripts of a greater age than the sixth century are written on parchment. Indeed, its use for important and valuable documents, as embossed records and resolutions of respect, and diplomas and the like, has survived unto the present time.
Vellum is the designation for a finer quality of writing material made from calf skins or skins of antelopes. Some of the oldest, best, and clearest of the existing copies of the Bible—notably, the Vatican and the Sinaitic manuscripts—are written on vellum.
The skins of animals, however prepared to receive writing, were cut into strips and, at the first, were fastened together in a continuous roll—sometimes to the extent of a hundred feet or more in length. The last strip of the manuscript was attached to a reed or stick, called the umbilicus, around which, somewhat as a mounted map or a window-shade, the whole length was rolled. It is to be remembered that the first books, whether of parchment or papyrus, were not made up of leaves and pages but of rolls—were, literally, "volumes." These rolls were written usually on but one side of the material, in narrow, cross-wise columns. A volume was unrolled and re-rolled, as read; was "closed" by rolling it up around the umbilicus; and was "fastened" by tieing it with a string—was often "sealed" with wax. [In the book of Revelation (5:7-9) there is portrayed the breaking of the "seals" in order to read the contents of the book.] The Hebrew scriptures, used in the synagogue worship, were "books" of this form, as likewise was the "book" referred to in the fortieth psalm, "In the volume of the 'book' it is written of me."
It is not determinable, either at what time or for what reasons, the change was made in the form of the manuscript from the continuous roll to the book of separate leaves. As we have noted, it is the fact that "necessity is the mother of invention," the world over and throughout history. It is also the fact that the improvements of inventions have ever been the order of development, inasmuch as few inventions, if any, in any age or realm, have ever come into existence full-grown—are other than improvements, and sometimes after long and patient and untiring persistence, upon earlier and it may be crude and imperfect originals. Thus the improvements in the preparation of skins and papyrus, making it possible to use both sides of the materials, doubtless facilitated the transition to the book of leaves and pages. This change was gradual and was furthered or even occasioned it may be by utilitarian demands, or was prompted by economy in the use of book-making materials which were constantly enhancing in value. Professor Dobschütz has this to say concerning the change from the papyrus roll to the parchment book: "The use of this latter form seems to originate in the law schools; the codex, or parchment book, is at first the designation of a Roman law-book. But at an early date the Christian Church adopted this form as the more convenient one and gave it its circulation."25 The fact that parchment and vellum increased in cost and became less and less available as writing material led to the custom, during periods of the Middle Ages, of transcribing one work over another, and after the earlier had been obliterated. This "composite" writing was a "palimpsest," called, technically, a codex rescriptus, and many times obscured or destroyed an ancient and valuable production. Some of these "palimpsests," though fragments of ancient literature, both sacred and classic, are valuable and have been "recovered" or restored by the use of chemical reagents coupled with the all but infinite patience of the decipherers. A commentary of the Psalms by Augustine, written over Cicero's "De Republica," and a treatise of little value by a Syrian monk, Ephraem, superimposing a valuable fifth century manuscript of the New Testament, are examples of palimpsests in classic and Biblical literature. Some of the writings of Livy and certain books of Pliny the Younger have been recovered from superimposed writings of little or no historical value. Two facts concerning the change in the form of manuscript books are demonstrable: (1) That the first books were "rolls" or "volumes"; and (2) that, early in the Christian Era, books of "leaves" had come into relatively common use.
It is not an insignificant fact that the earliest manuscripts in the form of books with leaves show the largest number of columns to a page—approximating thus more nearly the continuous columns of the earlier "roll" book. In other words, the earliest and best known of the Greek manuscripts of the Bible—the manuscripts which are most relied upon by the scholars for all critical, scriptural study—the codices known, respectively, as the "א," or the Sinaitic, treasured at Petrograd; the "B," or the Vatican, kept at Rome; the "A," or the Alexandrian, deposited in the Manuscript Room of the British Museum; and the "C," or the Ephraem, the famous "palimpsest" preserved in the National Library at Paris (all of them written in the fourth and fifth centuries) are "books" of leaves—the one most similar to the ancient "roll" book in form and arrangement of the pages being, presumably, the oldest.
It has relation to our discussion and is of illustrative interest and value while considering ancient literature to note, in this connection, some characteristics of these preëminent manuscripts of the Bible to which we have just alluded. The Sinaitic Manuscript—one of the most valuable copies of the scriptures in the Greek tongue—was unearthed by Professor Tischendorf in the convent of St. Catharine, Mt. Sinai, in 1859, and dates, in the judgment of the critics, from the middle of the fourth century A. D. This Manuscript is transcribed on 346½ leaves of vellum, each leaf being 13½ inches in width and 14-7/8 inches in height and contains four columns of 48 lines each to a page, or eight columns to the open book. The Vatican Manuscript, written at about the same time, has three columns to a page, or six columns to the open book. The Alexandrian Manuscript, written in the fifth century, has two columns to a page. The Ephraem Manuscript, also written in the fifth century, has but a single column to a page. The Sinaitic Manuscript, because of its distinction in having the largest number of columns to a page, has been given, by some of the Biblical scholars, the first rank among the oldest extant copies of the Christian scriptures. The basis for this estimate is, largely, its nearer approach to the ancient rolls with their cross-wise columns.
IX
PAPYRUS
The commonest material upon which to write the records of history and all literature for some centuries, both before and after the time of Christ, was that manufactured from the papyrus plant, or reed, which grew in great abundance in the stagnant pools occasioned by the annual overflow of the Nile;—it grew also in the marshes of the Euphrates, and elsewhere, though for centuries the only source of the papyrus for literature was in Egypt.
Papyrus as a material upon which to write was both cheaper and more plentiful than parchment, and for these reasons it was more commonly utilized than any other prior to the invention of paper. The papyrus, while more plentiful and less expensive than parchment, was not inexpensive as a finished commodity; indeed, it was so expensive that the poor were often denied this material for writing. It is recorded that, in the list of expenses relating to the rebuilding of the Erechtheum at Athens (B. C. 407), two sheets of papyri cost at the rate of a drachma and two obols each, or a little over a shilling of our money.26 The author of an old work gives a quaint description of the plant and of its preparation for use: "It runs up in a triangular stalk to the height of about fifteen feet and is usually about a foot and a half in circumference, sometimes more. When the outer skin is taken off there are several films, or inner skins, one within another and naturally partakable from each other. These, when separated from the stalk and flaked, made the paper which the ancients used, and which, from the name of the tree, they called Papyrus."27
Concerning the process of its preparation, as we learn from various sources: The inner skins or fibrous rinds of the plant were peeled off, somewhat as the outer bark of a birch tree may be detached, and then these strips of the papyrus were placed one upon another so that the "grain," or fiber, of each strip would extend crosswise to the other—sometimes three layers, even, were superimposed one upon another—after the manner of the modern two or three-ply wood veneering. The purpose of this process was to give greater strength and durability to the writing material made therefrom. The glutinous juice in these strips, (or, perhaps they were moistened by the waters of the Nile) on being subjected to pressure were glued together in one intact sheet. These larger sheets were afterwards smoothed and polished, bleached in the sun, and then cut up into strips to the dimensions of eight, twelve, or even fifteen inches in width as desired, for the rolls, or, as at a later time, into short, rectangular sections for the leaves of books.
The writing on these rolls, as on those made of parchment, was in columns, crosswise at convenient intervals, with a margin at the top and the bottom of the columns. The length of the column lines of writing was governed by the writer's taste or inclination, or the character of the composition—if poetical, by the metre. The size of the rolls, however, was determined by the amount of writing to be recorded—one of the longer books of the New Testament; e. g., would constitute an ordinary roll, while it would require thirty or forty or even more rolls on which to transcribe the entire Bible. According to Birt, the average length of the papyrus roll slightly exceeded forty feet, but instances are cited of rolls reaching the length of one hundred and fifty feet. This writer is authority for the statement that a Homeric papyrus roll one hundred and twenty feet in length was burned in Byzantium in the fifth century. Mr. Putnam observes in connection with the size of the papyrus rolls: "It is possible the writer of the Apocalypse may have had one of these enormous scrolls in his vision when he beheld the record of the sins of Babylon reaching to the heavens."28 The larger papyrus books were thus, literally, "weighty tomes," and, because they were too heavy and cumbrous to hold in the hand, were read from a table or desk. The cumbrous character of these large volumes was the basis for the dictum of the Alexandrian grammarian, "A big book is a big nuisance."
At a later period, not determinable, the papyrus writing material was no longer made up into roll form but was cut into rectangular sheets of various dimensions, according to the taste of the writer or the special need, and was then bound together somewhat as a modern book. Sometimes, when greater durability was sought, the writer or copyist would insert a leaf of parchment at every five or six leaves of the papyrus. This added greatly to the durability of the book. There are examples of books thus "reinforced" which have resisted the destructive influences of time and use for twelve centuries together. The fragile and extremely perishable character of the papyrus makes it most remarkable that any writing thereon should have survived for centuries; indeed, according to Pliny, a volume two centuries old was considered so exceptional as to be almost incredible. It was the perishable character of this material that made the frequent renewal of manuscripts handled a constant necessity, and hence the occupation of the copyists and the department of reproduction in the libraries were logical. The fragile character of the papyrus led, also, to the frequent use of a wooden case, called a capsa, to protect and preserve the roll. It was under very exceptional conditions only, as in mummy-cases of Egyptian tombs where they escaped the touch of man and, almost, the touch of time as well, and, as hermetically sealed under lava beds at Pompeii and Herculaneum, that the fragile papyrus was sometimes preserved for centuries.
The earliest known papyrus manuscripts date from the time of the twelfth dynasty of Egypt, or from a period of more than two thousand years before the Christian Era began. These oldest existing papyrus documents yet discovered are written in Egyptian—in three characters—in hieroglyphics, the most ancient or the picture-writing of the earliest times (translatable by the decipherment of the Rosetta Stone), in the hieratic, or the writing of the priests of Egypt from the period of the fourth or fifth dynasty (3124–2744 B. C., Lepsius) on to the third or fourth century of the Christian Era, and in the demotic, or the later and popular form of the priestly writing. In general, however, the papyrus period of the Egyptian literature extended from the fourth century B. C. to the fourth century A. D.
The extensive use of the papyrus as writing material is evidenced in the fact that an important commerce therein extended over a large part of the civilized world as early as the third century B. C., and continued to be a source of wealth to the Egyptians for centuries after the Christian Era had begun. In fact the use of papyrus continued, although interrupted greatly by the Saracen conquest and the embargo laid upon its importation into Pergamum by the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt, until it was superseded by the manufactured paper as it progressively came into use. (Isaac Taylor.)
X
PAPER AND ITS MANUFACTURE
It is the conclusion now accepted generally that the Chinese made and used paper for writing purposes from a remote period of the past—from before the beginning of the Christian Era. "The Chinese are credited with the discovery of the art of paper-making by the use of fibers reduced in water to a pulp. Their raw materials were the inner bark of the mulberry tree, bamboo, rice straw, rags, etc."29
Paper was distinguished from the papyrus in that the substances from which it was made were not used in their natural state, as the papyrus was, but were manufactured from the raw material which was first reduced to a pulp, then disposed in sheets, and subsequently finished for use. In lapse of time many different kinds of substances were employed as raw material or the basis of the finished product. At the Paris Exhibition in 1889, a paper-maker showed more than sixty webs, or rolls, of paper, each made from a different vegetable fibre: and sample-books have been published which were composed of several hundred leaves, all of different fibre.30
It is somewhat the "irony of fate" that no account of the origin of paper has been reliably recorded. Much of the reputed history of the art, or the invention, is only conjectural. The fact is that, however remote the time and place of its beginning, paper first became available to the world of letters in the eighth century. The Arabs, having acquired the art of making it from China (through Chinese prisoners, it is said) brought its manufacture into Arabia in the eighth century and, later, carried it into Europe by way of northern Africa. The comparatively large number of Arab manuscripts, preserved from the ninth century, is evidence of the extent to which paper was adopted and used for their literary, scientific, and religious records.
The Moors by their conquest of Spain in the eighth century brought their civilization and its benefits into western Europe and, at a later time—at about the twelfth century—introduced the manufacture of paper therein. The industry spread, later, from Spain into Italy and Sicily, and came eventually into the hands of the Christians, under whose less skillful manipulations it suffered deterioration in quality. At a still later date, its manufacture extended into southern and western Germany and into the Netherlands, England, and France.
Cotton paper was first manufactured from the natural product; but later, as the industry was extended to regions where cotton was not grown and into which it was not imported, other substances were used instead of the raw cotton. "In Spain," it is said, "flax was the first material used, then cotton." The practice of mixing rags—first woolen, then cotton, and later linen—gradually came into use. Near the close of the eleventh century (1085) is designated as the date when rags were first used for paper in Spain; linen paper appeared in 1100. "From the time rags began to be used in Europe they rapidly displaced other materials on account of the double use of the fibre composing them (used first for clothing or domestic purposes). Rags held sway in the paper industry for many centuries, but not entirely to the exclusion of numerous other materials."31
Linen paper, though known much earlier, came into general use in the fourteenth century. It was manufactured not only in response to the demand for improvement which characterizes all inventions but because linen was then less expensive than cotton. The earliest existing document on paper is a deed of King Roger of Sicily, 1102 A. D. There are other documentary records of Sicilian kings during the twelfth century. "The manufacture of paper from linen rags," says Thalheimer, "was a humble but essential antecedent to the art of printing, for the costliness of parchment or vellum was as effectual a barrier to the multiplication of books as the labor of transcribing them." Even before the Christian Era, the cost of books was largely the cost of the material—papyrus—upon which they were mostly written. Mr. Putnam suggests that "if printing had come into Europe in the first century, the world might to-day be buried under the accumulated mass of its literature"—no, not unless the invention of paper had been coterminous or had preceded.
All other and earlier materials for the embodiment and preservation of literature were eventually superseded by the manufacture of paper. Concerning the displacement of other materials, there is good authority for the claim that "in the second half of the fourteenth century the use of paper for all literary purposes had become well established in all western Europe; and in the course of the fifteenth century it had gradually superseded vellum. In manuscripts of this latter period it is not unusual to find a mixture of vellum and paper, a vellum sheet forming the outer and inner leaves of a quire while the rest are of paper."32
And thus the invention of paper and the successive improvements in its quality consequent upon the improved methods of its making, prepared the way for the printing-press—an invention the importance of which is beyond estimate and the relation of which to literature baffles comparison. But the manufacture of paper, notwithstanding the fact that it has shared in many and important improvements, continued to be made laboriously by hand up to the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The manufacture of paper has now reached a stage, it would almost seem, of unimprovable excellence. In what is known as the "India" paper there is combined, to a superlative degree, the paper-maker's science with the artist's skill. It is called "India" paper "owing to the prevailing tendency to describe as 'Indian' everything coming from the Far East," whence it was brought to England as early as 1841. This paper is not only thin and light but also tough and strong and has an opacity which makes it ideal for the printing of books (especially the Bible) where it is desirable to reduce the weight and bulk without diminishing the size of type or sacrificing beauty of typography and serviceability. It combines maximum durability and capacity with minimum dimensions and weight. Two facts will illustrate the foregoing observation: (1) There is an edition of the Bible, containing the Authorized Version complete in every particular, reduced within the dimensions of one and a-quarter, seven-eighths, and one-half an inch—or a little less than fifty-five one-hundredths of one cubic inch. It is hardly necessary to say that it can be read only by the aid of a magnifying lens. (2) And in an advertising booklet setting forth the excellencies of an edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica there is given a remarkable test of the capacity of the India paper to endure severe usage. A sheet from a volume was folded in strips and tied in knots, drawn through a lady's finger ring, crumpled into a tight ball, then opened out and ironed to its original state of finish.
The tests to which the "India" paper was subjected at the Paris Exposition in 1900 also show its most remarkable capacity. In those tests a volume of 1,500 pages was suspended for several months by a single leaf as thin as tissue and, at the close of the exhibition, it was found that the leaf had not started, the paper had not stretched, and the volume closed as well as ever. A strip of this paper, three inches wide, sustained a weight of twenty-eight pounds before yielding. This indicates its extreme tensile capacity. By the use of this paper a book of a thousand pages may be brought within the limits of three-quarters of an inch in thickness—the paper being of such degree of opaqueness as to make possible a beautiful typography on both sides of the sheet and of such strength and durability as to sustain long continued use. The following is a publisher's advertisement of a teacher's Bible: "Printed on genuine India paper, which measures only five-eighths of an inch to 1,000 sheets, making a beautiful, light-weight, convenient book." The fine editions of the Bible (for use and not as a curiosity of the printer's art) and the great Encyclopedia Britannica, printed on India paper are conspicuous examples and embody both the paper maker's science and the printer's art.
XI
OTHER MATERIALS OF LITERATURE
Besides the materials already mentioned, other substances were utilized upon which to impress or embody literature or any historical data. Thus, sections of the bamboo; the leaves and bark of trees and plants as the linden, birch, and the palm; tablets of wood, ivory, gold, bronze, tin, lead, and wax; sheets of silk and linen; sun-dried and fire-burnt bricks; tablets and cylinders of clay; and slabs and stelai of stone, were each and all used in variable proportions, according to taste or necessitous conditions. Of the materials used in picture writing of the ancient Aztecs of Mexico, Prescott says: "The manuscripts were made of different materials, cotton cloth or skins nicely prepared; a composition of silk and gum; but for the most part a kind of paper from the leaves of the maguey."33
Some of these materials were used transiently and in small areas; others of them were widely used and for a long period of time. Mr. G. H. Putnam instances the case of wax tablets which were known to Homer as being still in use among the Romans twelve hundred years later. In Palestine and Phœnicia and, indeed, in many places if not everywhere, the earliest writing was on stone, of which the famous Rosetta and the Moabite stones and the inscriptions cut on temple walls, gates, stone cliffs, and monuments, as in Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and Crete, and in the western hemisphere also, are examples from the remote past. In Assyria and Babylonia clay was all but universally employed as the material upon which to write, and because it was everywhere available. Clay was the material at hand and was used for vari-sized tablets and for hollow hexagonal or octagonal cylinders.
[In this connection it will be of interest to note two important "finds" of the cuneiform writing which have recently been brought to light in Upper Egypt and in Babylon, respectively. There was discovered in 1891-92, by Professor Petrie, at Tel-el-Amarna, above the city of Cairo on the east bank of the Nile, a body of tablets—over three hundred in number—written in cuneiform or Babylonian characters. The scholars were astonished at finding this collection in Egypt, so remote from the home of the cuneiform writing. The inscriptions on them increased their surprise, for these tablets were written in Jerusalem, Tyre, Gezer, and other cities of Palestine and Syria and sent by these subject peoples to their Egyptian masters and rulers. They show, as Professor Sayce holds, that writing on tablets was, at least in the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt (1,000 B. C.), the normal form of official correspondence between Egypt and her foreign provinces.34 The greater part of these tablets were purchased for the Berlin Museum, though quite a number of them were secured for the British Museum. (Encyclopedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition.)
The other important "find"—an elaborate monument of early civilization and embodying, perhaps, the most ancient of all codes—was that discovered on the acropolis of ancient Susa in Persia during the winter of 1901-02 by the French Expedition. This discovery consisted of three fragments of black diorite stone and constituted, when fitted together, a monument nearly eight feet in height. This monument embodies a bas-relief of King Hammurabi receiving the Laws from the sun-god, and an inscription of about four thousand lines (the longest inscription yet discovered) arranged in forty-four columns, engraven on the stele in cuneiform characters as were the Tel-el-Amarna tablets. It is believed by the scholars that this Code was set up in the principal cities of the realm and was designed to be read and observed by the King's subjects. This Hammurabi (identified by most Assyriologists as the Amraphel of the Old Testament, Genesis 14:1) was the sixth king of the First Dynasty of Babylon and reigned for fifty-five years, about 2250 B. C. He was a great scholar and a pious and god-fearing King who codified existing laws and had them widely promulgated.35]
Wood was used in some countries as the material upon which to write or carve records and laws. The mummy-cases were both written upon and carved with Egyptian characters and the laws of Solon were inscribed on tablets of wood. The word codex which has come to have different significations meant, originally, the trunk of a tree but came to be the designation for a wooden tablet coated with wax for writing purposes. Pliny is authority for the statement that the bark of trees was used for writing upon before the papyrus was adopted for this purpose. It is held that in China writing was very early made permanent on sections of the bamboo, being burned therein by a heated metal stylus somewhat after the fashion of the modern pyrography; this material was displaced, however, in the third century B. C. by silk or cloth, and these, in turn, were superseded by a kind of paper made from the inner bark of the mulberry tree, bamboo fibre, and other substances which came into extensive use during the Han Dynasty (206 B. C.–25 A. D.) and, under the incentive of which, as we are told, an extensive imperial library of the reigning house was collected. And, to the present day, palm leaves are used for writing material in parts of India.
Besides the simpler arrangements of the materials, as in the roll, tablet, or leaf, there were arrangements of the material more resembling the book form of to-day, as in the diptych and the triptych. The diptych was made of two tablets of wood or of other material and resembled our double slates, having the tablets for the writing sunken below the protecting edges. These were hinged together and covered on their protected sides with a coating of wax. On this wax surface the Greeks and Romans wrote with a stylus. The writing could easily be obliterated by simply melting the wax, when it became a prepared plate for another inscription. The triptych and the polyptych, as the respective words suggest, consisted of three or four or more leaves hinged together and made available for literary or other inscriptions, after the manner of the diptych.
XII
INKS
Any reference to the literary productions of the past and to the materials preserving and perpetuating written records, including the Bible and sacred history, would be deficient were the qualities of the early inks disregarded. The very ink in which the ancient literature, sacred and classic, was embodied had an importance scarcely, if any, less than the materials upon which the writing was impressed or recorded. The task of transcribing a book, e. g., the Gallic Wars, the Epic of Virgil, or the Bible, was an undertaking of so great magnitude that the conservation of energy, if nothing else, taught the importance of securing and using an ink that had "staying" qualities. No sensible person, no matter when or where he might live, would be apt to spend the time required to copy the Bible in its entirety (a task necessitating the labor of a skillful calligraphist for nearly three years) when all his work would soon be wasted by reason of an impermanent ink.
The makers of the inks used in the early ages had a skill and knowledge in the mixing of pigments or in compounding the ingredients of their inks undiscovered, as yet, and unequaled in modern times. The superiority of the inks known to the ancients has long been the object of surprise and admiration. The inscriptions on mummy-cases, made at a time long antedating the Christian Era, and the writing on manuscripts made in the early centuries of Christian history, in addition to the beauty of the form and finish of the writing, have a freshness of appearance as though they were only of years' instead of centuries' duration. "The survival of papyrus rolls containing the text of the Egyptian ritual known as 'The Book of the Dead,' dating back fifteen centuries B. C., and accompanied with numerous scenes painted in brilliant colors, proves how ancient was this very natural method of elucidating a written text by means of pictures."36 And among the ancient archæological treasures recently discovered in Crete are stucco designs, the colors of which are almost as brilliant as when laid on, over three thousand years ago.
The composition of the earliest inks has not yet been obtained and, likely, is unascertainable. The first inks are supposed to have been made from sepia—the secretion of the cuttle fish—or was composed of a mixture of soot and gum. Later, inks were prepared from the apples of the gall-oak, and from other materials—vegetable and mineral.
Inks of various colors and kinds—red, purple, green, and blue, and, occasionally, of gold and silver—were often employed. The different colored inks were used, respectively, for the in-filling of characters and letters cut in stone and the like; for the ornamentation and embellishment of mummy-cases and manuscripts; for titles and initial letters (especially in the later centuries); for the purpose of emphasis by contrast with other inks; for marginal notes by a later hand (guarding thus against accidental alterations or interpolations of the original writing); and to agree with the esthetic taste of the copyist or his own notion of the value or the importance of the production, as is seen in some beautiful copies of the Bible or portions thereof and in other literary productions of the manuscript age. (See pages 51-54.) The ink used on the early papyrus such as "The Book of the Dead," was usually of a deep, glossy black color though occasionally other colors are also found.
Concerning the picture-writing of the ancient Egyptians, Mr. Wallace Budge of the British Museum says, "Where it was possible the scribe represented an object in its natural colour; he made the moon yellow, the sun red, trees, plants and all vegetables, green; but objects requiring out of the way colours were not so well done, owing to the comparatively limited supply of colours at the disposal of the scribe."37 In China, during the third century B. C., a dark varnish was employed to paint on silk and bamboo, a brush being used in its application. India ink came into use in China in the seventh century A. D. The beautiful black ink, known to the ancients, greatly deteriorated in quality in the Byzantine period, which may have occasioned the restriction of the red ink to the emperor's exclusive use, as at a later date the purple became the royal color.
Attempts made by chemical analysis and the use of reagents to discover the ingredients of the inks used by the ancients have not yielded very definite results. Beyond some general conclusions as to the components of the first inks, there is little more than conjecture, and it now seems that their manufacture must be classed as one of the lost arts.
XIII
IMPLEMENTS OF WRITING
The implements used for writing necessarily varied in the different ages and diverse civilizations according to the character of the materials successively used and the nature and stage of the civilization. When inscriptions were made in stone of any sort—sand-stone, marble, granite, basalt, or other stone—or in wood, a chisel was the tool. When the material used was lead, ivory, wax, or plastic clay,—bricks, tablets or cylinders—a stylus was used. The stylus was made of bone, ivory, or metal, according to the requirements or tastes in the case. When the writing was with ink, upon leather, parchment, papyrus, paper, and kindred substances, a pen—of silver or from a reed or quill—was employed as in modern times. Pens of bronze have been found in tombs. Brushes, too, as in China, were used in recording literature. The "pen-knife," for fashioning pens from reeds or quills; the pumice stone, for erasures and smoothing the material to be written upon; the ruler and compasses, for indicating the lines of writing; scissors, sponge, and ink-stand (the "writer's ink horn," Ezekiel 9:2, 3), sometimes double for different colored inks; and the palette, containing small hollows for the various kinds and colors of inks used, were all paraphernalia of the copyist's profession.
XIV
THE ART AND SCIENCE OF PALÆOGRAPHY
Palæography is defined as "that department of historical science which treats of ancient writing." "In the study of handwriting," it has been said, "it is difficult to exaggerate the great and enduring influence which the character of the material employed for receiving script has had upon the formation of the letters." Whether the material was clay, waxen surface, or papyrus, largely determined the formation of the letters. In the broad sense in which it is used in our discussion the term applies, not only to all written records whether upon rolls or codices and without regard to the material, or their form and content, but also includes epigraphy which has to do with inscriptions on monuments or seals, and numismatics which, specifically, designates the inscriptions of coins.
Palæography is both an art and a science. Modern penmanship, while commonly regarded as more of an art than a science, is, in reality, less an art than a science. Indeed, in a broad and a not unwarranted generalization, present-day handwriting is seldom either an art or a science, but rather a desultory and questionable though necessary accomplishment. The invention of the typewriter has not added, in general, to the achievements of penmanship. Penmanship is one of the almost universally neglected sciences of modern times. Unquestionably, if there were more of the "science" of penmanship taught and practiced, and more time and attention devoted to its study and its cultivation, we would have more of the art of handwriting to delight our esthetic sensibilities.
The science of palæography, being related fundamentally to language, links us with prehistoric times. Writing is crystallized speech in visible record, as the phonographic "record" is speech in audible perpetuity. (The author once had the great privilege of hearing the voice of Mr. Gladstone in a thrilling address before the House of Lords;—it was a phonographic "record.") Speech is the most distinguishing of all man's characteristics;—long held to be such. Mr. Huxley once likened human speech to the "Alps or Andes—high over everything else in animal life." Intelligent speech is the broadest line of cleavage to a tenable evolutionary hypothesis of man's origin and development. The capacity of speech at once and forever differentiates man from, and elevates him to, a plane above all other of the manifold creations of God. While speech must be recognized as the most distinguishing faculty of man, writing may be considered the noblest achievement of man. Handwriting may also be regarded the vehicle of expressing and the mode of treasuring and communicating to distant times and places the conceptions of the mind by means of symbols—symbols representing objects or sounds and thus ideas in all their wide applications.
Concerning the genesis and the development of handwriting (and handwriting is a development—a development from very rudimentary beginnings) Professor Edward Clodd, F.R.A.S., says: "The use of writing is to put something before the eye in such a way that its meaning may be known at a glance, and the earliest way of doing this was by a picture. Picture-writing was thus used for many ages, and is still found among savage races in all parts of the globe. On rocks, stone, slabs, trees, and tombs, pictures were employed to record an event or tell some message. In course of time, instead of this tedious mode, men learned to write signs for certain words or sounds. Then the next step was to separate the words into letters; and so arose alphabets. The shape of the letters of the alphabet is thought by some to bear traces of the early picture writing."38 The late Wm. Frost Bishop, D.D., affirms with more of positiveness: "Every letter was at first a picture and perhaps it is but a return to first principles when the children are taught to say, 'O was an Orange, S was a Swan, B was a Butterfly'; or when the alphabet invokes the aid of both pictures and poetry,