“You may try another experiment in proof of the primitive superiority of red, yellow, and blue, over all other colours. First draw a circle; then, with the same opening of the compasses, set one foot on the circumferent line, and draw a second circle; and again, with one foot of the compasses on the point where the two circles bisect, draw a third; cover one whole circle with yellow, another with red, and another with blue (letting each dry before you lay the next); the colours intermixing by the equilateral intersection of the three circles, will produce green, orange, and purple; and the central portion, taking all the three colours, will be neutral of the black class, and nearly black, according to the strength of the three separate lays of the primitive colours. By this diagram you will have a certain proof of the colours which are most adapted to oppose each other, from which the knowledge of their harmonizing properties may be derived. You will find a primitive colour always opposite to a compound one; as, blue will be opposite orange, red opposite green, and yellow opposite purple; which must determine them to be the natural opposites: this is highly useful for a painter to understand.”

Columbian Press. See Clymer’s Press.

COMB WOOL.

The same as Card Wool, which see.

COME DOWN.

The toe of the spindle is said to come down by pulling the bar: so is the bar when it is pulled near the hither cheek: also, the Pressman is said to come down the form with his balls.—M.

COME DOWN THE FORM.

Beating from the off side to the near side of the form is termed Coming down the form.

COMES OFF.

A form that receives a good impression, Comes off well, if a bad impression, it Comes off ill, or it Comes not well off. Also a phrase used in gathering of books; for a heap that is gathered off is said to come off.—M.

Comma. See Punctuation.

COMMON PRAYER.

For the allowance of the duty on paper used in the printing of Books of Common Prayer, see Paper.

Commons, House of. See Privilege.

COMPANION.

Two pressmen working at the same press call one another Companions.—M. Two or more compositors employed on the same piece of work also call each other Companions. Both parties frequently abbreviate the word, and call each other Comp.

COMPANIONSHIP.

When more than one compositor is employed upon any work it is styled a companionship.

There are different ways of working in companionships: one is, for each to work on his own account, to write his own bill, charging what he has done, and correct his own matter. At other times all the individuals work is charged and received in gross in the name of the companionship, and the division into the respective earning of each is made by the clicker.

In this case, to prevent unfairness, arising from any of the companions taking an undue advantage over the others, the copy should be strictly kept from their inspection, and a stated quantity invariably given out for each when any of them are out of copy, and not before; by this means each of them will have an equal chance for any fat that may occur. I have found in practice this method to be the fairest for all the individuals.

Another method is working on time or in pocket, where each individual exerts himself to further the work in any way that appears to the clicker the best, either composing or correcting, as the case requires. In this form of companionship the whole of what is done is written in one bill, and equally divided among the companions, provided they have been punctual in their attendance, and have not taken more than the prescribed time for their meals, &c.; otherwise they are subject to fines for infraction of the rules agreed to for their guidance.

As it often happens that a work is required to be printed with the greatest possible despatch, the plan of working upon Lines is frequently adopted, which is found in practice to be the most expeditious method of facilitating the work at case.

As soon as a work that requires despatch is put in hand, the overseer selects such men as are able to complete a great quantity of work in a given time, and appoints one of them who thoroughly understands his business, and is in other respects qualified, to undertake the management of the work, and to do every thing which would interfere with the regular business of distributing, composing and correcting. This person is styled the clicker.

While the companionship proceeds to the distribution of letter, the clicker applies to the overseer for the copy, receives instructions respecting it, and procures leads and every other necessary sort. He then draws out a table in the following form, or something similar.

In the first column he sets down the name of each compositor when he takes copy; and in the second the folio of the copy, that he may be able to ascertain instantly in whose hands it lies. In the third column he notes down the number of lines each man has composed opposite to his name, as fast as the galleys are brought to him. In the fourth he sets down such remarks respecting the copy, &c. as may be necessary, and also any circumstance that may occur in the companionship.

When the members of the companionship are ready for their first taking of copy, they are to receive it from the clicker in small quantities, taking care that the two first have shorter takings than any of the others, to prevent as much as possible any delay in the making up. During the time the first taking is in hand, the clicker sets the head, the head lines, white lines, signature lines, together with side notes, and other extraneous matter.

As soon as the first person brings him his matter, he counts the number of lines, and inserts it in the table; he then gives him another taking of copy, and proceeds with the making up. The same plan is observed with the rest of the companionship.

When the first sheet is made up, he lays the pages on the stone, and informs the overseer of it, who will then immediately provide chases and furniture.

The work will now proceed rapidly, provided there be no hinderance with respect to letter, &c. If the clicker find that he cannot make up the matter as fast as it is composed, he should call the companion who is last in copy to his assistance. In this case the clicker counts the lines he has composed, sets them down in the table, and takes notice of the time he is off, which is to be made up to him by a deduction from the share of each person.

The proofs should be read immediately after they are pulled, and given to the clicker to be corrected. As soon as this is done, he gives the proof to the compositor whose matter stands first, who should immediately lay up the forms and correct his matter, then forward it to the next, and so on, till the sheet be corrected; the compositor whose matter is last in the sheet then locks it up, and carries the forms to the proof press.

As soon as one of the companionship is out of copy, and there is no more to be given out, the lines of the whole must be counted off, and set down in the table, and then every one does as much as he can for the general benefit. If there be not work enough to employ the whole, those who are not wanted may go to their regular work, and the time of their absence, till the rest of the companionship return to theirs, will be deducted from their respective shares.

In the outset the value of the lines is calculated, so that each of the companionship shall be paid, in the first instance, for what he composes: the head and direction lines, the white lines, the branching out, the short pages, and the white pages, are termed fat; these the clicker sets, they are included in the general account, and the amount divided among the companionship. By this means each compositor will receive a share of the whole, according to the number of lines he composes, and an equal share of the fat, and the clicker’s share of the bill must be equal to that of the person who has set the greatest number of lines.

If leads, or any other materials, run short, a clever and active clicker will not wait for a supply from the overseer, who may be prevented attending to him at the moment, but will immediately forage for them himself, well knowing that expediting the work is for his own advantage as well as for that of the companionship.

Those companions who do not compose half as many lines as the compositor who has the greatest number, receive only a share of the fat equal to one half of what those do who have worked regularly; and those who do not compose more than one quarter, only receive equal to one quarter of a regular share.

Comparative Size of Types. See Types.

COMPOSING.

The term composing includes the practical knowledge of picking up letters, spacing, justifying lines, and emptying the composing stick when full.

Although expedition is a most desirable qualification in a compositor, yet alone it is far from constituting a good workman: and the man who possesses no other claims to the title will be found competent to little more than setting reprints, in which no judgment is required, and where he has only to arrange letter for letter, point for point, and line for line; on which employment he may whistle, sing, talk, or laugh, without inconvenience to himself; for the process being merely mechanical, and the mind not being occupied in the smallest degree, if he make a mistake of a word, it will be detected at the end of the line; or, if there be a double, or an out, of lines, either will be detected when the page is finished.

How different is the case with the man who is anxious to deserve the title of a good workman, and to maintain it: in his youth he has been equally desirous with the other to acquire expedition; and, having attained it, he has felt that other requisites were necessary;—he has read, to obtain information—he has examined the best workmanship, as specimens for his guidance—he endeavours to compose accurately—he is careful and uniform in his spacing—he justifies his lines to an equal tightness—he divides his words, when necessary to divide them, correctly, and with a regard to appearance—and when occasional bits of rule work occur, they are marked by a degree of neatness in being cut to precise lengths, and in the corners fitting with precision—in all the work that passes through his hands there appear the marks of attention and skill.

When a master printer undertakes a work which requires more than ordinary care, and is difficult to execute, the superiority of the man who has endeavoured to improve himself is evident: he is selected to perform it; and he then feels the advantage of his perseverance. At work upon a difficult subject, with an ill written manuscript, his first proofs show him equal to the task—his arrangements of the matter are judicious—his punctuation is correct—when particular sorts are to be justified, they are done with accuracy—when an accented letter is required that cannot be procured in a single type, he makes it with neatness—and when his proof returns from the reader, he will frequently correct it in as little time, as a slovenly compositor will require to correct a proof of a similar size, that is a reprint.

The results to the slovenly and the good compositor are very different. The first is only employed during a flush of work; when that ceases, he has to seek fresh employment; perhaps does not meet with any for some weeks; again obtains a temporary engagement; and thus continues, till old age approaches, and he is rendered incapable of working. The good workman, on the contrary, is prized by his employer, especially if the latter be a workman himself, and a man of judgment. He is looked up to by his fellow-workmen; his situation is permanent, if he choose; his abilities qualify him to be a reader, and if his mind lead him that way, he may obtain such a situation. His knowledge and his merit fit him to become the overseer of a large house; where he has many advantages, and where he continues with credit to himself: unless, perhaps, he chooses to commence business on his own account, which is frequently done, when he invariably obtains the countenance and support of those who have witnessed his skill, his knowledge, his attention, and his industry.

There is another class of compositors who neither possess much skill; nor are very expeditious: I mean such as are of a sober, steady habit. These are useful men in an office where there is a number of reprints; they go on from year to year in a regular routine, and never step out of it: the employer can always depend on them for a regular amount of work, if they have sufficient employment.

There are too many, both good and bad workmen, who lose their time in drinking, gaming, and other vicious and idle pursuits: such persons pay doubly for their dissipation, for they squander the fruits of their earnings, and cut off the source of supply, by neglecting their employment. These men will never be employed in any respectable printing office, where they are known, except on a temporary engagement in a case of emergency. They introduce strife and discord wherever they are, and frequently lead astray the inexperienced youth: they disregard equally instruction and advice, and are not awakened to a sense of their condition, till the most severe lessons in this world are unitedly experienced—old age, poverty, and contempt.

The mere art of picking up letters, and arranging them in the composing stick, is looked upon by many compositors as constituting the whole of their business; who in consequence think that if they can succeed in picking letters up with facility, they become first-rate workmen; and the terms “Swifts,” and “Fire Eaters,” by which expeditious compositors are designated in a printing office, gratify their vanity.

It is not necessary to give specific rules, and a minute description, of the manner of picking up each letter, because it is impossible for them to hold good, the letters lying in every possible direction. A few general rules may suffice—to take up the letter at that end where the face is—if the nick be not upwards, to turn it upwards in its progress to the composing stick—to convey it to the line in the composing stick with as few motions as possible—to aim at no flourishes with the hand, which only lose time.

I would advise an inexperienced youth, when he comes to work among a number of men, to observe the manner of one of the best and quickest compositors: he will, perhaps, at first conclude that he is looking at a very slow workman, for the first appearance is fallacious; but when he examines more closely he will find his mistake, for what he at first took for slowness is the true principle of expedition; he will perceive no false motion, which invariably delays progress; the fingers go to one particular letter, take it up, convey it to the line direct, while the eye is directed to another letter which the fingers convey in the same manner to the line; thus letter after letter accumulate to words, lines, and pages, with a quickness that looks like magic, while to the spectator it seems to be only the pace of the tortoise. Let him look at another; there appears all bustle, all expedition; the body and head in continual motion; the hand so quick in its evolutions, that he gazes with astonishment on the apparent rapidity of arranging the letters: let him look again with more attention, and he will find that the man whom he supposed so slow makes no mistake, loses no time, but continues steadily and uniformly making progress: while the other frequently misses taking hold of his letter; then makes two or three flourishes with his hand and his head before he takes hold of another; and then his hand continues dancing and see-sawing, and after three or four of such motions, made with great rapidity, the letter is finally deposited in the line. This manner of lifting the letters is in reality the pace of the tortoise, although it has the appearance of the speed of the hare.

Regularity of spacing, and a due proportion of distance between words, contribute in a material degree to improve the appearance of a book.

When the lines are very short, or the type very large in proportion to their length, all general rules, both of dividing and spacing, must give way to necessity; for in such cases it is impossible at all times to space regularly, or to divide the words correctly.

There is a great diversity of opinion with respect to spacing; some authors and printers choosing to have the words wide apart, and others, on the contrary, preferring to have them nearly close together; the one, requiring an en quadrat, or two thick spaces, and the other, a thin space only, between the words. Both of these, in my opinion, go to an extreme: I prefer using a thick space generally, and justifying with thinner and hair spaces; so that there will rarely be a necessity for any violent inequality in the distance of the words from each other.

When a work is double leaded, or has reglet between the lines, it requires to be wider spaced than when it is solid: in the two first cases, two middling spaces, or a thick and a thin space, will not be too much; in the latter, a thick space will be quite sufficient. And it is necessary to attend to these circumstances; for printing that is open does not harmonize when close spaced, any more than solid matter does when wide spaced, which makes it look full of pigeon holes; for the distance between the words should bear some proportion to the distance between the lines.

When one or two letters require to be got in, or to be driven out, the difference between a thick space and a middling one is not perceptible to the eye, particularly if the compositor is careful to place the latter before or after a v or w, after a comma that comes before a v or w, or after a y; and, in like manner, an additional hair space will not be perceptible if it come after an f, or before a j; or if it come between db, dh, dk, dl, lb, lh, lk, or ll.

The most expeditious mode of regular spacing, perhaps, is to take the spaces as they rise; for there being in the box only three sorts, the thin and the hair spaces being in separate boxes, there will not be any violent disproportion if the line should be full at the first; and the slight disproportion may be easily remedied by changing the situation of two or three: if the line should not be quite full, then the introduction of a few thin spaces will equalise the distances; or the substitution of a few thick spaces for middling ones will have the same effect.

In setting a line of capitals, a careful workman will pay attention to the bearing off of different letters, for many of them when they fall together stand as if there were a space between them, and produce a bad effect: to remedy this inequality, hair spaces, or bits of paper, are required between those letters that stand close. The inequality is still greater in many instances in a line of Italic capitals, and of course requires the same remedy.

It would be desirable, and would tend to facilitate regular spacing, if there were a greater number of hair spaces cast to a fount than is now the case.

In poetry, the size of the type and the measure are usually so arranged as to admit the longest line to come into the measure, without having occasion to turn it: an opportunity is thus allowed for regular spacing, which is generally done with thick spaces. When a work in poetry is commenced, it is usual for the compositor to divide his space box up the middle with a piece of reglet, or with a piece of thin wood, made to fit tight, and to assort his thick spaces on one side, and the thinner on the other, to save time and trouble in picking them out

As the measure for poetry is sometimes made as narrow as will conveniently allow the regular lines to come in, both to save quadrats, and also to lessen the price of composing, it not unfrequently happens that a line containing long syllables will not admit of thick spaces; in this case, the usual practice is to space close, and get in the line if possible, even with hair spaces, for turning it is attended with inconveniences; the page must be made up short, or long, to preserve the couplets, and it affects the next page, in preventing the stanzas backing each other.

A compositor will always find it advantageous to justify his lines to an equal tightness; and of this he must be sensible when he has to lock up his form: if he have been careless in this instance he will experience a loss of time and find a difficulty in getting his form to lift; and when it does lift, by means of sticking his bodkin into quadrats and spaces to tighten those lines that are slack, it will never be safe; for it is more than probable that many letters will draw out at press, and cause errors in that sheet, (for pressmen are generally careless how they replace a letter that has drawn, and, when it is discovered, they are satisfied if they put it into the right word,) the pressmen scold the compositor, who also, if he be working in a companionship, and should not be the last in the sheet, gets scolded by the compositor who has to lock up the forms, for his carelessness, and for the additional trouble which it causes.

I would avoid having a lower case f at the end of a line; for, being a kerned letter, the dot at the end of the curve is almost sure to be broken off while the sheet is being worked at press.

It is not possible to give particular rules for justifying all the sorts that occur in many works, and that are not in a printing office:—for a Ç, it will be necessary to cut away the shank to the bottom of the face of the letter, and justify a figure of 5 with the top back dash cut off; a long m̄, n̄, or any other letter, must be cut away to the upper part of the letter, and a small lower case l, with the fine lines cut away, fixed flat above; a short y̆ may be made by taking the bottom of an o; m̃ and ñ by cutting the front of a small a away, and laying it lengthways; ŵ and ŷ by inverting a lower case v, after cutting away the cross lines, and making the thick line equal to the fine one with a sharp knife.

Cutting away the shank allows the additional part to stand close to the face of the letter, which improves the appearance. In some instances it will be necessary to cut part of a lead away above the letter, and justify the addition in the vacancy. The compositor should, by all means, be careful to justify every sort that is added so tight as to prevent it from drawing out at press; but not so tight, as to force the words above and below out of line; in fact, they ought to be so managed as, when justified to the letter, to form unitedly its regular body in depth when it is practicable.

The compositor should also be careful to proportion the size of the accent or mark to be justified to the size of the letter, that there may be no disproportion between them.

I would recommend to every compositor when he goes to a fresh house, where it is likely he may work some time, to ascertain what founts are in the house, with the two line letters, blacks, flowers, &c.: this knowledge will give him facilities, and enable him to compose a title, or a job, with less sacrifice of time, than if he were not acquainted with the materials contained in the office.

COMPOSING RULE.

A piece of brass rule cut to the length of the measure, with a small ear or beak projecting at one end, by which to take it out. This rule is laid in the composing stick, and the letters arranged upon it; when the line is full, the rule is taken out by the projecting part, and laid upon the line composed, and this process is continued till the stick is full, when the rule is laid upon the last line as before, the whole of the matter in the stick is then grasped tight with both hands, (the rule preventing it from bursting,) taken out of the stick, and deposited in a galley.

COMPOSING STICK.

The instrument in which the letters are arranged into words and lines. It is generally made of iron, sometimes of gun metal, and long ones for large jobs occasionally of wood.

When made of iron it is formed of a piece of sheet iron, one side turned up nearly half an inch, at a right angle, which forms the back, and when that is turned to the workman at the right hand extremity an end is fitted to it, by screws, rivets, or dovetailing: this end is iron, considerably thicker than the bottom and back, and is soldered in its place to give it strength and stability.

There is a slide by which the length of the lines is regularly justified, which is fixed to the back by a nut and screw passing through a groove in it, and secured in its place by the screw passing through one of the holes in the back, by which means the length of the line can be arranged according to the size of the page. The end of the stick, and also of the slide, must form a right angle with the back, and be parallel to each other, otherwise the lines will be of unequal lengths, and cause much trouble. The English composing sticks generally hold from nine to eleven lines of pica. The French printers use much narrower ones, frequently not holding more than three lines.

Composition. See Rollers.

COMPOSITOR.

He that composes or sets the letters.—M. See Composing.

COMPOSITOR’S BOOK.

To prevent mistakes, confused bills, and disputes in companionships, and with the employer, it is essentially necessary that a compositor should keep an account of the work that he does, and it is still better that he should be able to ascertain on the instant how much he has composed of any work that he is employed upon; the quantity in each signature; the number of pages charged, and in what signatures; and the forms he has imposed, and the signatures. The following form, it is presumed, will accomplish this object in a simple and easy manner.

Compositors’ Prices. See Scale of Prices.

CONDITION.

Balls are said to be in condition, or good condition, when they lug, and the ink is distributed easily and uniformly on their surface; that is, when they are neither too hard nor too soft: when they are either the one or the other, they are said to be in bad condition. See Balls. This also applies to rollers.

Paper is said to be in good condition when it has received a proper degree of moisture, been laid a day or two between the boards or in a heap, with weights upon the top board, then turned, which changes the parts is contact, and replaced under the weights for another day, so that the moisture shall be uniformly diffused and equal through the whole quantity of paper to be printed.

CONFESSION OF FAITH.

For the allowance of the duty on paper used in the printing of the book known by the name “The Confession of Faith,” see Paper.

CONTRACTIONS

used in Domesday Book and ancient Records. See Domesday Book. Records.

COPE’S PRESS.

The Albion. This is the production of Richard Whittaker Cope, and is an iron press. The power is produced entirely by levers, which, by means of two strong iron links attached to the head, and working at the bottom on what is called the lugs, communicate the power to the platen, and thus produce the impression: on the return of the bar the platen is lifted from the face of the types by means of a spiral spring fixed on the head of the press. I have repeatedly broken the links, when they were guaranteed to withstand any force in working the press that could be applied to it. On the death of Mr. Cope, the business was continued by trustees for the benefit of the family, and is under the immediate management of Mr. John Hopkinson, who has very much improved this press by taking away the links, and remodelling it: the principle, on the present construction, is the same as that of Sherwin and Cope’s Imperial press, with some variation in the application of the cap or knuckle, and also in the adjusting wedges, the screw of which to regulate the pull is at the near side of the piston.

COPTIC.

The Copts are undoubtedly descendants of the ancient Egyptians; but not an unmixed race, their ancestors in the earlier ages of Christianity having intermarried with Greeks, Nubians, Abyssinians, and other foreigners. Their name is correctly pronounced either Ckoobt or Ckibt; but more commonly Goobt or Gibt, and (in Cairo and its neighbourhood, and in some other parts of Egypt,) ’Oobt or ’Ibt: in the singular, it is pronounced Ckoob´tee, Ckib´tee, Goob´tee, Gib´tee, ’Oob´tee, or ’Ib´tee. All of these sounds bear a great resemblance to the ancient Greek name of Egypt (Αἰγυπτος): but it is generally believed that the name of “Ckoobt” is derived from Coptos, (once a great city, in Upper Egypt,) now called Ckooft, or, more commonly, Gooft; to which vast numbers of the Christian Egyptians retired during the persecution with which their sect was visited under several of the Roman emperors. The Copts have not altogether lost their ancient language, their liturgy and several of their religious books being written in it; but the Coptic has become a dead language, understood by very few persons; and the Arabic has been adopted in its stead.

The Coptic language gradually fell into disuse after the conquest of Egypt by the Arabs. For two centuries after that event, it appears to have been the only language that the generality of the Copts understood; but before the tenth century of our era, most of the inhabitants of Lower Egypt had ceased to speak and understand it, [this has been shown by Quatremère, in his Researches on the Language and Literature of Egypt,] though, in the Sa’ee´d (or Upper Egypt), El-Muckree´zee tells, the women and children of the Copts, in his time, (that is, about the close of the fourteenth century of our era, or the early part of the fifteenth,) scarcely spoke any other language than the Sa’ee´dee Coptic, and had a complete knowledge of the Greek. Soon after this period, the Coptic language fell into disuse in Upper Egypt, as it had done so long before in the Lower Provinces, and the Arabic was adopted in its stead. All the Copts who have been instructed at a school still pray, both in the church and in private, in Coptic; and the Scriptures are still always read in the churches in that language; but they are explained, from books, in Arabic. Many books for the use of priests and other persons are written in the Coptic language expressed in Arabic characters.—Lane’s Modern Egyptians, vol. ii. 1836.

Gibbon states, that Cavio affords a shelter for the indigent patriarch of the Copts, and a remnant of ten bishops: forty monasteries have survived the inroads of the Arabs; and the progress of servitude and apostasy has reduced the Coptic nation to the despicable number of twenty-five or thirty thousand families.

We know very little of the ancient language of Egypt. Nearly all the remains of it we now possess, have been transmitted to us through the Coptic, Sahidic and Bashmuric Dialects. The Coptic Dialect was spoken in Lower Egypt, of which Memphis was the capital: hence it has been called, with great propriety, the Memphitic Dialect. The Sahidic, from the Arabic word Sahad, or Al Sahad, the Upper, or Superior, was the dialect of Upper Egypt, of which Thebes was the capital; it has, therefore, been called the Thebaïc. It is impossible to say which of these two dialects was the more ancient. Georgi, Valperga, Munter, and others, have decided in favour of the Coptic; and Macriny, Renandot, Lacroze, and Jablonsky, with as much show of reason, have contended for the Sahidic. Still, however, the question must be left to conjecture, as we have not sufficient evidence to enable us to decide upon it. Besides these two dialects, which have long been known, there was a third, which was spoken in Baschmour, a province of the Delta.

The existence of three dialects in Egypt has been so satisfactorily proved by Quatremère, Englebreth, and other writers; and so fully confirmed by the Bashmuric fragments which have been discovered and published, that little more need be added. If, however, any doubt remain, the following quotation from a manuscript work of Athanasius, a prelate of the Coptic church, who was Bishop of Kous, will entirely remove it. “The Coptic language,” says he, “is divided into three dialects; the Coptic dialect of Miser, the Bahiric, and the Bashmuric: these different dialects are derived from the same language.”

The introduction of Greek words into the Egyptian language commenced, no doubt, from the time of the Macedonian conquest, which the introduction of Christianity tended to confirm and extend. The Christian religion contained so many new ideas, that new terms were necessary to express them. These terms the language of Greece would readily supply; which, probably, were adopted by the Egyptians, from the Greek writings of the apostles.

Egyptian literature has recently attracted particular attention. All that has come down to us of the language and literature of ancient Egypt is contained in the Coptic, Sahidic, and Bashmuric dialects; and in the Enchorial, Hieratic, and Hieroglyphic inscriptions and manuscripts.

The Coptic, or, as it has been called, the Bahiric, but more properly the Memphitic, was the dialect of Lower Egypt; the Mizur of the Scriptures. This dialect is more regular and systematic in its grammatical construction, and more pure, than the others.

Manuscripts exist, in Coptic, of nearly the whole of the Sacred Scriptures, and of the Services of the Coptic church. The works of some of the early Fathers, and the Acts of the Council of Nice, and also the Lives of a considerable number of Saints and Martyrs, are found in the Coptic dialect.

Dr. Murray says, the Coptic is an original tongue, for it derives all its indeclinable words and particles from radicals pertaining to itself. Its verbs are derived from its own resources. There is no mixture of any foreign language in its composition, except Greek.

The remains which we possess of the Egyptian language, when separated from the Greek, with which it is in some measure mixed up, has no near resemblance to any of the ancient or modern languages.

The importance of the Ancient Egyptian to the antiquary will at once appear, when we consider that a knowledge of it is necessary before the inscriptions on the monuments of Egypt can be properly understood, and the Enchorial and Hieratic manuscripts can be fully deciphered.

The terms Coptic and Sahidic have been adopted instead of Memphitic and Thebaic, lest confusion should be created; as the former are used in those Egyptian publications which have issued from the Oxford University Press.

The Coptic alphabet contains Thirty-two Letters. It will be seen, from a comparison of the alphabets, that the Egyptians adopted the Greek alphabet, with the addition of seven letters.

The Gamma never occurs in Coptic words, except in one or two instances. It is used instead of the Kappa in words derived from the Greek.

The Xi is seldom found in Egyptian words, but principally occurs in words derived from other languages. It is sometimes used instead of ks.

The stops used, are one or two points, · : but two points are most commonly used.

The mark used to divide the verses is +.

When the point or short line (`) occurs over consonants, it generally expresses the vowel e short.

It appears, from some words derived from the Greek, that the point (`) has been used to express the vowels a and o short.

When the point (`) occurs above a vowel, it expresses the soft or sharp breathing of the Greeks. When it is found above e long, it denotes the sharp accent; but when placed above the other vowels, it either expresses the soft accent, or it denotes that the letter should be pronounced separately, and agrees with the diæresis of the Greeks.

When the point (`) is put over a vowel in the beginning of words derived from the Greek, and which has the aspirate in that language, it indicates a sharp breathing.

Some Coptic words are abbreviated by a line or lines above them.—Tattam’s Grammar of the Egyptian Language. 8vo. 1830.

Coptic in the British Foundries.