[1208] See Fabricii Bibliotheca Antiquaria, p. 959. Reimmanni Idea
Systematis Antiquitatis Litterariæ, 1718, 8vo, p. 169. Astle’s Origin
and Progress of Writing, 4to.
[1209] Plin. lib. xvi. cap. 35. Martial, lib. xiv. epigram. 38.
[1210] Plin. lib. c. Catullus, carm. xxxvi. 13, mentions Cnidus
arundinosa. Ausonius, epist. iv. 75, calls the reeds Cnidii nodi.
[1211] Plin. lib. xvi. cap. 36.
[1212] Bauhini Pinax Plantar, p. 17: _Arundo scriptoria atro-rubens_.
Hist. Plant. ii. p. 487. Theatrum Botan. p. 273.
[1213] “Their writing-pens are made of reeds or small hard canes of
the size of the largest swan-quills, which they cut and slit in the
same manner as we do ours; but they give them a much longer nib. These
canes or reeds are collected towards Daurac, along the Persian Gulf, in
a large fen supplied with water by the river Hellé, a place of Arabia
formed by an arm of the Tigris, and another of the Euphrates united.
They are cut in March, and, when gathered, are tied up in bundles and
laid for six months under a dunghill, where they harden and assume a
beautiful polish and lively colour, which is a mixture of yellow and
black. None of these reeds are collected in any other place. As they
make the best writing-pens, they are transported throughout the whole
East. Some of them grow in India, but they are softer and of a paler
yellow colour.”--Voyages de Chardin, vol. v. p. 49.
[1214] “It is a kind of cane which grows no higher than a man. The stem
is only three or four lines in thickness, and solid from one knot to
another, that is to say filled with a white pith. The leaves, which
are a foot and a half in length, and eight or nine lines in breadth,
enclose the knots of the stem in a sheath; but the rest is smooth, of
a bright yellowish-green colour, and bent in the form of a half-tube,
with a white bottom. The panicle or bunch of flowers was not as yet
fully blown, but it was whitish, silky, and like that of other reeds.
The inhabitants of the country cut the stems of these reeds to write
with, but the strokes they form are very coarse, and do not approach
the beauty of those which we make with our pens.”--Voyage du Levant,
vol. ii. p. 136.
[1215] Lib. i. cap. 114. Rauwolf says in his Travels, vol. i. p. 93,
“In the shops were to be sold small reeds, hollow within and smooth
without, and of a brownish-red colour, which are used by the Turks,
Moors, and other Eastern people, for writing.” It appears that Rauwolf
did not see these reeds growing, but prepared and freed from the pith.
We are told by Winkelmann, in his second Letter on the Antiquities
of Herculaneum, p. 46, that for want of quills he often cut into
writing-pens those reeds which grow in the neighbourhood of Naples.
[1216] Flora Ægyptiaco-Arabica. Havniæ, 1775, 4to, p. 47, 61.
[1217] Those who wish to see instances of learned men who wrote a great
deal and a long time with one pen, may consult J. H. Ackeri Historia
Pennarum, Altenburgi, 1726. The author has collected every thing he
ever read respecting the pens of celebrated men.
[1218] Clementis Alex. Opera. Coloniæ, 1688, fol. p. 633. The best
account of these sacred writers may be found in the Prolegomena, p. 91,
of Jablonski’s Pantheon Ægypt.
[1219] Sat. iv. 149.
[1220] Od. iii. 29, 53.
[1221] Gronovii Thesaurus Antiq. Græc. ii. n. 28.
[1222] Lambec. lib. vii. p. 76.--Montfaucon, Palæograph. Græca, lib. i.
cap. 3, p. 21.
[1223] Amm. Marcellini Hist. ed. Valesii, Par. 1681, fol. p. 699. The
letters might have been raised on the plate, or deeply engraven in it,
so that Theodoric only followed with his pen an impression of them made
upon the paper.
[1224] It is uncertain whether the characters were followed with a
style, a reed, or a quill; for γραφὶς (the word used) is the general
appellation. “There have been princes, also, acquainted with writing,
but so lazy that they kept a servant who could imitate their hand
to subscribe for them.” Of this we have an instance in the emperor
Carinus, respecting whom Vopiscus says, “Fastidium subscribendi tantum
habuit, ut quendam ad subscribendum poneret qui bene suam imitaretur
manum.”
[1225] Origines, lib. vi. 13, p. 132.
[1226] His writings may be found in Maxima Bibliotheca Patrum. Lugduni,
1677, fol. tom. xiii. In p. 27, is the following poem on a pen:--
_De Penna Scriptoria._
Me pridem genuit candens onocrotalus albam
Gutture qui patulo sorbet in gurgite lymphas.
Pergo ad albentes directo tramite campos,
Candentique viæ vestigia cærula linquo,
Lucida nigratis fuscans anfractibus arva.
Nec satis est unum per campos pandere callem;
Semita quin potius milleno tramite tendit,
Quæ non errantes ad cœli culmina vexit.
The author does not speak here of a goose-quill, but of a pelican’s,
which at any rate may be as good as that of a swan.
[1227] Ad latrinium (latrinam).
[1228] Alcuini Opera, cura Frobenii, Ratisbonæ, 1777, 2 vols. fol. ii.
p. 211.
[1229] De Re Diplomatica, Par. 1709, fol. in Suppl. p. 51.
[1230] Petr. Venerabil. lib. i. ep. 20, ad Gislebertum. C. G. Schwarz,
who quotes the passage in Exercit. de Varia Supellectili Rei Librariæ
Veterum, Altorfii, 1725, 4to, § 8, ascribes them falsely to the
venerable Bede, who died about the year 735.
[1231] Ger. Nic. Heerkens Aves Frisicæ, Rot. 1788, 8vo, p. 106.
[1232] Hist. Nat. lib. x. cap. 22.
[1233] This manuscript was correctly printed by P. F. Fogginius, in
quarto, in 1741. A specimen of the writing is given, p. 15. See also
Virgilius Heynii, in Elenchus Codicum, p. 41.
[1234] Divin. Lection. cap. xxx. p. m. 477, 478.
[1235] Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique, i. p. 537.
[1236] Reuchlin’s life may be found in Meiners’ Lebensbeschreibungen
Berühmter Männer. Zurich. 1795, 8vo, vol. i.
[1237] Pirkheimeri Opera, Franc. 1610, fol. p. 259.
[1238] Illustrium Virorum Epistolæ ad Jo. Reuchlin.: Hagenoæ, 1519,
4to, p. 144.
[1239] Ambrosii Traversarii Epistolæ. ed. L. Mehus. Florentiæ, 1759, 2
vols. fol. ii. p. 566.
[1240] Ibid. p. 580.
[1241] [The publisher has in his possession an extremely well-made
metallic pen (brass) at least fifty years old, and with it a style for
writing by means of smoked paper, both in a morocco pocket-book, which
formerly belonged to Horace Walpole, and was sold at the Strawberry
Hill sale.]
[1242] Waterston’s Cyclopædia of Commerce, 1846.