PEN BEHIND THE EAR--PAPER.

The custom of carrying a pen behind the ear, lately common, is ancient.

In the life of S. Odo is the following passage: “He saw a pen sticking

above his ear, in the manner of a writer.”

Mabillon says, that he could find no paper books more ancient than the

tenth century: but the pen made of a feather was certainly common in the

seventh century; and though ascribed to the classical ancients, by

Montfaucon’s mistaking a passage of Juvenal, it is first mentioned by

Adrian de Valois, a writer of the fifth century. This rather precedes

Beckmann, who places the first certain account of it to Isadore.[130]

[130] Fosbroke’s British Monachism.

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~Suburban Sonnets.~