extensively employed a picture-writing, as a means of recording events,
during a period not exceeding two centuries before that epoch. They had
the art of manufacturing materials as a basis of such writing, from the
_Agave_ or American aloe, and from cotton, in the form of a very fine
cloth. They also used prepared skins for the same purpose, the best
specimens of which are pronounced to be more beautiful than the finest
vellum. Their manuscripts were sometimes done up in rolls or scrolls,
and frequently on tablets, in the form of a folding-screen. Their inks
appear to have been coloring matters in watery solutions.
The oldest Phoenician ink-writing of which any specimen has been
preserved, dates no later than the second century before Christ, and may
be much older.
A fac-simile of a portion of it will be found among our illustrations,
explained by notes referring to each by its number.
Greek manuscripts in ink (on papyrus), of the third century before
Christ, are in existence. We give specimens of the oldest known,—one
written in Egypt, 260 B.C., being an order from Dioscorides, an officer
of the government of Ptolemy Philadelphus, to another named Dorion. The
translation of the words is “Dioscorides to Dorion, greeting. Of the
letter to Dorion the copy is subjoined.” * * * We add other specimens,
of the same and later periods.
Of Latin writing with ink, the earliest we can find is the palimpsest of
Cicero’s book, “De Republica,” which had been partly effaced to make
room for a copy of Augustin’s commentary on the Psalms. It is believed
by the learned that the original manuscript was executed at least as
early as the second or third century of the Christian era. The
restoration of this manuscript, and the discovery of this long-lost and
earnestly sought classic gem, were the work of Cardinal Mai, as before
mentioned. The original words are TETERRIMUS ET EX HAC VEL——, and are
written in two columns on the page, while the later writing runs
completely across the page.
Of the earliest writing executed in France, after that country received
its name from those who conquered it, we give a specimen from the
beginning of a charter of King Dagobert I, executed A.D. 628. The words
are—“QUOTIESCUMQUE PETITIONIBUS”—“However many times to petitions,” &c.
It is a confirmation of a partition of property between two heirs. The
monogrammatic autograph of the Great Karl, (in modern times called
Charlemagne,) we present also as an object of interest. A.D. 800.
The oldest specimen of writing in Great Britain which has been preserved
to the nineteenth century, was a book believed to be not later than the
year 600 of the Christian era. Astle has preserved an engraved specimen
of it; but the priceless original has since been destroyed by fire in
the British Museum. It was said to be a book of Augustin. A specimen
still in existence, dates between the years 664 and 670. It is a charter
of Sebbi, King of the East Saxons, and is easily read:—“I, Sebbi, King,”
&c. We subjoin a few words from the commencement of a charter of William
the Conqueror, whose reign commenced in England, A.D. 1066:—WILL: DEI
GRA^{TIA} REX, &c., SCIATIS ME CONCESSISSE—“William, by the grace of God,
King &c.: Know ye that I have granted—”
ISAAC D’ISRAELI, in his Curiosities of Literature, (vol. 2, page 180, of
the Boston edition,) gives a treatise on the “Origin of the Materials of
Writing.” He commences it with these remarkable words: “It is curious to
observe the various substitutes for paper before its discovery.”
Now, of all “curiosities of literature,” this little sentence is, in
many respects, the most curious. He talks of substitutes for a thing not
in existence, and not even a subject of imagination, conjecture, or
conception. The name of D’Israeli does not indicate an IRISH origin, but
there is a strong affinity between this and those curiosities of
literature commonly called “Irish bulls.” As for instance, it reminds us
of the couplet composed by an Irish officer of a garrison in the
Scottish Highlands, in commemoration of the “good works” of General
Wade, who had caused excellent military roads to be made through some of
the previously almost impassable morasses of that region.
“_Had you seen these roads before they were made,
You’d have lifted your hands and blessed General Wade._”
Now, by way of comment on D’ISRAELI, we will say that “it is very
curious,” and moreover very strange, if not ridiculous, that he and
ASTLE, (from whom he copies without a full and fair acknowledgment,)
while “deeply complaining of the inferiority of our inks to those of
antiquity,” have utterly failed to ascertain the cause or even to notice
the occasion of it. They, as well as other writers on the subject,
observe the excellence of the ink employed in manuscripts of earlier
ages, down to the twelfth century, and the inferiority of the ink used
from that period down to the close of the seventeenth century, without
turning attention to the great historical fact that the FIRST PAPER-MILL
in Europe was established in that same twelfth century.
A peculiar CACHEXY (a variety of the disease known to psycho-nosologists
as the _cacoëthes scribendi_,) seems to be hereditary in the D’Israeli
family. BENJAMIN D’ISRAELI, (the son of Isaac,) late Chancellor of the
Exchequer, &c., when he rose in his place, as the Head or Representative
of Her Majesty’s government in the House of Commons, to pronounce a
eulogy on the recently deceased Duke of Wellington, had the impudence to
repeat, word for word, a very bald translation of the _éloge_ delivered
by Lamartine a few years previous, on occasion of the death of one of
the third-rate marshals of Napoleon I.
The D’Israeli family are evidently “some” of the children of Israel,
who, (as we are told on good authority,) when they left Egypt _borrowed_
everything they could get, and never, so far as the record shows, either
returned the articles so obtained, or made proper acknowledgments
therefor.
The Chinese did manufacture paper from the bark of the small branches of
a tree of the mulberry genus, (_Morus Multicaulis_?) and also from old
rags, silk, hemp, and cotton, as early as the second century of the
Christian era; and it is supposed that from them the Arabs derived their
knowledge of paper-making, an art which they introduced into Europe in
the former half of the twelfth century, when the first paper-mill was
put in operation in Spain, then under the Moorish dominion; and, in
1150, this article, as manufactured by them, had become famous
throughout Christendom.
[We use the words Arab and Moor indiscriminately here. The former is the
name of the race; the latter is limited to that portion found in
Northern Africa. The Moor is the Arab of the WEST, (Al Mogreb, El
Gharb,) in the Arabic, denominated MOGREBYN,—a word which in Roman and
European mouths has smoothed and softened itself into a form suggestive
of the origin of _Maurus_ and _Mauritania_.]
Now, without coming to a positive conclusion on this subject, we feel
authorized to pronounce what appears to be a reasonable opinion, derived
from all the facts which we have just placed before the reader,—that the
introduction of writing-paper among Europeans, was the occasion and
cause of the invention and general employment of modern writing-ink by
them.
The fact that the vegetable astringents form a deep or bluish black
color, when combined with a salt of iron, had been known from time
immemorial. Among the Romans, the _atramentum sutorium_,—“shoemaker’s
ink,”—was applied to a solution of sulphate of iron employed by them, as
it is even to this day, by workers in leather, to blacken the surface of
that material. This it does by uniting chemically with the tannin and
gallic acid, by which the hide was converted into leather, whose
blackened particles are therefore essentially identical with modern ink.
The “copperas-water” is to be found in every shoemaker’s shop, where it
is used to color the cut edges of the heels and the rest of the soles.
As soon as the difficulty of writing with convenience and rapidity on
paper, with the ancient carbonaceous ink, became manifest, the resort to
the _atramentum sutorium_ as a substitute for the _atramentum
scriptorium_, was a matter of course, and was but a simple adaptation of
a familiar substance to a new purpose, requiring no great ingenuity, and
no invention whatever.
For a time, perhaps through a period of several centuries, a mixture of
the two kinds of ink was employed by the Romans; and this was
undoubtedly the best composition that was ever invented for the purpose
of deliberate, careful, elegant writing, designed and required to be
permanent and unchangeable under constant exposure and handling,—as in
the case of manuscript books before the art of printing was known. Even
as early as the first century of the Christian era, in the time of Pliny
the Younger, and probably long before that, a solution of sulphate of
iron was commonly or frequently added to the carbonaceous and oleaginous
mixture which we have described as the original writing-ink. In short,
the _atramentum sutorium_ was added, in moderate quantity, to the
_atramentum scriptorium_, thus constituting it a CHEMICAL as well as a
MECHANICAL ink. So, modern ink may be improved in blackness, durability
and beauty, and rendered unchangeable in color under the action of the
chlorides, acids, &c., by the intermixture of a small quantity of the
very finest carbon, in the form of an impalpable powder. But, the great
difficulty is—that the carbon clogs the pen, and renders the ink too
thick to flow easily, so that it can never be used for rapid or ordinary
writing. We can not give, in our own words, a better account of this
matter than we find in the language of a very learned author in the
Edinburgh Review, (volume 48, Dec. 1828).
The article here cited is entitled “THE RECOVERY OF LOST WRITINGS,” and
is nominally a review of [1]GAII INSTITUTIONUM COMMENTARII:
[2]INSTITUTES DE GAIUS, RECEMMENT DECOUVERTES DANS UN PALIMPSESTE DE LA
BIBLIOTHEQUE DE CHAPITRE DE VERONE. [3]JURISCONSULTI ANTE-JUSTINIANEI
RELIQUIAE INEDITAE, _ex codice rescripto Bibliothecae Vaticanae_,
_curante_ ANGELO MAIO, _Bibliothecae ejusdem Praefecti_. The article
begins on page 348 of this volume of the Review.
We quote from page 366;—“The ink which the ancients generally used, was
composed of lamp-black mixed with gum, as we are informed by Dioscorides
and others, who give the receipt [recipe?] for making it. Ink of this
kind may be called carbonic: it possesses the advantages of extreme
blackness and durability, the writing remaining fresh so long as the
substance on which it is written exists; but as it does not sink into
the paper, it is liable to the great inconvenience of being easily and
entirely removed; for, if a wet sponge be applied to it, the writing may
be washed away, and no traces of the characters will remain. The
facility with which documents might be thus obliterated, gave occasion
to fraud, as an artful forger was able to remove such portions of the
original writing as he might desire to get rid of, and thus profit by
the absence of material words, or insert in the blanks which he had
made, such interpolations as might serve his turn. Many common
accidents, by which books and writings were exposed to wet, or even to
damp, were also fatal, or at least highly injurious, to compositions and
muniments of great value. Various expedients were therefore attempted to
remedy an imperfection from which many must have suffered severely.
PLINY informs us that it was usual, in his time, to mix vinegar with the
ink, to make it _strike into the paper or parchment_, and that it, in
some degree, answered the purpose. It should seem that vitriolic ink,
such as we use at present, was also adopted soon afterwards, which
possesses, in perfection, the quality that was desired of sinking
instantly into the paper, so as to make it far more difficult to
discharge it without destroying the texture on which it is written, and
of being perfectly secure against water, by which Indian and other
carbonic Inks are so easily effaced. IT IS NOT, however, EQUALLY SECURE
AGAINST THE EFFECTS OF TIME; for vitriolic ink gradually fades away,
becomes paler by degrees, turns brown and yellow, and is scarcely
legible; and sometimes, as the parchment grows yellow and brown with
age, it disappears altogether. A compound kind of ink came next into
use, which united the advantages and avoided the defects of the two
simple sorts. Such a mixed ink was generally used for several centuries;
and with this, the manuscripts that are now most fresh and legible
appear to have been written. It is evident that the ink with which the
original works contained in the Palimpsest manuscripts that have been
deciphered were written, was at least in part vitriolic: for the letters
which had been rubbed out _were rendered legible by the application of
the infusion of galls_. In order to remove the original writing, the
parchments on which the mixed ink had been used were, probably, first
washed to take off the carbon, and thus partially to efface the
characters, and were afterwards scraped or rubbed with pumice, or some
other suitable substance, to complete the process of destruction, by
taking away mechanically the color that the vitriolic portion of the ink
still preserved. It is but too probable that many manuscripts, the
characters of which were entirely formed of the more ancient carbonic
ink, have been entirely destroyed, the letters having been washed off
completely, and by the same simple means as the writing of a school-boy
on a slate; whilst the parchment still remains in our libraries, and is
covered with more modern compositions which have sacrilegiously and too
successfully usurped the place of more ancient and more valuable matter.
The tirades of Cyril or of Jerome, or the tawdry eloquence of
Chrysostom, are perhaps firmly established in quarters from whence [?]
the Margites of Homer, or the comedies of Menander, were miserably
dislodged.
“A manuscript is called Palimpsest, from the adjective παλιμψαιστος or
παλιμψηστος, signifying twice rubbed; NOT as the glossary of Du Cange
(_membrana iterum abrasa—charta deletilis_) would seem to denote,
because the parchment had twice undergone abrasure, or the writing been
twice obliterated, but because it had been twice prepared for writing,
which was principally effected by rubbing it with pumice, first in the
course of manufacture, after the original skin had been cured, and again
by the same process, after the original writing had been taken away by
washing, or in any other manner. The strict and precise sense of
Palimpsest is therefore ‘twice prepared for writing;’ the repetition of
such preparation being the prevailing idea in the etymology, and _not
erasure_, as some have erroneously supposed. It is said to be easy to
remove from modern parchment, especially if what is written be of some
standing, all traces of writing, by rubbing it with pumice, or similar
substances; and if the surface be afterwards polished, no one, by merely
looking on it, will ever suppose that it had ever been written upon;
but, if it be washed by _an infusion of galls_, the letters will be so
far restored, particularly if it be suffered to remain some time in the
light, that it may be copied by a patient and practiced person, who is
gifted with good eyes:—so deeply had the iron entered into the soul of
the parchment! If the erased letters were written in a bold large hand,
the task of deciphering them will of course be less troublesome, and the
results more sure. And such are the characters of the more ancient
manuscripts; for, the older the manuscript, the better and more legible
is the writing, as approaching more nearly to the ages of civility and
refinement. The method of writing in old times is also favorable, it is
said, to the restoration of works apparently obliterated. The scribe did
not use a flowing ink, nor a finely pointed pen, as modern writers are
wont; nor was a small quantity applied so lightly and sparingly as to
dry almost as fast as it touches the paper. The ancient ink was thick
with gum, and was supplied copiously by a pen with a broad point,
usually made of a reed; and the characters were _painted_ rather than
written, the ink rather resembling paint or varnish than our thin
liquor. As they rarely wrote in books, it was not necessary that the
page should dry speedily, or be dried by means of sand and
blotting-paper, in order to prevent the loss of time, and that the
penman might turn over the leaf immediately; the loose sheets or leaves,
on the contrary, which were only to be bound up when the whole was
completed, were left to dry slowly, so that the pools of ink which
formed the letters, stood long on the surface of the parchment; and that
part of the fluid which was of a penetrating nature was gradually
absorbed, and sunk deeply into the substance of the skin, so as to
preserve to us—if we be not wanting to ourselves in diligence—many
precious relics of ancient lore. The restoration of the original writing
in a palimpsest manuscript will be best explained by referring to one of
the many kinds of sympathetic ink, which is in truth, making common ink
_ex post facto_, or uniting the ingredients of which it is composed,
after the fact of writing. If we write with water in which copperas has
been dissolved, the letters will be invisible; but when the paper has
been washed over with an infusion of galls, they will appear gradually,
and will in time become tolerably legible; the ink being thus formed
upon the paper, although much less perfectly, than in the ordinary
maceration.”
Little or nothing can be added to the full and elaborate history of
ancient and modern inks which is contained in this extract,—so thorough
and complete in its analysis of the subject, and so clear in its
distinct statements of the results of investigations in which some of
the most acute minds of Europe have long been successfully employed,
that we will not linger upon it with mere verbal criticism.
We can not present a more striking illustration of the change in the
composition of inks about the time of the invention of the art of
printing, than is furnished by the annexed fac-simile of a page in the
BIBLIA PAUPERUM, (“Bible for poor folks,”) the oldest printed book in
the world. This extraordinary book is of uncertain date. (No printed
book has a date prior to 1457.) There are, as we believe, only two
copies of it in America, one in the possession of JAMES LENOX, of
New-York,—the other in the ASTOR LIBRARY.
The maker of this book was the unconscious inventor of the art of
printing. Wood-engraving was in use for ages before it occurred to the
mind of man that a letter might be as easily reproduced in that way as a
picture or figure. To convey scriptural history to the minds of the
common people, the wood-engravers (whose art was invented to multiply
and cheapen the production of PLAYING-CARDS) made little pictures
representing scenes described, and events narrated, in the Bible. For
the benefit of the few who could read, it was customary to write on the
margin, or at the foot, of the page on which the woodcut was printed, a
few words descriptive of the subject or object delineated. This was
always done with a pen, by a regular scribe, until, one day, it occurred
to the wood-engraver employed on the _Biblia Pauperum_, that these words
might be as easily engraved as the figures to which they referred, and
of which they were the explanation. He put that idea in practice: and in
an instant the sublime ART OF PRINTING was an “accomplished fact.”
The advocates of the claims of Koster, Gansefleisch, (or Gutenberg,)
Faust (or Fust,) and Schoeffer, to this invention, have wasted much
labor in bringing forth conflicting testimony about them. The
long-forgotten and now wholly unknown wood-engraver of the _Biblia
Pauperum_ had preceded them by half of a generation. Such books were in
existence before A.D. 1420; and the earliest date which the Haarlaem
Dutchmen set up for the first printing of their fellow-townsman,
Lawrence Koster, is 1428. And his pretensions are after all very
dubious. Indeed they have been generally condemned as utterly fabulous
by bibliographical critics and typographical historians.
We introduce it here to show the _color_ and the (thereby indicated)
composition of the INK employed. It was _writing-ink_. It contained
sulphate of iron (copperas), in combination with vegetable astringent
matter, and with very little carbon. The vegetable substance,
imperfectly united to the mineral ingredient, has (in obedience to the
laws of organic matter) been decomposed and “resolved into its original
elements.” It has disappeared; but the IRON remains with its yellow
stain, an imperishable memorial of that humble, nameless workman, more
enduring than that which the plaintive man of Uz desired; for if those
words had been “graven with an IRON PEN and lead in the rock _forever_,”
that anticipated eternity might have faded of realization by the action
of the rain, the frost, the dust, and innumerable imaginable atmospheric
vicissitudes, or, (what is worse,) “the wrath of man.”—Some Cambyses
might have demolished the rock itself, and left no more of the
inscription than can now be read of those once carved on the cliffs of
Edom, the God-created walls of Petra in the valley of EL GHOR.
This pale rusty WORD-STAMPING on the fragile and easily combustible
paper, has outlasted the inscriptions once visible in gigantic
characters on the four sides of the Memphitic pyramids; and it is only
an incidental result of the intelligence diffused and the learning
promoted by the invention thus begun, that we can now read the
long-buried records of Nineveh, the epitaphs of the Thebaic kings, and
the gravings on the precipitous fronts of the mountains which surround
the ruins of Persepolis.
All writers upon this subject have strangely overlooked the fact that
the art of impressing or printing letters with a metallic stamp or type
on parchment, as a substitute for pen-work, is about a thousand years
older than the period above specified as the date of the invention of
the modern art of printing. The CODEX ARGENTEUS, (the oldest translation
of the entire Bible into any European language,) is a famous book, in
the Library of the University of Upsala in Sweden.
(We give the particulars of its history in our Appendix.)
This “antique” is on purple _vellum_, (which is parchment made of
_calf-skin_,) and all the letters are SILVER, (whence the name Codex
Argenteus, the “silver book,”) manifestly impressed on the page by a
metallic stamp or type, each letter evidently being on a separate stock
or handle, and applied by manual pressure. We give a specimen of this
style of work. It may be called printing, but can not be denominated
_manuscript_, for that is (literally) “hand-writing,” which this
certainly is not.
In our Appendix may be found still earlier instances of this art as
practiced by the ancient Romans on a small scale, in signatures,
trade-marks, &c.
The Edinburgh review refers to Pliny and Dioscorides, as furnishing
directions for the manufacture of ink. The Edinburgh reviewer says
“receipts,”—not recognizing the broad distinction between a _receipt_
and a _recipe_. The former of these two words was originally intended to
convey the idea that the person who signs the paper has _got_ something:
the latter word, or its representative initial (℞) means simply,
“_take_.”
The directions of Pliny are in the following words:—
C. Plinii Secundi Historia Naturalis.
Lib. XXXV, §25.
_ATRAMENTUM._