Ancient Books and their Materials.--Sculptures.--Printing
in China.--Use of Metals.--Seal.--Stencils.--Waxen Tablets.--
Bark, Leaves, Shells.--Papyrus.--Parchments.--Paper.--Palimpsests.
--Books written by Hand.--The Scriptorium.--Copyists and their
Habits.--Illuminations.--Character of Ancient Books.--Scarcity
and Costliness of Books.--Richard de Bury and Library.--Statutes
of St. Mary’s College.--Books Chained.--Abundance of Books in
Modern Times.
Leaving Gutenberg occupied with his experiment, let us glance briefly
at the books of that day, and the modes in which they were made and
given to the world.
The most ancient materials used for recording events were bricks,
tiles, shells, and tables of stone. The modes of writing on these
different substances were various. The tiles and brick were impressed
with a stamp when in a soft state; the shells and tablets of stone were
etched or graven, the figures or characters being cut in their surface,
and in some cases also stained with various colors. It was by the
ancient art of stamping that the walls, palaces, and towers of Babylon
were covered with hieroglyphics, which have but recently been brought
to light from under the immense mounds of Mesopotamia by Layard and
other explorers.
[Illustration: Babylonian Brick.]
The patriarch Job, who is supposed to have lived about 2,300 years
after the creation, exclaimed, “O that my words were now written! O
that they were printed in a book! that they were graven with an iron
pen, and hid in the rock forever!” Stung with the unjust accusation
of his friends, he desires to record his words that the generations
following might see the justice of his cause. The English translation
has given the allusion to printing to the text, the original word
signifying rather to ingrave on a plate, which was doubtless the only
printing known to Job.
Montfauçon purchased at Rome in 1699 an ancient book entirely composed
of lead. It was about four inches long and three inches wide; and not
only were the two pieces that formed the cover, and the leaves, six
in number, of lead, but also the stick inserted through the rings to
hold the leaves together, as well as the hinges and nails. It contained
figures of Egyptian idols, and unintelligible writing.
China, our ancestor in invention, from remote ages had a kind of
stereotyping or printing. It was not, however, as some have supposed,
like our printing, phonetic, or the expression of sound, but, like the
Egyptian, hieroglyphical; being purely of an artificial structure,
denoting every idea by its appropriate sign without any relation to
the utterance, and speaking to the eye like the numerical ciphers of
the Europeans, which every one understands and utters in his own way.
And like most other nations of antiquity, the Chinese were content to
remain without alphabetical writing. It is, however, due to the Chinese
to add, that they led the way in making good printing-paper. When they
invented making it, does not appear, some affirming that they had the
use of it from time immemorial; others that they first discovered it in
the second century of the Christian era.
Brass, as more durable, was used for inscriptions designed to last the
longest, such as treaties, laws, and alliances. Seals, also, were used
by the ancients for impressing soft substances. In the British Museum
there is a stamp of metal with raised letters. On the back of it is a
ring, enabling the owner to wear it as a signet; his name, Caius Julius
Cæcilius Hermias, being engraved in reversed letters upon it.
+-------------+
| CICAECILI |
| HERMIAE.SN. |
+-------------+