(_For the Mirror_.)
Books were anciently made of plates of copper and lead, the bark of
trees, bricks, Stones, and wood. Josephus speaks of two columns, the
one of stone, the other of brick, on which the children of Seth wrote
their inventions and astronomical discoveries. Porphyry mentions some
pillars, preserved in Crete, on which the ceremonies observed by the
Corybantes in their sacrifices were recorded. The leaves of the
palm-tree were used, and the finest and thinnest part of the bark of
such trees as the lime, the ash, the maple, and the elm; from hence
comes the word _liber_, which signifies the inner bark of the trees;
and as these barks are rolled up, in order to be removed with greater
ease, these rolls were called _volumen_, a volume, a name afterwards
given to the like rolls of paper or parchment. By degrees wax, then
leather, were introduced, especially the skins of goats and sheep, of
which at length parchment was prepared; also linen, then silk, horn,
and lastly paper. The rolls or volumes of the ancients were composed
of several sheets, fastened to each other, rolled upon a stick, and
were sometimes fifty feet in length, and about a yard and a half wide.
At first the letters were only divided into lines, then into separate
words, which, by degrees, were noted with accents, and distributed by
points, and stops into periods, paragraphs, chapters, and other
divisions. In some countries, as among the orientals, the lines began
from the right, and ran to the left; in others, as in northern and
western nations, from the left to the right; others, as the Grecians,
followed both directions alternately, going in the one and returning
in the other.
In the Chinese books, the lines run from top to bottom. Again, the
page in some is entire and uniform; in others, divided into columns;
in others, distinguished into text and notes, either marginal or at
the bottom; usually it is furnished with signatures and catch-words,
also with a register to discover whether the book be complete. The
Mahometans place the name of God at the beginning of all their books.
The word _book_ is derived from the Saxon _boc_, which comes from the
northern _buech_, of _buechans_, a beech, or _service-tree_, on the
bark of which our ancestors used to write. A very large estate was
given for one on Cosmography by king Alfred. About the year 1400, they
were sold from 10_l_. to 30_l_. a piece. The first printed one was
the Vulgate edition of the Bible, 1462; the second was _Cicero de
Officiis_, 1466. Leo I. ordered 200,000 to be burnt at Constantinople.
In the suppressed monasteries of France, in 1790, there were found
4,104,412 volumes; nearly one-half were on theology. The end of the
book, now denoted by _finis_, was anciently marked with a <, called
_coronis_, and the whole frequently washed with an oil drawn from
cedar, or citron chips strewed between the leaves, to preserve it from
rotting.
Thus far books; now for the _bookworms_. Anthony Magliabecchi, the
notorious bookworm, was born at Florence in 1633; his passion for
reading induced him to employ every moment of his time in improving
his mind. By means of an astonishing memory and incessant application,
he became more conversant with literary history than any man of his
time, and was appointed librarian to the grand duke of Tuscany. He has
been called a living library. He was a man of a most forbidding and
savage aspect, and exceedingly negligent of his person. He refused to
be waited upon, and rarely took off his clothes to go to bed. His
dinner was commonly three hard eggs, with a draught of water. He had a
small window in his door, through which he could see all those who
approached him; and if he did not wish for their company, he would not
admit them. He spent some hours in each day at the palace library; but
is said never in his life to have gone farther from Florence than to
Pratz, whither he once accompanied Cardinal Norris to see a
manuscript. He died at the age of 81, in the year 1714. In the present
age we have _bookworms_, who wander from one bookstall to another, and
there devour their daily store of knowledge. Others will linger at the
tempting window filled with the "_twopenny_," and read all the open
pages; then pass on to another of the same description, and thus enjoy
literature by the way of _Cheapside_.