as her merits deserved. The play was George Barnwell, in which she supported the character of the infamous Millwood with great talent. Le petit Souper, a melange which Miss Macauley has given with great success in other parts of the metropolis followed; and seemed to afford much gratification to the Surrey visitors.

to endeavour to atone for his misdeeds;

Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, struck with remorse for the crime of murder, of which he had been guilty, deter mines to retire altogether from society, and, by a life of solitude and repentance, and he suddenly leaves his court, and takes up his abode in a lonely cottage on the summit of a portion of the Alps, called the Desert Mountain. Here he ADELPHI THEATRE.-A new piece, assumes the garb and habits of a recluse, from the pen of Mr. Moncrieff, was but occasionally visits the poor inhabiproduced at this house, on Monday tants of the valley, alleviating their disnight, on a scale of magnificence which tresses and dispensing good to all, always, however, appearing closely disguised, is seldom witnessed in a minor theatre. and seldom exchanging a word with them. It is entitled Tom and Jerry, and is In this valley is situate the Priory of Unfounded on Pierce Egan's Life in Londerlach, the seat of D'Hertsall, with whom don, a work in high favour with the is residing his niece, Eloise, the orphan fancy.' The object of this piece is to child of St. Maur, who had been murrepresent, faithfully, the varied scenes dered by the Solitary. The fame of the which the metropolis presents; and Solitary has reached the priory, and his many acts of benevolence have already this is done in twenty excellent scenes, exhibiting life in all its varieties, and the fair Eloise; and he, having had opexcited a strong interest in the mind of shewing the very age and holy of the portunities of seeing her in her walks, is time, its form and pressure.' The story inspired with the strongest passion, but, is that of a young country gentleman, conscious that his crimes preclude the Squire Hawthorn, coming to London possibility of a union, he resolves to to see Life,' where his friends, Corin- watch over and protect her with the solithian Tom and Bob Logic, take him to citude of a guardian angel. At this time, every place at which 'life' is to be seen, the Count de Palzo, an ambitious intrifrom Almack's down to the Noah's guiging libertine, sees Eloise, becomes enamoured of her, and having obtained Ark in the Holy Land. The last permission of the baron to rest a day or scere presented a group of beggars, as two at the priory, he employs his confiwell dressed for the purpose of excit- dant, Michelli, and others of his vassals, ing pity and operating on the feelings to carry her off. The plan, however, is of the humane, as the Mendicity So- thwarted by the Solitary, who rescues ciety itself could collect: even the her from the ruffians, and drives Michelli costume and the names of some of the to the Desert Mountain, where he extorts

From this sketch it will be seen that the piece abounds with striking situa tions, and with incidents of a powerfully interesting nature. Mr. H. Johnston, who made his first appearance at this theatre in the character of the Re cluse, portrayed the conflicting pas sions which agitate the soul of Charles the Bold with great feeling, and Miss S. Booth made a powerful impression on the sympathies of the audience in her delineation of the feelings and emo tions of the amiable and interesting, but ill-fated Eloise. Mr. Power was excellent in the Baron, particularly in the last scene.

The scenery deserves much praise, particularly the Summit of the Desert Mountain by moonlight, and a Mountainous Pass, with a distant View of the Devil's Bridge.

Literature and Science.

Professor Lee is preparing, in Persian and English, the whole controver sy of Mr. Martyn with the learned in Persia, as a manual for missionaries, whereby they may establish the truth of the Scriptures against Mahomme

danism.

Mr. I. G. Walker is engraving a Print, the Portrait of Dame Brettell, late of Twickenham, who lived to the age of 103 years, 10 months, and 24 days, enjoying her faculties to the last.

most notorious of the London mendi- from him all the villainous secrets of his Soot in the Preservation of Animal

cants were preserved in this fac simile of a Beggar's Opera in St. Giles's. The scenery was excellent, and the performers exerted themselves with much spirit, particularly Wrench, - Burroughs, and Wilkinson, the heroes of the piece; and Mrs. Baker and Mrs. Waylett, and Mrs. Hammersley, the heroines, assumed a variety of characters which they enacted very appropriately. Mr. Callaghan sustained, we believe, nine different characters, which, though extremely varied, he portrayed very happily. The house was crowded to excess before the rising of the curtain, and the piece is likely to prove a great favourite.

Singular Proof of the Efficacy of master, with which he acquaints Eloise. Matter.-A short time since, on the De Palzo then asks Eloise in marriage, but she rejects him, and in an interview removal of a board in the interior of a in the gardens of the priory, she discloses chimney in a gentleman's drawingher knowledge of his secrets, at which room in York, a pigeon was found he becomes furious, and is about to stab that had been missing nearly five her, when she is again preserved by the months. Its body had become quite intervention of the Solitary, who declares hard, and the feathers so firmly athis passion to Eloise, and obtains an ac-tached to it, that, with the addition of knowledgment that it is reciprocal. Still the dreadful obstacles which his crimes a pair of glass eyes, it would have present, rush upon his mind, and, after equalled almost any preservation in the a powerful struggle, he resolves to leave finest collection of the feathered tribe. her for ever, now that he has secured her Galvanic Phenomena.-The body of from danger; and he accordingly returns George Thom, who was executed at to the mountain. De Palzo, meanwhile, Aberdeen, last week, having, agreeaattacks and fires the priory, and D'Hert-bly to his sentence, been given for distain, where the Solitary ventures to solisall and Eloise escape to the Desert Moun- section to Drs. Skene and Ewing, was cit her in marriage; D'Hertsall demands as subjected to a series of galvanic expeOLYMPIC THEATRE.-A new melo- a preliminary, that the Solitary should dis-riments, of which, with their results, drama of extravagant but powerful in-close his name and quality; the latter raises we subjoin the following brief acterest, was produced at this theatre on his vizor, and the Baron with horror disco. count: Monday night: it is called Le Soli-vers in the suitor of his niece, the setaire, or the Recluse of the Alps, and is adapted from a French piece now performing at Paris with great success; it is indebted for its English dress to Mr. Planché. The following is an outline of the story;

ducer of his own child and the murderer
of his brother. The Duke solicits for-
cates the heaviest curses upon his head.
giveness, but in vain: the Baron impre-
The discovery is too much for the tender-
hearted Eloise; a death-chill comes over
her, and she dies in the arms of the Duke.

The body was brought into the dissecting-room, about an hour after suspension, and still retained nearly its natural heat. sciatic nerve were immediately laid bare, The upper part of the spinal cord and the and a galvanic arc was then established, by applying the positive wire to the spine, and the negative to the Sciatic nerve

at the moment when the besiegers were
ready to fire a canuon, and had applied
the match, a ball fired from the garri-
son entered the mouth of the cannon,
and, without doing any mischief, was
re-discharged from the cannon which
it had entered!

In the 7th year of the reign of Wil-
liam the Third, there was a tax of 301.
upon the birth of a duke, and two
shillings upon that of a common per-
son; for the burial of a duke 501.-
common person four shillings.

At a sale of farming stock in Glou-
cestershire, the auctioneer
following poetical and extempore de-
gave the
scription of a beautiful cow:-

Long in her sides,-bright in her eyes,
Short in her legs,-thin in her thighs,
Big in her rib,-wide in her pins,
Full in her bosom,-small in her shins;
Long in her face,-fine in her tail,—
And never deficient in filling the pail.

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when a general convulsive starting of the
body was produced. Another communi-
cation was then made between the spine
and the ulnar nerve, and considerable
contractions took place in the arm and
fore-arm. When the circle was formed
with the spine and radial nerve, both at
the elbow and wrist successively, power-
ful contractions of the muscles of the
whole arm and hand were produced.
The hand was closed with such violence,
as to resist the exertions of one of the as-
sistants to keep it open. When a con-
nexion was established between the ra-
dial nerve and the supra and infra orbital
nerves, strong contractions of the muscles
French Modesty.-It is related by
of the brow, face, and mouth were pro- a Latin historian, (says the editor of a
duced, so as to affect the under jaw, and Paris paper) that in every one of the
to distort the countenance in a very sin- great exploits which added to the lustre
gular manner. The eye-lids were strongly of the Roman arms, a Gaul has always
contracted; and when the wire was ap- been present. In spite of the partizans
plied directly to the ball of the eye, the who would degrade this race, it is evi-
Tris contracted and dilated very sensibly. dent that we have not degenerated.-
A galvanic circle being formed, first be.
tween the par vagum and diaphragm, and We can with pride affirm, that French-
then between that muscle and the great men have been found in all places
sympathetic, little obvious effect was pro-where dangers were to be encountered,
duced. After applying galvanism direct- or glory gained. It is to French refu-
ly to the nerves above-mentioned, the gees that the inhabitants of New Or-
skin of the face was moistened with water, leans attribute the honour of the vic-
and, upon running the wire over different
parts of it, similar effects were produced fish. They were Frenchmen who as
tory which they gained over the Eng-
in the muscles of the face, as by direct
communication made with the nerves.
sisted in gaining the battle that insured
The tongue also moved in all directions, the independence of Chili.-There was
by touching the surface with the galvanic also a Frenchman in that glorious and2s. 6d.
wire. The whole experiments were per-sacred battalion which was extermin-
formed in about an hour and a quarter, ated by the Turks, after it had made
when the heat of the body was considera- them purchase their shameful victory
bly diminished. A powerful galvanic at so dear a rate. His name was Bor-
apparatus (consisting of about 300 pair of
plates) was used; but, from not being in-dier, and he died on the field of battle,
sulated, a considerable quantity of the after performing prodigies of valour.
galvanism escaped, so that every metallic At that time fortune was not favoura-
substance about the table was highly ble to the ranks which contained a
charged.
child of France. But men, who so
of-
ten conquer, are worthy of dying at
Thermopyla."

The Bee.

Floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia limant, Omnia nos itidem depascimur aurea dicta.' LUCRETIUS.

Specimen of the pun annoying :Oxberry, in Life in London, gets a box-o'-the-ear, upon which he exclaims- Now am I a pickled donkey; I am ass-salted.'

One of his Majesty's frigates, I forget her name, being at anchor on a winter's night in a tremendous gale of wind, the ground broke and she began to drive. The lieutenant of the watch ran down to the captain, awoke him from his sleep, and told him the anchor had come home;- Well,' cried the captain, rubbing his eyes, I think our anchor is perfectly right, for who the devil would stay out in such a night as this.'-Sam Spritsail.

Thesaurus relates, in his history, that at the siege of Groningen, in 1594,

Both the words and the melody of this admired Song are sweet, natural, and approthe interesting event it commemorates, is well priate. It is, in fact, perfectly descriptive of adapted for Juvenile Performers from its simplicity, and cannot fail of proving a source of amusement to the domestic circle during the festive season, while it will be long remembered by the learner.

2. GOOD OLD TIMES;' as sung by Mr. Wilkinson, Is. 6d.

3. NO TIME IS LIKE THE PRESENT, as

sung by Miss Stevenson.-1s. 6d.

4. THE MINSTREL;' a favourite Rondo, for the Piano-Forte or Harp, by M. Holst,

Printed and sold by W. PINNOCK, 267, St.
Clement's Church-yard, London.
ranted, for sale, hire, or exchange.
N. B. Superior Toned Piano-Fortes, war-

་

TO READERS & CORRESPONDENTS.

'MODERN Periodicals, or the Vision of Peter Pendegras, The Lily and the Rose,' Colin and Alice,' and 'Stanzás by Eliza,' in

our next.

"Parish Feasting" shall be inserted in the course of a fortnight; our official duties, as Carolina Criminal Code.—At a ses churchwarden, will then have expired, and we sions in Charlston, J. Hutton, for kill-shall be as much in love with economy as any of our neighbours. ing a Negro, was fined 501. and G. Burrows and R. Welsh, for Negro stealing, were sentenced to be hanged!

Anecdate. In the hard frost in the year 1740, the Company of Vinters bought a large ox in Smithfield, to be roasted on the ice, on the river Thames. Mr. Hodgeson, a butcher in Saint James's Market, claimed the privilege of knocking down the beast, as a right inherent in his family, his father having knocked down the ox roasted on the river in the great frost 1684, and as he himself did that roasted in 1715, near Hungerford Stairs. The beast was fixed to a stake in the open market, and Mr. Hodgeson was dressed in a rich laced cambrick apron, a silver steel, and a hat and feather, to perform his office!.

The 'Sonnet on Life,' Search after Happiness,' the favours of Mr. Hatt, J. W. D, G. A. N, Thomas (we wish it had been John) Clare, and Mac, shall be inserted as early as

we can make room for them.

S. T.'s Dove' must not find a resting place in our ark.

The author of the 'Fragmenta Dramatica,'

will find a letter at our office.

write any thing rather than birth-day odes; we have already a stock by us for every day in the year, and sonnets to fair ladies of all ages, from the girl of fifteen to the widow of fifty. Erratum: p. 737, c. 2, 1. 22 from bottom, for 'near'st' read 'wear'st.'

We wish some of our poetical friends would

London:-Published by J. Limbird, 355, Strand, ments are received, and communications for the Editor (post paid) are to be addressed. Suld abse by Souter, 23, St. Paul's Church Fard; Simpkin Mall; Grapel, Liverpool; and by all Booksellers and Marshall, Stationer's Court: Chapple, Pall

two doors East of Exeter Change; where advertise.

and Newsvenders-Printed by Davidson, Old Bor well Court, Carey Street.

And Weekly Review;

Forming an Analysis and General Repository of Literature, Philosophy, Science, Arts, History, the Drama, Morals, Manners, and Amusements.

This Paper is published early
early every Saturday Morning; and is forwarded Weekly, or in Monthly or Quarterly Parts, throughout the British Dominions.

No. 134.

LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1821. Price 6d.

Review of New Books.

Illustrations of Biblical Literature; exhibiting the History and Fate of

vine revelation. He thinks that the
Hebrew, the Samaritan, the Syriac,
and the Greek alphabets, have had but
one author, and that the Samaritan is
the oldest, its ancient characters being

volume, by means of two strings, which also pass through the two wooden boards that serve for binding. In the finer binding of these kinds of books, the boards cut smooth and gilded, and the title is liest Period to the present Century; brews. In this character he supposes cords are, by a knot or jewel, secured at including Biographical Notices of the Decalogue to have been inscribed a little distance from the boards, so as to Translators and other Eminent Bion the tables of stone, and that it was prevent the book from falling to pieces, blical Scholars. By the Rev. James continued in use among the Jews un- but sufficiently distant to admit of the upTownley, Author of Biblical Anec-til the time of Ezra, when the Chal- per leaves being turned back, while the dotes. 3 vols. 8vo. pp. 1606. Lon-dee or present Hebrew characters was lower ones are read. The more elegant don, 1821. & books are in general wrapped up in silk NUMEROUS as the bibliographical and adopted. After noticing the engrav-cloth, and bound round by a garter, in ing of the Decalogue on stone, by the which the Burmas have the art to we historical works are, in which the dif- order of Moses, and similar species of the title of the book." ferent versions of the Scriptures, their record since adopted, as the celebratmultiplied editions, and general histo-ed laws of the Twelve Tables among ry have been expressly considered or the Romans, the engraving of laws on incidentally noticed, yet we do not re- tables of brass, by the Greeks, &c. collect any that embraces so extensive, Mr. Townley thus traces the progress or we might add, so able a view of the of writing :subject as the work now before us. Though Mr. Townley is a clever in- ancient methods of writing was upon the tion being 16 inches in length and 14

the Sacred Writings, from the ear-those originally in use aniong, the He-written on the upper board; the two

the earliest date to the commencement of

According to Pliny, one of the most

weave

ter into the substance of the leaf. The

A beautifully written Indian manuscript now lies before me. The characters are minute and neatly executed. They have been written or engraved so as to enink is black. The whole is composed of 'seven distinct portions of leaf, each porto each other from end to end of the leaf. inch in breadth, the lines running parallel Two holes are made in each leaf about six inches asunder. A string passed through the holes at each end, secures the whole; but the leaves being written on both sides, must be untied before they

can be read.

vestigator of biblical antiquities, and leaves of the palm tree, and afterwards displays a research, deep, patient, and upon the inner bark of trees. This mode acute, yet his work is not merely a dry of writing is still common in the east. In collection of facts, fit only for the stu- Tanjore and other parts of India, the Paldious, but it possesses a general inter-myra-leaf is used, on which they engrave est, likely to rivet the attention of the with an iron style or pen; and so expert are the natives, that they can write fludesultory reader. The Ceylonese sometimes make use Mr. Townley, who was already fa-tly what is spoken deliberately. They do not look much at their ollas, or leaves, of the palm-leaf, and sometimes of a kind vourably known to the public by his while writing, the fibre of the leaf serving of paper, made of bark, but most gene• Biblical Anecdotes,' has, in the pre- to guide the pen, The aptitude of the rally employ the leaf of the Talipot-tree. sent work, given a connected view of Christian Hindoos to copy the sermons the history of biblical translations, and they hear, is particularly noticed by the From these leaves, which are of immense of the state of sacred literature from Rev. Dr. C. Buchanan, in his Christian size, they cut out slips, from a foot to a foot and a half long, and about a couple Researches, p. 66, where he observes, that whilst the Rev. Dr. John delivered of inches broad. These slips are smoothed, and all excrescences paired off with a an animated discourse in the Tamul tongue, many persons had their ollas in their knife, and are then, without any other hands, writing the sermon in Tamul short-preparation, ready to be used. A fine hand." Dr. Francis Buchanan, in a vapointed steel pencil, like a bodkin, and luable essay on the religion and litera- set in a wooden or ivory handle, is emture of the Burmas," informs us, that "in ployed to write or rather to engrave their In the first part of the work, which their more elegant books, the Burmas letters on these talipot sfips, which are contains the history of biblical litera-write on sheets of ivory, or on very fine very thick and tough; and in order to render the writing distinct and permanent, pulverized charcoal. They afterwards string several slips together, by a piece of twine passed through them, and attach them to a board in the same way as we file newspapers. In those letters or dispatches which were sent by the King of Candy to the Dutch government, the writing was inclosed in leaves of beaten gold, in the shape of a cocoa-tree leaf. This was rolled up in a cover richly orna

the present century, with such occasion al sketches of the manners and superstitions of the earlier ages, as serve to illustrate the advantages derivable from more general dissemination of the Sacred Writings.

white palmyra leaves. The ivory is stained

ture from the giving of the law to the black, and the margins are ornamented they rub them over with oil mixed with

birth of Christ,' we have a most eru- with gilding, while the characters are
dite and interesting account of the enamelled or gilded. On the palmyra
origin of writing, and the materials used leaves the characters are in general of
at various periods and in different black enamel, and the ends of the leaves
countries for that purpose.
Mr. and margins are painted with flowers in
In their more
Townley does not think letters of various bright colours.
merely human invention, but that common books, the Burmas, with an iron
Moses was instructed in the know- style, engrave their writing on palmyra
leaves. A hole through both ends of each
ledge of alphabetical characters by di-leaf serves to connect the whole into a

VOL. III.

3 C-52

mented, and almost hid in a profusion of pearls and other precious stones. The whole was inclosed in a box of silver or ivory, which was sealed with the king's

great seal.

the

Diodorus Siculus affirms, that the Persians of old wrote all their records on skins; and Herodotus, who flourished more than five hundred and fifty years before the Christian era, informs us, that sheep skins and goat skins were made use of in writing by the ancient Ionians. Mr. Yeates even thinks it exceedingly proba ble, that the very autograph of the Law written by the hand of Moses, was upon prepared skins. In Exodus xxvi. 14. we read that rams' skins, dyed red, made part of the covering for the tabernacle; and it is a singular circumstance, that in year 1806, Dr. Claudius Buchanan obtained from one of the synagogues of the black Jews, in the interior of Malay ala, in India, a very ancient manuscript roll, containing the major part of the Hebrew Scriptures, written upon goats' skin, mostly dyed red; and the Cabul Jews, who travel annually into the interior of China, remarked that, in some synagogues, the Law is still found written on aroll of leather, not on vellum, but on a soft flexible leather made of goats' skins, and dyed red. Of the six synagogue copies of the Pentateuch in rolls, which are all at present known in England, exclusive of those in the possession of the Jews, five are are upon skins or leather, and the other upon vellum. One of these is in the Collegiate Library at Manchester, and has never been collated. It is written upon basil, or brown African skins, and measures in length one hundred and six feet, and is about twenty inches in breadth, The letters are black and well preserved, and the whole text is without points, ac. cents, or marginal additions.

The skins of fishes were also sometimes employed for writing upon; and Zonoras relates, that the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer were written upon the intestines of a serpent, in characters of gold, forming a roll one hundred feet in length. This singular work is said to have been consumed in the dreadful fire which happened at Constantinople in the fifth century, and destroyed nearly the whole city, together with the library, containing twenty thousand volumes.

also said to have been inscribed on a letters, almanacks, &c. were engraven
leaden table, carefully preserved in the upon wood; and because Beech was most
Temple of the Muses, which, when shewn plentiful in Denmark, (though Fir and
to Pausanias, was almost entirely cor- Oak be so in Norway and Sweden) and
roded through age. According to Pliny, most commonly employed in these ser-
the public documents were written in vices, from the word bog, which, in their
leaden volumes after the use of the pu- language, is the name of that sort of wood;
gillares, or wooden tablets, had been laid they and all other northern nations have
aside. Thin plates of lead, reduced to a the name of book. The poorer sort used
very great degree of tenuity by the mal-bark, and the horns of rein-deer and elks
let, were occasionally used, particularly were often finely polished, and shaped
for epistolary correspondence. Eneas into books of several leaves. Many of
Poliorceticus tells us, that they were
their old calendars are likewise upon
beaten with a hammer until they were
bones of beasts and fishes; but the inscrip-
rendered very thin and pliable; that they tions on tapestry, bells, parchment, and
were sometimes sewed up between the paper, are of later use."
*
soles of the shoes; that even the messen-
ger who carried them was ignorant of the
circumstance; and that while he slept,
the correspondent to whom they were
addressed unsewed the shoes, read the
letters, replaced others, and thus carried
on a secret intercourse without suspicion.

*

A singular custom still prevails at Pamber, near Basingstoke, in Hampshire. The court-leet holden annually for that manor, is opened sub dio, in a small piece of ground called Lady-Mead, which belongs to the tithingman for the It was also an ancient practice to write year. Thence an adjournment is made upon thin smooth planks, or tables of to a neighbouring public-house. The wood. Pliny says that table-books of proceedings of the court are recorded on wood were in use before the time of Ho- a piece of wood, called a tally, about mer. The Chinese, before the invention three feet long, and an inch and-a-half of paper, engraved with an iron tool upon square, furnished every year by the stewthin boards, or upon bamboo; and in the ard. One of these singular records, was Sloanian Library at Oxford, are six spe-law-suit at Winchester. The mode of some time ago produced in evidence in a cimens of Kufic, or ancient Arabic writing, on boards about two feet in length and six inches in depth.

keeping accounts by tallies, or cleft pieces of wood, in which the notches are cut on one piece conformably to the other, one part being kept by the creditised in many parts of England, in partitor, the other by the debtor, is still praccular cases. A tally continues to be given by the Exchequer, to those who pay money there upon loans; hence the origin of the teller, or tally-writer of the Exchequer; and also of the phrase-to tally, to fit, to suit, or answer exactly.

The original manner of writing among the ancient Britons was by cutting the let ters with a knife upon sticks, which were most commonly squared, and sometimes formed into three sides; consequently, a single stick contained either four or three lines. (See Ezek. xxxvii. 16.) Several sticks, with writing upon them, were put together, forming a kind of frame, which was called Peithyen, or Elucidator, and was so constructed that each stick might The Scythians also conveyed their be turned for the facility of reading, the ideas by marking or cutting certain fiend of each running out alternately on gures and a variety of lines upon splinters both sides of the frame. A continuation or billets of wood; and amongst the Laof this mode of writing may be found in cedemonians, the scytale laconica was a the Runic, or Log Almanacks of the Nor-little round staff, which they made use of thern States of Europe, in which the en-to write their secret letters. In the Apograving on square pieces of wood has crypha, (2 Esdras, xiv. 24. 37. 44.) we been continued to the present time. A late writer informs us, the Boors of Esel, an island of the Baltic Sea, at the entrance of the Gulph of Livonia, continue the practice of making these rude calendars for themselves; and that they are in use likewise in the isles of Ruhn and Mohn. Two curious specimens of the Runic Almanacks are in the Collegiate Library at

read of a considerable number, i. e. two hundred and four books being made of box-wood, and written upon in the open (lib. ii. ch. 12,) says, that the ancient field by certain swift writers. AulusGellius, laws of Solon, preserved at Athens, were cut in tablets of wood, and denominated axones. These were quadrangular, and so contrived as to turn on axes, and to present their contents on all sides to the Bishop Nicholson, in his English His-eyes of the passengers. The laws on torical Library, remarks,-"The Danes those wooden tables, as well as those on (as all other ancient people of the world) stone, were inscribed after the manner registered their more considerable trans-called boustrophedon; that is, the first line, actions upon rocks, or on parts of them beginning from right to left or from left hewn into various shapes and figures. On to right, and the second in an opposite dithese they engraved such inscriptions as rection, as ploughmen trace their furwere proper for their heathen altars, triumphal arches, sepulchral monuments, and genealogical histories of their ances tors. Their writings of less concern, as

From Job xix. 24, it appears to have been usual in his day, to write or engrave upon plates of lead, which might easily be done with a pen or graver or style of iron, or other hard metal. Montfaucon Manchester. assures us, that in 1699, he bought, at Rome, a book entirely of lead, about four inches long by three inches wide. Not only the two pieces which formed the cover, but also all the leaves, in number six, the stick inserted into the rings which held the leaves together, the hinges, and the nails, were all of lead, without exception. It contained Egyptian Gnostic figures and unintelligible writing.

The Works and Days of Hesiod are

rows.'

A similar mode of writing was in use among the ancient Irish, by whom it was called Cionn fa cite,

It was

there is an article of disbursement, for a
tablet covered with green wax, to be
kept in the chapel for noting down with a

writing upon; and books written on it existed in the third century. The bark of oak was also used for the same purpose.

disused by the Greeks about four hundred and fifty-seven years before the Christian era, but the Irish retained it to a much later period. Mr. Town-style, the respective courses of duty al-Hence the Latins called a book liber," ley is of opinion, that several of the pro-choir. Shakespeare alludes to this mode ternately assigned to the officers of the phets wrote upon tablets of wood:of writing, in his " Timon of Athens:" My free drift

--

In the year 485, during the reign of the Emperor Zeno, the remains of St. Barnabas are said to have been found near Salamis, with a copy of the Gospel of St. Matthew, in Hebrew, laid upon his breast, written with his own hand, upon leaves of thyme-wood, a kind of wood particularly odoriferous and valuable. (Suid. Lex. v. Ouva) Tablets of this kind were generally covered with wax, sometimes also with chalk or plaster; and written upon with styles or bodkins. In epistolary correspondence, they were tied together with thread, and the seal put upon the knot. These tablets, when

collected and fastened together, composed a book called codex or caudex, i. e. a trunk, from its resemblance to the trunk of a tree, sawed into planks; but when they consisted of only two leaves, they were termed libri diptychi.

Waxen tablets continued to be occa-
sionally used till a very late period. Du
Cange cites the following lines from a
French Metrical Romance, written about
A. D. 1376:-

"Les uns se prennent à ecrire,
Des greffes en tables de cire;
Les autres suivent la coustume
De former lettres à la plume.
Some with the antiquated style,
On waxen tablets promptly write;
Others, with finer pen, the while
Form letters lovelier to the sight."

Halts not particularly, but moves itself
In a wide sea of wax.

Even so late as A. D. 1718, several of
the collegiate bodies in France, especially
the chapter of the Cathedral of Rouen,
retained these tablets, for the purpose of
marking the successive rotation of the mi-

nisters of the choir.

Tables, or table-books, were sometimes made of slate, in the form of a small portable book, with leaves and clasps. Such a one is engraved in Gesner's treatise De Rerum Fossilium Figu: ris, &c. Tigur, 1565, 12mo. and copied by Douce, in his Illustrations of Shakespeare, vol. ii. p. 227. The learned author thus describes it :-" Pugillaris é laminis saxi nigri fissilis, cum stylo ex eodem. A table-book made of thin plates of black stone, with a style of the same material."

By a law among the Romans, the edits of the senate were directed to be written on tablets of ivory, thence denominated libri elephanti. And Pliny, (lib. viii. ch. iii.) says, that from want of the teeth of the elephant, which are alone of ivory, they had lately begun to saw the

bones of that animal.

and the Greeks used the word 605 which signifies the inner bark of a tree; (Phloios), which also means bark.

The use of bark for this purpose still prevails in some parts of Asia; thus the sacred books of the Burmans are sometimes composed of thin stripes of bamboo, delicately plaited, and varnished over in such a manner as to form a smooth and hard surface upon a leaf of any dimensions: this surface is afterwards gilt, and the sacred letters are traced upon it int black and shining japan; the margin is illuminated by wreaths and figures of gold on a red, green, or black ground. The Battas also, one of the nations who inhabit the island of Sumatra, form their books of the inner bark of a certain tree;

one of which, in the Batta character, is in the Sloanian Library, (No, 4726,) written in perpendicular columns, on a long piece of bark, folded up so as to represent a book.

sun From this papyrus it is, that what we now make use of to write upon hath

also the name of papyr, or paper; though

Of the several kinds of PAPER, used at different periods, and manufactured from various materials, the Egyptian is unquestionably the most ancient. The exact date of its discovery is unknown; and even the place where it was first made is matter of dispute. According to Isidore, it was first made at Memphis; and, acCording to others, in Seide, or Upper Egypt. It was manufactured from the 'Dr. Shaw, (Travels, p. 194,) informs inner films of the papyrus or biblos, a sort us, that in Barbary, the children who are of flag or bulrush, growing in the marshes sent to school write on a smooth thin of Egypt. The outer skin being taken There are many ample and authentic which may be wiped off or renewed at skins, one within another. These, when board, slightly daubed over with whiting, off, there are next several films or inner records of the royal household of France, pleasure, and thus learn to read, to write, separated from the stalk, were laid on a of the 13th and 14th centuries, still pre- and get their lessons by heart, all at the table, and moistened with the glutinous served, written on waxen tablets. In the same time. The Copts, who are employ-wards pressed together, and dried in the waters of the Nile. They were afterreligious houses in France, they were constantly kept for temporary notation, ed by the great men of Egypt, in keep. and for registering the capitular acts of ing their accounts, &c. make use of a sort of pasteboard for that purpose, from the monasteries. Specimens of wooden which the writing is occasionally wiped tables, filled up with wax, and construct-off with a wet sponge. References to a ed in the fourteenth century, were for-similar mode of writing are frequent in merly preserved in several of the monasScripture: see particularly Numbers, v. tic libraries. Some of these contained 23.; Nehemiah, xiii. 14. et al. In Inthe household expenses of the sovereigns, dia, it has been the practice from time &c. and consisted of as many as twenty immemorial, to teach children to read by pages, formed into a book by means of parchment bands glued to the backs of writing in sand; and from thence are dethe leaves. One remaining in the Ab- and Lancasterian systems of instruction, rived some parts of the present Madras bey of St. Germaine Des-prez, at Paris, practised by the Rev. Dr. Bell and Mr. recorded the expenses of Philip le Bel, Lancaster." during a journey that he made in the year 1307, on a visit to Pope Clement V; a single leaf of this table-book is exhibit ed in the Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique, tom. i. p. 468. Amongst the monks of St. Victor of Paris, where the rule of silence was rigorously observed, certain signs were enjoined, to prevent the necessity of speaking; Du Cange, (v. Signa,) notices many of them, and among others, those by which they asked for the style and tablet. In an accompt-roll of Winchester College, for the year 1395,

When the ancient Egyptians designed their writings to last, they used linen rags; several specimens of which are preserved in the British Museum, and other depositories of antiquities:

The bark of trees is another material which has been employed in every age and quarter of the globe; and was called Xylochartion by the Greeks. Before the use of the papyrus became general, the bark of the philyra, a species of the linden tree, was frequently made use of for

of quite another nature from the ancient papyrus. Bruce, the well-known Abyssinian traveller, had in his possession a large and very perfect manuscript on papyrus, which had been dug up at Thebes, and which he believed to be the only perfect one known. "The boards," or cohe, "of papyrus root, covered first with vers for binding the leaves, "are," says the coarse pieces of the paper; and then

with leather, in the same manner as it

would be done now. It is a book one

would call a small folio, rather than by any other name. The letters are strong, deep, black, and apparently written with a reed, as is practised by the Egyptians and Abyssinians still. It is written on both sides. I gave Dr. Woide leave to translate it, at Lord North's request; it is a

Gnostic book, full of their dreams." The form of the book, in Mr. Bruce's possession, appears to be different from that in general use among the ancient Egyptians, for Pliny (Lib. xiii, ch. xxiii.) af