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I. VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES.-1. Wood. Inscriptions on wood are very ancient, but do not require to be here noticed. Tablets of wood were very early in use, and seem to have been generally employed much in the same way as slates among ourselves; that is, for temporary writing. (See the notes on Num. v. 23.) Sometimes they were single, but frequently from two to five or more leaves were done up into a sort of book, something like our slate-books. The Greeks and Romans usually coated the boards with wax, on which the letters were traced with a style, or pen, commonly of iron, but also of gold, silver, brass, and sometimes ivory or bone. These instruments had one end pointed, to trace the letters, and the other broad and smooth, for the purpose of obliterating what had been written, by spreading back the wax, so as to render it fit to receive other words. In such books, there was in the middle of each leaf a sort of button, to prevent the pages from touching each other when closed. But the greater warmth of their climate prevented the Jews from generally using wax: they, therefore, wrote on the tablets with a kind of ink, which could be easily sponged out when necessary. Such tablets of wood were in use long before the time of Homer, who lived 150 years before Isaiah; and Horne thinks it highly probable that several of the prophets wrote upon tablets of wood, or some similar material. (Compare Isa. xxx. 8, and Habb. ii. 2.) Such certainly was the "writing table" (vide) on which Zecharias wrote the name of his son, John the Baptist. (Luke i. 63; see the note there.) They were not wholly disused in Europe until the fourteenth century; and are still employed in North Africa, Western Asia, and Greece. The leaves of these tablet-books, whether of wood, metal, or ivory, were connected together by rings at the back, through which a rod was passed, that served as a handle to carry them by.

2. Bark of trees.-The fine inner bark of such trees as the lime, ash, maple, or elm, was early used as a substance for writing. As such was called in Latin liber, this name came permanently to be applied to all kinds of books, and has, in a similar connection, been adopted into most European languages. These books, like all others of flexible materials, were rolled up to render them portable, and to preserve the writing. They were usually rolled round a stick or cylinder; and if they were long, round two cylinders. Hence the name volume (volumen)-a thing rolled up-which continues to be applied to books very different from rolls. In using the roll, the reader unrolled it to the place he wanted, and rolled it up again when he had read it. The book of the law, written on parchment, is thus rolled and thus read in the Jewish synagogues at the present time. We do not know that rolls of bark are mentioned in the Scripture, but it does not therefore follow that they were not known to the Jews.

3. Leaves of trees.-Pliny thinks that the most early substance for writing was the leaf of the palm-tree; meaning, we presume, the first flexible substance. Be this as it may, the process is certainly of very remote antiquity; and would be naturally suggested by its being perceived how readily particular leaves received and retained marks made by a pointed instrument. At this day, books made with the leaves of different trees are common among the Indian nations, and specimens of them are numerous in England. The palmyra leaf is that which is most generally used, but others are preferred in some parts, as those of the talipot-tree, in Ceylon, on account of its superior breadth and thickness. The letters are written, or rather engraved, with a fine-pointed style, or sort of bodkin; and the writing is afterwards rubbed over with a composition of oil and pulverized charcoal, which renders the characters distinct and permanent.

4. Papyrus. This was a vegetable tissue, the manufacture of which originated and was, in a great degree, peculiar to Egypt. It is obtained from a bulrush (Cyperus papyrus, Linn.) which grew in the swamps of the Nile to the height of ten or fifteen feet. The parts used in making the papyrus were the thin concentric coats or pellicles that surround the triangular stalk; those nearest the centre being the best and finest. A layer of these was laid out lengthwise on a board, and another layer pasted over it crosswise, and after being pressed and dried in the sun, the sheet was com

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pleted by the surface being polished with a shell, or other hard and smooth substance. A number of these sheets were glued together, to form a roll of the required dimensions. The breadth was determined by the length of the slips taken from the plant; but the length might of course be carried to almost any extent. The largest that has yet been found is thirty feet long. The writing, as in all rolls of whatever material, is not across the length or breadth of the roll, but in columns, extended in the direction of the roll's breadth, with a blank strip between them. Many such rolls have been found in Egypt, in mummy-cases and earthen vessels, and many also in the houses excavated at Herculaneum. The former, though more ancient, are better preserved and more easily unrolled than the latter, which have suffered from the action of heat. The superiority of the papyrus to all other materials previously known, brought it speedily into general use, for books, among the western civilized nations; and it must, in the time of the Apocrypha and New Testament, have been well known to the Jews. Indeed it may probably enough have been known to the prophets; for although the common account makes the discovery posterior to the foundation of Alexandria, this must be an error; since it was extensively used and formed an article of export from Egypt in the time of Herodotus, whose visit to that country was more than a century prior to the foundation of Alexandria. The rush itself is distinctly men

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tioned by Isaiah (xix. 7) in predicting the confusion of Egypt. Our wood-cuts exhibit an Egyptian roll, and others at Herculaneum, in various illustrative circumstances-some unrolled, two in the act of being read; some closed; and others in the boxes in which they were usually kept, several together, deposited vertically and ticketed at the upper extremity with their titles. (See more largely in Egyptian Antiquities, vol. ii. chap. 7; and 'Pompeii,' vol. ii. chap. 13, in Library of Entertaining Knowledge.')

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5. Linen.-The use of linen as a substance for writing on, is allowed to have been long prior to the invention of papyrus. Indeed, it is evident that when men had invented linen cloth for dress, and afterwards began to feel the need of a flexible and durable material for writing, it would naturally occur to them, that, if their linen could be so prepared as to receive and retain the characters, it would be more convenient to form a portable book, than any substance previously known. They soon found how to adapt their tissues to this purpose by priming or painting them all over, before they began to write, the writing itself being also rather painted than written, for the inks of antiquity were rather paints than inks, containing no mordant to give them durability; resembling, in this, the inks now used in the East. That such writing was known to the ancient Egyptians, we know from the written bandages which are sometimes found on mummies. Linen books are mentioned by Pliny and Vopiscus; and Livy speaks of such books that were found in the temple of Moneta. The obvious character of the resource, is also indicated by the fact, that the pictorial epistles of the Mexicans were painted on a cotton tissue. The use of linen was certainly known to the Jews in the time of Moses, the priestly robes being principally of that material; and there are Biblical scholars who think that the original of the Pentateuch and the other books of the Old Testament were written on rolls of linen. The question is certainly open to investigation, as rolls only are mentioned in a general sense, without our being informed of what they were composed. Our own impression certainly is, that when a roll (5, megillah) or "book" (0, sepher) is mentioned, we are to understand that it was either of linen or of the skins of animals-sometimes, perhaps, the one, and sometimes the other.

II. METALLIC SUBSTANCES.-Tablets, and sometimes several tablets formed into a book, like the wooden tablets, consisting of plates of lead, copper, brass, and other metals, were anciently used, either to form leaves on which the wax might be spread, or else for the writing to be engraven upon them. The latter process is exceedingly ancient. Writing on lead is mentioned by Job (xix. 24). Pliny mentions that leaden sheets or plates were used for important public documents. This we learn also from other sources; and brass was also employed for inscriptions intended to be very durable. What Pliny says on the general subject is instructive. "At first men wrote on the leaves of the palm, and the bark of certain other trees; but afterwards public documents were preserved on leaden plates or sheets, and those of a private nature on wax and linen." The order of sequence here is of no weight; we cite it for the facts. Montfaucon 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 Egyptian Gnostic figures and unintelligible writing. Brass, as more durable, was used for the inscriptions designed to last the longest, such as treaties, laws, and alliances. These public documents were, however, usually written on large tablets. The style, for writing on brass and other hard substances, was sometimes tipped with diamond (Jerem. xvii. 1). III. ANIMAL SUBSTANCES.-1. Skins. The skins of animals were in use for writing long before parchment was invented. Herodotus mentions the barbarians as writing or painting on the skins of goats and sheep; and Diodorus describes the ancient Persian records as being kept on the same substance. The recourse was so very obvious that it has prevailed in most countries. Even in America, the Mexicans had books of skins, and the North American Indians had maps painted on skins. It was also certainly one of the most ancient, if not the most ancient form of portable writing; and they have great probability on their side who contend that the books of Moses were written on the skins of sheep or goats. The Jews, then, had most certainly the art of preparing and dyeing skins, for rams' skins dyed red made a part of the covering for the tabernacle. In connection with this fact, the following particulars of a Hebrew MS. roll of the Pentateuch, now in the public library at Cambridge, are very instructive. The roll was discovered by Dr. Claudius Buchanan, in the record-chest of the black Jews in Malabar, supposed to be descended from

the first dispersion of the Hebrew nation by Nebuchadnezzar. The date of the manuscript could not be ascertained, but the text is supposed to have been derived from those copies which their ancestors brought with them to India. It is written on a roll of goat-skins, dyed red, and measures forty-eight feet in length, by twenty-two inches in breadth. As it wants Leviticus and the greater part of Deuteronomy, it is calculated that its original length must have been not less than ninety English feet. In its present condition it consists of 37 skins, comprehending 170 columns, four inches in breadth, and containing each from forty to fifty lines. It is in some places worn out, and the holes have been sewn up with pieces of parchment. (See further particulars in Horne's account of Hebrew Manuscripts in his Introduction,' vol. iv. p. 86-89.) We refer to this remarkable roll merely as representing a very primitive manner of writing important documents, without expressing any opinion as to the date of the roll, or the value of its text. Dr. Buchanan himself states, in his Researches' (p. 236, ninth edit.), that "the Cabul Jews, who travel into the interior of China, say, that in some synagogues the law is still written on a roll of leather, made of goats' skins, dyed red; not on vellum, but on a soft flexible leather."

2. Parchment. This is but an improvement, although a very important one, on the process just mentioned. It was one of the latest, if not the latest of the various processes we have noticed, although some assign it a very early date, for want of adverting to the difference between it and skins less artificially prepared. The improvement is said to have been invented at Pergamos, at a time when Ptolemy Philadelphus prohibited the exportation of papyrus from Egypt, with the view of obstructing the formation of a grand library which Eumenes, king of Pergamos, was forming, and which he feared might eclipse his own great library at Alexandria. It is certain that the best parchment was made at Pergamos, and skins thus prepared were hence called Charta Pergamena, of which our parchment is a corruption. In Greek they are sometimes called membrana (μsußpava), under which name St. Paul mentions them in 1 Tim. iv. 13. Parchment came to be employed for legal, sacred, and other particular classes of works; but the comparative cheapness of papyrus, combined with as much durability as could be required for the more common literary works, maintained it still in general use. The Jews soon began to write their scriptures on parchment, of which the rolls of the law used in their synagogues are still composed.

3. Ivory.-Tablets and tablet-books of ivory, on the same principle as those of wood and metals, were anciently in use, much as they continue to be so among ourselves. They were written on with that paint-like ink which, as we have already noticed, might be washed off when necessary. The Burmese have beautiful books formed of ivory sheets, stained black, on which the characters are gilt or enamelled, and the margins adorned with gilding.

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CHAPTER XXXII.

1 Moses' song, which setteth forth God's mercy and vengeance. 46 He exhorteth them to set their hearts upon it. 48 God sendeth him up to mount Nebo, to see the land, and die.

GIVE ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

2 My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the show. ers upon the grass:

3 Because I will publish the name of the LORD: ascribe ye greatness unto our God.

4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

5 'They have corrupted themselves, 'their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation.

6 Do ye thus requite the LORD, O foolish people and unwise? is not he thy father that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee, and established thee?

7

Remember the days of old, consider

1 Heb. he hath corrupted to himself.

the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.

8 When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.

9 For the LORD's portion is his people; Jacob is the 'lot of his inheritance.

10 He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.

11 As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings:

12 So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.

13 He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock;

2 Or, that they are not his children, that is their blot. Heb. generation and generation.
4 Heb. cord.
Or, compassed him about.

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