ceptions, even in the remotest times; and these two colours have been varied, as luxury, custom, or the taste of the scribe have required. Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus mention sheep, calf, and other skins which were tinged with purple and yellow, and on which the letters were written in gold and silver with reeds. The Romans had their wooden or ivory table-books, and also their tesseræ, covered with green wax: their capital letters, and the titles of their books were likewise executed with vermillion as well as among the Greeks.

The practice of writing with coloured ink on coloured vellum also prevailed in the East; but the red writing was most celebrated in Greece, and under the Greek emperors became a prerogative of the Royal Family. The emperor Leo I. ordained, by an imperial rescript issued in the year 470, that no imperial decree should be considered authentic, unless it were signed by the emperor's hand with purple ink. This regulation continued in force, until the end of the empire; but in the 12th century, the privilege of using purple ink was granted to the great officers of the empire '.

' De Vaines, Dict. de Diplomatique, tom. i. 512. The mark of the Greek emperors' signatures was a cross, made with this sacred ink, which was composed of the blood of the Murex or purple-fish so amply described by Pliny. (Nat. Hist. lib. ix.

In the Augustan age it became the fashion to ornament manuscripts with vermillion; and these decorations afforded employment to a distinct class of artists, who were respectively called rubricatores, illuminatores, miniatores, and miniculatores: at first they decorated the initial letters of periods and paragraphs with red strokes, and afterwards the letters themselves were wholly red'.

St. Jerome, who flourished in the fourth century, states that, in his time, there were books written on parchment of a purple colour, in letters of gold and silver, the covers of which

c. 60.) This shellfish was roasted; and with its pulverized shells the ink was made.

'Pliny relates, (Nat. Hist. lib. xxxv. c. 2.) that Varro wrote the lives of seven hundred illustrious Romans, which he enriched with their portraits: and the celebrated Pomponius Atticus, the friend of Cicero, was the author of a work on the actions of the great men among the Romans, which he ornamented with their portraits. Nepos in Attico, c. 18. The practice of illuminating MSS. continued till the commencement of the 17th century in the first age of printing, many books have the capitals, and also the first letters of periods, formed by the hand, and painted red or blue, but chiefly red. Hence originated the custom of printing the title-pages of books in black and red, which subsisted in France till the close of the 18th century, and which has been adopted in some late reprints of valuable old works, and in a few modern books. It may not be irrelevant to notice further, that the word rubric (which occurs in books of Civil Law and in Liturgies,) originated from this custom.

were splendidly decorated with gems. Ducange has cited similar instances from early ecclesiastical writers'.

Various public libraries, both in our own country and on the continent, contain MSS. chiefly of the Scriptures, on coloured parchment, and written in gold and silver characters: a few of these shall be noticed.

The MS. of the four Gospels in the Cotton Library, entitled Harmonia Evangelica, has the two first leaves of St. Matthew, of a purple colour; and the two or three first pages of each Gospel are in gold capital letters.-The Imperial Library at Vienna possesses a precious MS. of the book of Genesis, on purple vellum, written on letters of gold and silver: it consists of twentysix leaves, and is generally allowed to be at least fourteen hundred years old: there is also in the same library a manuscript fragment of the Gospels of St. Mark and St. Luke, in gold and silver letters. The Codex Aureus, or Golden Book of the Royal Library, at Stockholm, contains the Gospels: the leaves are purple; the letters, partly golden, and partly white, with black capital letters.-The Electoral Library, at Munich, has a Codex quatuor Evangeliorum, of the 9th century, written on violet-coloured paper, with golden letters, and towards the end, with silver

--

Ducange, Gloss. Med. et Inf. Lat. tom. iv. p. 654. col. 2.

letters.-The Codex Argenteus of Ulphilas (preserved in the Library at Upsal,) contains the Four Gospels, written in gold and silver letters on purple vellum. There are, in all, 187 leaves; but this precious relic of antiquity is imperfect at the beginning and end.-The Electoral Library at Dresden possesses a Turkish Chronicle, written on paper of different colours; and Wetstein states that he had seen two Psalters, the one in Greek, then preserved in the Library of Zurich, and the other in Latin, in the Monastery of St. Germain at Paris; both of which were written on purple or violet-coloured parchment'.

Although white paper has hitherto been chiefly employed for printing, both on account of its superior cheapness, as well as for the greater effect which it gives to the letter-press; there are nevertheless extant some works, printed on coloured paper, which it may not be altogether irrelevant shortly to notice. The latter however can only be regarded as articles of curiosity, and must always be rare; because a few copies only have been printed, and the expense of their impression is also much greater than that incident to printing on white paper. M. Peignot has published a very curious Bibliography of

Nov. Test, Wetstenii, tom. i. Prolegom. pp. 1, 2,

the principal works, known to be in existence, on coloured paper'; and from this the inquisitive reader will find some particulars in the Appendix (No. II.) to this volume.

CHAPTER II.

On Manuscripts in general, including the Origin of Writing.

SECTION I.

The Origin of Writing.

Ir is scarcely possible to assign the precise period when mankind first began to give existence to their thoughts, and to transmit their ideas to posterity, by writing: and it is equally difficult. to ascertain what was the form of the first characters. Two modes of writing are generally allowed to have prevailed from a very remote age, 1. The writing or representing of thoughts by figures, suitable to the ideas intended to be conveyed; and 2. The writing of sounds, which is supposed to have succeeded the former; and

1

Repertoire des Bibliographies Speciales, p. 153, et seq. We are also partly indebted to M. Peignot, for the above account of MSS. on coloured vellum, &c.