is nothing more than a rune. Almanacs are sold, and extremely old ones preserved, which consist of long sticks full of Runic letters, representing days and mouths. Stones with Runic inscriptions are often found, of the twelfth and even the thirteenth century. The laws of Skane, of the fourteenth century, were written in runes, on parchment; and although King Olaf Shatkomeng prohibited their use early, and they were discontinued in all other parts of Sweden, they are still frequently employed in the remote portions of Dalecarlia.

CHAPTER LXIX.

MATERIAL OF WRITING.

Leading Principle-Ropes-Rocks-Metals-Rock Inscriptions now Existing.

No merely external circumstance has probably affected the art of writing so thoroughly and permanently as the material employed for that purpose. The leading principle in choosing the best was, in antiquity, that of durability only; modern times pay almost equal attention to its facility for writing. The most imperfect writing, therefore, are the knotted ropes, in Mexico called quipos, which in America and in China were employed to convey the will of sovereigns to distant provinces, and to assist, generally, in social intercourse. In the East, and in Europe, the earliest step was "to give speech to rocks and metals." Stone was naturally the nearest and most eligible

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On tables of

material for the earliest writing known to us. stone Moses received the law written by the finger of the Lord Himself. Smooth, rocky, mountain sides became gigantic tablets. The rocks of the Sahara are thus covered, as far as the Touarick authority extended, with Touarick letters, sometimes whole blocks being carved all over. J. Richardson, by the aid of an intelligent native, deciphered some of these as yet unknown letters, written both perpendicularly and horizontally, from right to left, and from left to right, and found them to bear an apparent, though only partial and indefinite, resemblance to Shemitic characters. Sometimes the interior of caves is used for the same purpose, as in the case of the picture-writing which Captain Gill celebrated by his exploration of cavetemples, discovered in the famous Ajunta caves. The extensive writings of the same kind, found all over the American Continent, and even in Australia, have already been referred to. The runes of Scandinavia also were frequently carved on huge rocks. Inscriptions on obelisks and pyramids in ancient times, and on marble tablets in our day, furnish abundant examples of the use made of this material. It was necessarily fitted only for short records, brief laws, or mere marks; and in every instance had to contend with the dangers of wanton destruction, and the slow but sure effects of the weather. To this bricks and tiles were less exposed; and thus we can now read on bricks and broken pots excavated at Babylon and Nineveh, the maker's name and the very contract by which he bound himself to his employer.

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CHAPTER LXX.

USE OF METAL.

Bronze-Copper-Lead.-Wood-Wooden tablets-Runes on staves-Wax

covered tablets.

METAL had still greater dangers to apprehend; it is liable to rust, and the more precious, the more costly and liable to be stolen. Still various kinds of metal were used in antiquity; the laws of the Cretans were engraven on bronze; the laws of the Decemvirs, which had first been on wood, were afterwards engraven on brass, but melted by lightning which struck the Capitol at Rome. Copper being less liable to rust, was perhaps most frequently employed; the Romans etched their public records on this metal, and the speech of Claudius, now in the town-hall of Lyons, was thus preserved to modern times; discharges of soldiers, also, on copper plates have been found, and even in Bengal a bill of feoffment has been dug up, etched on copper and dated a century before Christ! Lead would appear to be the best of all metals for the preservation of records, and has been largely used for writing. Job says: "Oh, that my words were graven with an iron pen and lead," and Pliny (Nat. Hist. 1. 16) mentions the works of Hesiod " on white lead," and speaks of some writings on lead, " rolled up like a cylinder." Montfaucon, also, notices a very old book, consisting

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of eight leaden leaves, with rings on the back and thus fastened to a small leaden rod.

Wood, which is more easily cut, bought, and sent abroad, is, on the other hand, so much more perishable than either stone or metal. Still its use was not only of old, very general, but is even now more extended than is commonly known. The laws of the Roman emperors, it is well known, were sometimes cut into wooden tablets, for Horace speaks of "leges incidere ligno." In Hanover, Germany, twelve wooden boards are preserved, overlaid with beeswax, on which are written the names of owners of houses who lived shortly before 1423. In Iceland, also, where wood was then more abundant than now, runes were written on the walls of the houses, and Olof wrote, as the Saga tells us, his own history and that of more ancient times on the bulks and spars of his house, on his chair, and the very bed in which he slept.

The wooden tablets-a diminutive of taba, a shingle-of the later Romans were distinct from the scheda, which Pliny (Nat. Hist. XIII. 11) tells us, were simple wooden boards, and mostly called schedula. They were sometimes painted white, as we find in Theodosius (Cod. 11, 27), from whence the modern word "album," but more frequently covered with wax. The IIívaέ of the Greeks seems to have been the same tablet (Iliad Z. 169), although Solon's laws seem to have been writter on cedar or cypress wood, and were called o aέoves because they turned round a common axis, like the leaves of a modern book. Wax, being from its very nature incorruptible, was first used for the purpose of writing on it last wills, the better to preserve them, hence Juvenal speaks of " ceras implere capaces."

Sometimes, different layers of wax were laid upon the same tablet, and known as "prima" and "secunda cera;" for notes, red wax was used, as Cicero (ad Atticum 15, 4, 16, 19) tell us, and from the material used for coloring (minium) came our modern word "Miniature," whilst the use of a similar red (ruber) for titles and superscriptions explains the original meaning of "Rubric." These wax-covered tables were long in use. The twelve wooden boards, still preserved in Hanover, have been already mentioned; as late as the fifteenth century. wax tablets were used for sketches. Their great convenience for extemporaneous composition and the facility of rubbing out what was no longer required, caused them to be extensively used long after the introduction of papyrus. Authors used to have their works transcribed into parchment books for their own use, and then gave these tablets to "librarii" or scribes for publication. They must have often been very large and heavy, for in Plautus a schoolboy breaks his teacher's head with such a waxed tablet, and Quinctilian expresses his preference for them, because their size allows of large letters, and they are, therefore, not so trying to the eyes. Occasionally they were ornamented with gold borders, as we read in Propertius, and Cicero mentions that for purposes of correction a piece of red wax was fixed by the side of faulty or obscure phrases.