racter on the interests of his country. These are the men who have been most generally selected— and justly so for the honours of the crown, whom the nation has contributed to honour, and to proclaim as the benefactors of their country.

Fortunately for the advancement of mankind, by the art of the printer the labours of the learned in every branch of knowledge, if attempted to be extirpated in one country of Europe, find refuge in another; and driven from thence, either by the tyranny or ignorance of some future Omar or Condorcet, will still find a refuge in some of those numerous colonies which the perseverance, courage, and enterprise, of the Anglo-Saxon race have established in other regions of the globe.

Before concluding this portion of my subject, a few remarks on the method of ascertaining the age of MSS. may not be irrelevant. Manuscripts which are written in capitals, or have several of their words joined together without any distinction of situation, belong to the seventh century or earlier; and such as are written in capitals, without any distinction of the words at all, belong to the fifth century, while some of them are much older. Saxon characters were in use in England from the seventh

to the 12th century, and a few are found in the 13th century. The Saxon character for th was, however, retained until the end of the 15th century, and the common contraction ye for the, is merely a corruption of the Saxon th. MSS. that have several of the diphthongs æ divided, belong to the 9th and 10th century, except in some written about the period of the invention of printing, when the scribes began to imitate the hands of the books which they copied. Most of these have been executed in Italy. Those MSS. which use the single vowel, may be referred to the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries: Greek MSS. without accents are as ancient as the 7th century.

Perhaps it may not be out of place also to mention the instruments commonly used in writing. By the ancient Greeks the reed, largely supplied from Egypt, was at first used, afterwards small hollow canes. Both of these continued to be used by the modern Greeks, by the Tartars, Persians, Turks, and Indians; the latter using the small hollow bamboo cane, cut about the length and thickness of our quill pen. The Romans used an iron style, sharp at one end, to write on leaves of wood, the common medium in use, and blunt at the other end, for the purpose of defacing or correcting. These were dangerous weapons. Cæsar is said to have seized the arm of Cassius in full senate and pierced it

with his style, a very bad evidence of the spirit of regularity and order which might have been expected in these meetings of the Conscript Fathers. That they were common amongst the people also, may be concluded from the circumstance that a Roman knight, having scourged his son to death, was attacked in the forum by the mob, stabbed in many parts of his body with their iron styles, and narrowly escaped with life. These styles were subsequently prohibited; but, notwithstanding, still continued in use, as we find that in 360, A.D., Cussianus, who had been a bishop in Germany, but driven from thence by the Pagans, became a schoolmaster at Rome, was by order of Julian exposed to the merciless rage of his scholars, who killed him with their table books of wood, and their styles. Quills of geese, swans, peacocks, crows, and other birds, were anciently used in Europe, and have continued in use still. St. Isidore of Seville, in the middle of the seventh century, describes a pen made from a quill as used in his time. Modern skill has improved upon these forms, and pens of steel, of silver, of gold, and of diamonds-nay, even of caoutchoucare found upon almost every private table.

CHAPTER II.

ORIGIN OF PRINTING.

Fire is the scythe wherewith Time doth mow
Ten thousand precious volumes at a blow;
Blest printing best of all his rage withstands,
And often chains his feet and ties his hands.

Or all the discoveries connected with the ultimate destiny of man, printing will probably exercise the most important influence. When it gradually burst forth like the dawn of light, it both awakened the minds of men, and poured upon them that radiance which had long been entombed within the dark precincts of the monastic cell. Through printing the intellectual labours of mankind are preserved and perpetuated. Fabric upon fabric is continually added to the structure of human intelligence; and from the living monuments of the past, men gather the experience that enables them to ascend still higher, and to take their own upward flight. And surely this is a mighty power for man to exercise! The characters traced by his pen are circulated, by means of printing, amongst myriads of human beings, contributing possibly to their individual comfort and prosperity, and be-·

coming their consoling friends in solitude. Above all, it lent its powerful aid to religion, when it burst asunder the chains by which men were debarred from the near approach to the book of life and truth, and delivered it unfettered and entire, a most precious gift to all future generations, thus hastening the period when the words of Scripture shall be fulfilled-when there shall be one fold and one shepherd.

It seems probable that the Chinese have long been in possession of the art of printing, though from whence derived cannot now be ascertained. Possibly it may have been from the practices adopted by the Ninevites and Babylonians: but as the art appears never to have advanced beyond the style of the block books in England, it is not necessary here to advert further to it, particularly as the printing art in Europe does not seem to have originated from any knowledge derived from that most singular people, although such a supposition has sometimes been entertained.

Towards the latter end of the fourteenth century, a rude attempt was made in England to originate the art, by the printing of playing cards from wooden blocks. This was followed in Europe by what were called block books, on which at first only the figure of a saint with a few lines of letters were cut, but gradually entire pages were impressed in this manner. This was the first