In another book farmers are represented as using stones for fuel, which are suggested to have been coal; but this results from mis-reading petarum (peat), as if it were petarum, a contracted form of petrarum (stones).
The spreading desire to know something of paleography is very remarkable, and is much to be commended. For all persons who interest themselves in the documents to which they may have access in the possession of private persons, or in repositories not generally known, are helping in the grand work of making clear the laws and customs and mode of living of our ancestors, and thus constantly come across information, not to be found in our more public collections of records, which often throws light on many dark passages of history.
C. T. MARTIN.
HOW TO DECIPHER AND STUDY OLD DOCUMENTS.
CHAPTER I.
HINTS TO BEGINNERS.
Fashion changes in everything; but these alterations go on so imperceptibly, so gradually, that ofttimes we fail to recognise their progress except by glancing backwards into the past. But the fashion of handwriting and its changes are very forcibly brought home to us when confronted for the first time with some old deed or paper; and a feeling of helplessness reduces the amateur to the verge of despair as the pages of unintelligible hieroglyphics are spread out, as unfamiliar as Sanscrit or Egyptian characters. But perseverance conquers all difficulties.
Every generation has its own particular type of writing. Compare, for instance, any bundle of letters taken, hap-hazard, out of an old desk or secrétaire; it is quite easy to sort them into bundles in sequence of dates, and also guess accurately the age and position of the writers.