Books have owed their conservation, not merely to the durability of the material of which they were formed; but to the peculiarity of their being, at once precious, and yet (in periods of general ignorance) not marketable articles; they were of inestimable value to a few, while absolutely worthless in the opinion of the multitude. They were also often indebted for their preservation, in periods of disorder and violence, to the sacredness of the roofs under which they were lodged.
THE INSTRUMENTS OF WRITING, AND INKS.
The instruments used for writing would, of course, be such as were adapted to the material on which they were to be employed. For writing upon the brazen, leaden, or waxed tablets, above mentioned, a needle, called a style, was used, the upper end of which, being smooth and flat, served to obliterate the marks on the tablet, as occasion might require. These styles were at first most often formed of iron or brass; but afterwards of ivory, bone, or wood. Indeed a fatal use having been, on several occasions, made of these pointed weapons by angry partisans in the public courts, the use of iron styles was prohibited; Cæsar, when attacked by the conspirators, is said to have used his iron style as a dagger, and with it to have pierced the arm of one of them: and the story of the Christian schoolmaster, Cassianus, is well known, who is said to have been killed by his scholars, armed with their styles: other similar instances are recorded.
For the purpose of writing with fluid ink, a calamus, formed generally from a reed of the Nile, was used. Persons of distinction often wrote with a calamus of silver. The use of quills seems to have been of ancient date; but long after the time when the fitness of the quill for the purpose of writing had become known, the calamus of reed continued to be preferred. The scalpel, or knife employed for trimming the pen, the compasses, for measuring the distances of the lines, and the scissars, for cutting the paper, are always seen on the desk of the writers in the decorations attached to many ancient manuscripts.
The ink most used by the ancients has been said, but on rather uncertain authority, to have consisted of the black liquor found in the cuttle fish. But it has been proved by chemical analysis that an opaque ink, very different from the mere dye or stain used at present, was commonly employed by the transcribers of books. This opaque ink seems, like the China ink, to have been formed from the finest soot of lamps, in which the purest combustibles were burnt. The coal of ivory, or of the finer woods, powdered, was also in use; these or similar substances, mixed with gums, and diluted with acids, formed a pigment that was much more durable than our modern ink; but it was also far less fluent, and therefore less adapted to a rapid and continuous movement of the pen.
The ink, says Montfaucon, which we see in the most ancient Greek manuscripts, has evidently lost much of its pristine blackness; yet neither has it become altogether yellow or faint, but is rather tawny or deep red, and often is not far from a vermilion. This appears in many manuscripts of the fourth and following centuries. Yet there are some written with an ink more skilfully composed, which have preserved their first blackness. It has happened also, when the surface of the parchment, instead of being polished, was spongy, that the ink has become yellow. In all the bombycine manuscripts, owing to the nature of the material, a separation of the parts of the ink has taken place; the grosser part standing on the surface, while the finer has penetrated the substance of the paper.
Inks of various colours, especially red, purple, and blue, and also gold and silver inks, were much used by the ancients: few manuscripts are destitute of some such ornamental diversities of colour; and many are splendidly recommended to the eye by these means. There was a purple ink, which was appropriated to the use of the emperors, and was called the sacred encaustic; but a dye, not easily distinguished from that which appears upon some imperial charters, is very commonly found in ancient books. And it is said that they must have had a nice sight who could so distinguish between the two as to have detected a violation of the law on this subject. The subscription commonly seen at the end of Greek manuscripts, containing the name of the transcriber, with the year, month, day, indiction, and sometimes the hour when the copy was finished, are most often written in the imperial colour, especially in the times of the lower empire; or if not in that ink, in one that cannot now be distinguished from it.
The titles of chapters were frequently written alternately in red and cerulean: marginal notes, most often in the latter colour. Books of a later date often have all the capitals of a bright green. The Greeks, more frequently than the Romans, used golden ink; and many Greek manuscripts are extant in which, not the titles and capitals only, but whole pages, are elegantly written in a pigment of the precious metals: but it was rather upon ecclesiastical than profane literature that this honour was bestowed. The works of the Fathers, chiefly, were so adorned, and sometimes the Gospels: there is extant a copy of the four Evangelists, written upon purple parchment, in letters of gold throughout. The practice of using gold and silver inks was so common, that the manufacture of them became a distinct business; and those who were skilled in this sort of writing seldom followed any other employment than that of inserting the titles, capitals, or emphatic words, in copies that had been executed by inferior hands. Several curious recipes for the preparation of the precious pigments are given by the later Greek waiters.
Those who have been long accustomed to inspect and examine ancient manuscripts acquire a certain tact in judging of the age of a book from the condition of the ink, its colour and composition, which cannot be explained to others, and for the exercise of which no rules can be laid down. But in cases where a fraud is suspected, this nice habit of the eye often detects at once the imposition. It is perhaps more practicable to give to a picture, than to a manuscript, the hue of antiquity by artificial means.