Adroitly work’d to trim and shape it,
O Psyche, though ’tis pain to part,
This charm shall make us half escape it.
Time need not fear to fly too slow
When he this useful loss discovers,
A pen’s the only plume I know
That wings her pace for absent lovers.”
PENCILS.
The ancients drew their lines with leaden styles; afterwards a mixture of tin and lead fused together was used. The mineral known under the name of plumbago is supposed to have been first employed for the purpose of drawing in the fifteenth century. In 1565, an old author notes that people had pencils for writing which consisted of a wooden handle, in which was a piece of lead; and a drawing is given of the pencil as an object of curiosity. They continued to be uncommon for upwards of a century, when we hear them spoken of being enclosed in pine or cedar.