What should be Avoided in Writing
Teacher. You have done rightly. Show it. In the future let there be a greater space between the lines so that I may be able to alter your mistakes and correct them. These letters are too unequal, an ugly fault in writing. Notice how much greater n is than e and o than the circle you make of it. For the bodies of all the letters ought to be equal.
Mend. Tell us, pray, what do you mean by “bodies”?
VIII. Forming Letters in Writing
Teacher. The middle part of the letters, the part besides the little heads and feet, if they have any; b and l have heads, p and q have feet. In this m the legs (or sides) are not equal in length. The first is shorter than the middle. It has also too long a tail, even as that a has. You don’t sufficiently press the pen on the paper. The ink scarcely sticks, nor can you clearly distinguish what the beginnings of the letters are. Since you have tried to change these letters into others, having erased parts with the pointed end of your knife, you have disfigured your writing. It would have been better to draw a thin stroke through it. Then you should have transferred what remains of the word at the end of one line to the beginning of the next, only preserving the syllables always as wholes, for the law of Latin writing does not suffer them to be cut into. It is said that the Emperor Augustus did not have the custom of dividing words, nor did he transfer the overflowing letters of the end of his lines on to the next, but that he put them immediately under the line and round about it.
Manr. We will gladly imitate that, as it is the example of a king.
Teacher. You may well do so. For how could you otherwise satisfy yourselves that you had any connection with him (lit., that you are sprung from his blood)? But you must not join all the letters, nor must you separate all. There are those which must be ranged with one another, as those with tails, e.g., a, l, u, together with others, and so the speared letters, e.g., f and t. There are others which don’t permit of this, viz., the circle-shaped p, o, b. As much as possible keep your head erect in writing, for if you bend and stoop, humours flow down on to the forehead and eyes, whence many diseases are born and whence too may come weakness of eyes. Now receive another copy and put it on paper for to-morrow, God willing (Deo propitio). As Ovid says (Remedia Amoris, 93):
Sed propera, nec te venturas differ in horas,
Qui non est hodie, cras minus aptus erit.[46]