“But, papa, if the original writing was expunged, how is it now legible?” Frederick asked.
“The ink,” said my uncle, “in general use among the ancients, was merely a mixture of lamp-black and gum; and, as that did not sink into the parchment, a wet cloth in the hands of a monk did the business as effectually and finally as your sponge, Frederick, annihilates your most elaborate calculations from a slate. But the injury to which writing, with such materials, was liable from damp and other accidents, had been long known, and various expedients were adopted to provide a remedy. Pliny says it was difficult to efface ink which had been made with vinegar; and it appears, that at a later period, some preparation of iron was added for the same purpose, as both of these ingredients sink into the parchment. In either of those cases, the lamp-black, or colouring matter, could be only partially removed by washing; so that it was necessary to scrape the surface, in order to obliterate the characters, or to rub it with pumice stone, in the same manner that it had been originally prepared for writing on; and to such a parchment or manuscript the name of palimpsest was given, from a Greek word signifying twice scraped. But though the process that I have described apparently removed the writing, it could not draw out the infusion of iron which had been absorbed by the parchment; and as you all know that ink is nothing but a combination of iron with a solution of galls, it will readily occur to you, that by applying that solution with a light brush, to any of the palimpsest manuscripts, the original writing would be revived,—provided there had been any iron in the composition of the ink.”
“What a beautiful discovery!” exclaimed Caroline. “And when generally known, how zealously will all our antiquaries attack the hordes of manuscripts now dormant in the public libraries!”
“Yet,” said my uncle, “it is not a new discovery; the celebrated Montfaucon endeavoured to draw the attention of the learned world to these palimpsest parchments just a century ago; but antiquaries are not put into zealous activity quite so easily as you imagine. In that long interval, nothing very material seems to have been effected till the present accomplished librarian of the Vatican devoted himself to the subject; and the success with which his efforts have been already crowned, more than justify the sanguine hopes which I expressed. Other industrious labourers are also in the field, and what has been already achieved is only a pledge of the rich harvest that will distinguish this age.”
6th.—In conversing about our approaching journey, and the fine mountainous tracks that we are to see in Wales, Wentworth asked the meaning of the word pen, which is prefixed to some of the Welsh names, as Pen-man-mawr, for instance.
“It is an old British word,” my uncle told him, “signifying head or summit; and it is joined to the names of several of those hills, amongst the inhabitants of which much of that ancient dialect is still to be found.
“It is singular that this term appears to have been used in the same way among the Romans; for we find that the crest of the Alps near Mount St. Bernard was anciently called Alpes Penninæ; and that the very same name was also applied by them to the central chain of mountains which extends from the borders of Scotland to the middle of Derbyshire. This Penine chain traverses the great northern coal district; and many of its hills retain the old British term pen, as, Penygent, Pendle hill, &c.”
“There are several wild and very picturesque views,” said my aunt, “in that Penine chain; and its caverns, precipices, and torrents, have all a singular character, particularly the sublime and curious scenery of The Peak. I am sure, Caroline, you recollect a beautiful description of the banks of the Greta in Yorkshire, in your favourite poem of Rokeby.”
Caroline immediately repeated these lines—
“Broad shadows o’er the passage fell,
Deeper and narrower grew the dell;
It seemed some mountain, rent and riven,
A channel for the stream had given,
So high the cliffs of limestone grey
Hung beetling o’er the torrent’s way,
Yielding along their rugged base
A flinty foot-path’s niggard space;
Where he who winds ’twixt rock and wave,
May hear the headlong torrent rave,
And like a steed in frantic fit,
That flings the froth from curb and bit,
May view her chafe her waves to spray
O’er every rock that bars her way.”