Part 4

All writers upon this subject have strangely overlooked the fact that the art of impressing or printing letters with a metallic stamp or type on parchment, as a substitute for pen-work, is about a thousand years older than the period above specified as the date of the invention of the modern art of printing. The CODEX ARGENTEUS, (the oldest translation of the entire Bible into any European language,) is a famous book, in the Library of the University of Upsala in Sweden.

(We give the particulars of its history in our Appendix.)

This “antique” is on purple _vellum_, (which is parchment made of _calf-skin_,) and all the letters are SILVER, (whence the name Codex Argenteus, the “silver book,”) manifestly impressed on the page by a metallic stamp or type, each letter evidently being on a separate stock or handle, and applied by manual pressure. We give a specimen of this style of work. It may be called printing, but can not be denominated _manuscript_, for that is (literally) “hand-writing,” which this certainly is not.

In our Appendix may be found still earlier instances of this art as practiced by the ancient Romans on a small scale, in signatures, trade-marks, &c.

The Edinburgh review refers to Pliny and Dioscorides, as furnishing directions for the manufacture of ink. The Edinburgh reviewer says “receipts,”—not recognizing the broad distinction between a _receipt_ and a _recipe_. The former of these two words was originally intended to convey the idea that the person who signs the paper has _got_ something: the latter word, or its representative initial (℞) means simply, “_take_.”

The directions of Pliny are in the following words:—

C. Plinii Secundi Historia Naturalis.

Lib. XXXV, §25.

_ATRAMENTUM._

Atramentum quoque inter factitios erit, quanquam est et terra geminæ originis. Aut enim salsuginis modo emanat, aut terra ipsa sulphurei coloris ad hoc probatur. Inventi sunt pictores, qui e sepulcris carbones infectos effoderent. Importuna haec omnia, et novitia. Fit enim e fuligine pluribus modis, resina vel pice exustis. Propter quod, officinas etiam aedificavere, fumum eum non emittentes. Laudatissimum eodem modo fit e tedis. Adulteratur fornacum balnearumque fuligine, quo ad volumina scribenda utuntur. Sunt qui et vini faecem exsiccatam excoquant; adfirmantque, si ex bono vino faex fuerit, Indici speciem id atramentum praebere. Polygnotus et Micon celeberrimi pictores Athenis, e vinaceis facere: tryginon appellant. Apelles commentus est ex ebore combusto facere, quod elephantinum vocavit. Adportatur et Indicum, inexploratae adhuc inventionis mihi. Fit etiam apud infectores ex flore nigro, qui adhaerescit aheneis cortinis. Fit et e tedis ligno combusto, tritisque in mortario carbonibus. Mira in hoc sepiarum natura: sed ex his non fit. Omne autem atramentum sole perficitur, librarium gummi, tectorum glutino admixto. Quod autem aceto liquefactum est, aegre eluitur.

(TRANSLATION.)

“INK (or literally) BLACKING.—Ink also may be set down among the artificial (or compound) drugs, although it is a mineral derived from two sources. For, it is sometimes developed in the form of a saline efflorescence,—or is a real mineral of sulphureous color—chosen for this purpose. There have been painters who dug up from graves colored coals (CARBON). But all these are useless and new-fangled notions. For it is made from soot in various forms, as (for instance) of burnt rosin or pitch. For this purpose, they have built manufactories not emitting that smoke. The ink of the very best quality is made from the smoke of torches. An inferior article is made from the soot of furnaces and bath-house chimneys. There are some (manufacturers) also, who employ the dried lees of wine; and they DO say that if the lees so employed were from good wine, the quality of the ink is thereby much improved. Polygnotus and Micon, celebrated painters at Athens, made their black paint from burnt grape-vines; they gave it the name of TRYGYNON. APELLES, we are told, made HIS from burnt ivory, and called it elephantina “ivory-black.” Indigo has been recently imported,—a substance whose composition I have not yet investigated. The dyers make theirs from the dark crust that gradually accumulates on brass-kettles. Ink is made also from torches (pine-knots), and from charcoal pounded fine in mortars. “The cuttle-fish” has a remarkable quality in this respect; but the coloring-matter which it produces is not used in the manufacture of ink. All ink is improved by exposure to the sun’s rays. Book-writers’ ink has gum mixed with it,—weaver’s ink is made up with glue. Ink whose materials have been liquified by the agency of an acid is erased with great difficulty.”

This sounds very much like nonsense: but it is exactly what the “Great Naturalist,” Pliny, meant when he wrote all that _he_ knew, and probably all that was then known on the subject of ink, black paints and dyes, and very dark-colored fluids generally, which were then employed by painters, dyers, weavers, writers and physicians. To make his chapter on this subject fully intelligible to us, we must bear in mind the fact, that the great science of _Chemistry_ had no existence till many centuries after Pliny wrote. And thus, it never occurred to him that there was but one substance, (now known to be elementary,) CARBON, which gave the quality of blackness to all the materials which he names, with the exception of one salt of copper, and probably one of iron, (the sulphate,) and INDIGO, a purely vegetable substance, the dried coloring matter of a plant in India, (_Indicofera anil_,) and named by the Romans from the country that produced it, and first made it known to them.

PEDANIUS DIOSCORIDES, born in Anazarbus, (a city of Cilicia, about fifty miles from TARSUS, the birth-place of the Apostle Paul,) wrote a book on the Materia Medica, or the qualities of drugs, a little after the time when Pliny composed his Natural History. Neither of them seems to have been acquainted with the writings of the other. Apparently, they lived, wrote and died nearly or actually cotemporary, in the same empire, utterly ignorant of each other’s existence,—though they are now universally recognized as the two most eminent writers of all antiquity on the subjects of Natural History and the Materia Medica. They both lived in the reign of Nero, and the date of the active or middle part of both their lives may be reasonably placed at or about the year 100 of the Christian Era.

From Dioscorides to LINNÆUS, (in the last century,) the Materia Medica made no actual progress and received no scientific improvement; yet, eminent as is Dioscorides, he was so little known to his own generation or that next following, that it is now impossible to ascertain the exact date of his birth or of his death, or any facts in his life, but that he wrote two books, of which that here quoted is the best known, and has made him known 1700 years after his birth.

(We may mention that this Dioscorides was, in no traceable degree, related to the person of the same name, whose manuscript we have copied in our illustrations as the oldest extant specimen of Greek ink-writing.)

We give a translation of his brief but complete description of the ink used in his time, and the Latin version, that those who wish may satisfy themselves of the correctness of our rendering. It will be seen that it occurs at the close of the great work of Dioscorides:—

Atramentum, quo scribimus, e fuligine taedarum collecta conficitur. In singulas gummi uncias ternae fuliginis unciae adjiciuntur. Fit etiam e resinae fuligine et pictoria illa modo dicta. Hujus fuliginis autem sumi oportet minam unam, gummi sesquilibram, taurini glutinis et chalcanthi singulorum sesquiunciam. Idoneum est ad septica; et confert ambustis ex aqua paullo crassius inunctum et tamdiu dimissum, donec cicatrix obducatur, sanatis nimirum ulceribus sponte sua excidit.

Atque jam, carissime Aree, tum pro operis modo, quem proposueramus, tum pro materiae auxiliorumque copia, quam colligere licuit, hucusque dicta sufficiant.

Libri quinti et ultimi de Materia Medica finis.

Pedanii Dioscoridis Anazarbei De Materia Medica.

[TRANSLATION.]

[The] “INK with which we write is composed of the soot of torches, collected.

“To each ounce of gum, add three of soot.

“It is also made of the soot of resin and of that lately called ‘painters’ black.’ Of this soot, however,—take one MINA,—of gum, half a pound,—of ox-glue and of copperas, each, half an ounce.

“It is a good application in cases of gangrene, and is useful in scalds, if a little thickened and employed as a salve, and permitted to remain until a new cuticle is formed, when it will spontaneously fall off from the healed sore.

“And now, my very dear Areas, in due proportion to the work which we had undertaken, and the quantity of the materials and contributions which we could gather, what we have thus far said must suffice.

“End of the fifth and last book on The Materia Medica.

“[The book] of Pedanius Dioscorides on the Materia Medica.”

We have followed the text of Karl Gotleib Kuhn. _Medicorum Graecorum, opera quae extant._ Leipzig, 1829.

Among the fantastic trifles with which DEAN SWIFT was accustomed to amuse his leisure, is a little string of verses on this subject which are appended, not as being of any poetic merit, but as a “curiosity of literature”—not out of place here:—

On Ink.

_I am jet black, as you may see, The son of pitch and gloomy night; Yet all who know me will agree I’m dead, except I live in light._

_Sometimes in panegyric high, Like lofty Pindar, I can soar, And raise a virgin to the sky, Or her to a * * * * *_

_My blood this day is very sweet, To-morrow of a bitter juice; Like milk, ’tis cried about the street And so applied to different use._

_Most wondrous is my magic power: For with one color I can paint. I’ll make the devil a saint this hour, Next make a devil of a saint._

_Through distant regions I can fly, Provide me with but paper wings, fairly show a reason why There should be quarrels among kings._

_And, after all, you’ll think it odd, When learned doctors will dispute, That I should point the word of God, And show where they can best confute._

_Let lawyers bawl and strain their throats, ’Tis I that must the lands convey, And strip their clients to their coats,— Nay, give their very souls away._

We find also in Pope’s epistle of Heloise to Abeillard an allusion to the power of letters, as conveying ideas, which seems appropriate in this connexion as illustrating the uses of ink.

_Heaven first taught letters for some wretch’s aid, Some banished lover, or some captive maid: They live, they speak, they breathe what love inspires, Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires; The virgin’s wish without her fears impart, Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart, Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul, And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole._

The genius of BYRON (in a playful flash) has illuminated our subject with one of his most brilliant passages:—

_But words are things: and a small drop of INK, Falling like dew upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands (perhaps millions) think._

A less distinguished poet has, in expressive, and though in quainter, humbler, yet in noble strain, said what is equally appropriate in this place:—

_Books are a part of man’s prerogative: In formal INK, they thought and voices hold, That we to them our solitude may give, And make time present travel as of old._

CELSUS, who lived in this world, about the commencement of the Christian era, has left a little memorandum on this subject which is worth quoting.

We give his words entire:—

There are two kinds of bald spots occurring on the human head,—one of them a baldness which creeps over the scalp like a serpent,—the other showing itself in the form of round spaces uncovered by hair. Some recommend the use of acrid irritant articles, combined with oils, &c. But there is nothing better for you than to have the bald place shaved every day with a [very dull] razor, and, after having done that, you needn’t do anything else but rub on the place thus shaved a little _atramentum sutorium_—(“shoemakers’ ink,” “copperas-water,”)—[solution of the Di-proto sulphate of the (per) sesquoxyd of iron].

The editor of the printed copy of the edition of the works of AULUS CORNELIUS CELSUS which was printed in Padua, made a material error on this point.

The word “sutorium” (being unintelligible to the ignorant monk who superintended the printing) was changed to “scriptorium,”—that is, “writing-ink,” instead of “shoemakers’-ink.” It is well-known that a solution of copperas properly made, will remedy or prevent premature baldness; but we assert that no quantity of lamp-black and gum, or grease, will be found effectual for that purpose.

In the time of Celsus, the sulphate of iron (copperas) had not yet become an essential ingredient of writing-ink; and even after that its combination with carbonaceous and oleaginous matters entirely neutralized the power which renders it applicable and useful in such cases.

CONCLUSION.

We have thus herein attempted the fulfilment of the promise (with which we began) to produce a “HISTORY OF INK,”—a thing never before done or even proposed to be done. If not successful in our attempt, we hope that we have at least, in this little book, furnished hints and suggestions on this subject which the learned may employ hereafter when the history of this important material of history shall be undertaken and executed on a larger scale. In view of which possibility, we may, with a pardonable self-gratulation, say,—in the words of Martin Luther,—“We have given to other and higher spirits occasion to reflect.”

But we are loth to leave this subject (which has grown into our affections as we have dwelt upon it) without giving a blow or a kick to one monstrous absurdity which has prevailed among the learned, “falsely so-called,”—from the time when the Jesuits returned from China with their “edifying and curious” tales about the huge antiquity of all the arts and some of the sciences of civilization among the people of what they called the “Celestial Empire,”—a term wholly unknown to the Chinese, in any form or variation of expression.

The simple facts are that—the Chinese derived their knowledge of INK (of writing with a colored liquid) from Europe. So did they obtain their knowledge of the art of printing, carried to them by Venetian travelers, “overland,” just at the moment before the clumsy engraved wood-blocks were superseded by the moveable types of Gansefleisch or Gutenberg. So was it with the Mariner’s Compass, the manufacture of gunpowder, and all their boasted “inventions,”—among which may be included their calculation of eclipses backward through fabulous cycles of centuries, and the morals of Confucius or Kong-foo-tsee, a mythical personage unmentioned in the history of China until the contents of the New Testament had been made known there,—and _that_—many ages after the date of his supposed life and death.

But for their derivation and appropriation or theft of the great arts from the West, the Chinese and all Oriental nations, from the Euphrates to the Pacific, including the Japanese, would have remained to this day in the condition in which the Mexicans and Peruvians were found by the Spanish and Italian robbers who first explored the Western Hemisphere, and murdered its inhabitants for their land, and the fruits and the gold and silver of that land.

Whatever arts the Chinese or Japanese or Jesuits may have invented or preserved, the art of TELLING THE TRUTH is evidently, to all of them, one of “THE LOST ARTS,“—lost irretrievably and forever!

DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES.

No. 1.—A fac simile of the oldest Hieratic writing extant—about the 15th century B.C. The hawk (the emblem of Divinity) and the man stand on something that “teters”—the circle between them (a serpent biting its own tail) is the ancient symbol of eternity. The Deity overbalances the man.

No. 2.—From a Greek MS. buried at Herculaneum in the year 29 B.C.

No. 3.—Written on papyrus in Egypt; in the 3d century B.C.

No. 4.—Written on papyrus 260 years B.C.

No. 5.—Specimen of a Palimpsest copy of Cicero’s “Republic” in the Vatican Library.

No. 6.—Phœnician writing on papyrus.

No. 7.—From a Pentateuch in the Bib^{e.} Nat^{e.} Paris, A.D. 450.

No. 8.—From a Greek Copy of the Book of Genesis, written in gold on purple vellum, A.D. 400.

No. 9.—From a MS. on papyrus written in Egypt 3d century B.C.

No. 10.—From a Charter of Childebert III. A.D. 703.

No. 11.—From a Charter of Charlemagne, about A.D. 785.

No. 12.—From a Charter of the Emperor Conrad I. A.D. 988.

No. 13.—Specimen of “Roman Saxon,” A.D. 600.

No. 14.—From a Charter of Dagobert I. about A.D. 620.

No. 15.—From an early Gælic MS.

No. 16.—From a Deed of William the Conqueror.

No. 17.—The monogram signature to a Charter of Charlemagne about A.D. 785.

No. 18.—From a Charter of the reign of Hugh Capet, A.D. 988.

No. 19.—From a Deed of Henry I.

No. 20.—From a Deed of Stephen, dated A.D. 1139.

No. 21.—From a Deed of the reign of Richard I.

No. 22.—From a MS. of Wyckliffe’s translation of the Bible.

No. 23.—“Set Saxon,” A.D. 850.

“_Qui sub Pontio Pilato crucifixus est, et sepultus, tertia die resurrexit._”

No. 24.—From a Charter of Sebbi, King of the East Saxons, A.D. 664,

“_Ego Sebbi Rex East Sax(onum) pro—confirmatione Subscripsi._”

No. 25.—Part of a Charter of Alfred the Great, A.D. 800.

No. 26.—From a Charter of Edward the Confessor, A.D. 1045.

No. 27.—From a Deed of the reign of Edward I.

No. 28.—From a Deed of William the Conqueror.

No. 29.—From a Deed of the reign of Edward III.

_Edwardus Dei gratia Rex Anglias Dominus Hiberniæ, Dux Aquitaniæ, &c._

No. 30.—From the Will of William Mikelfeld, Nov. 7, 1439.

No. 31.—From a Deed of the reign of Edward IV.

No. 32.—From a Grant by William Wallace.

No. 33.—From a Deed of Richard III.

No. 34.—From a Deed of the reign of John.

No. 35.—Autograph of Lord Macaulay.

No. 36.—From a Deed of Henry VII.

No. 37.—From an English translation of the works of Chauliac, A.D. 1400.

No. 38.—From a Deed of Henry VIII.

No. 39.—From a MS. in the rounded hand of Italy, 15th century.

No. 40.—Letter from Columbus to the Viceroy of Castile, 15th century.

No. 41.—Letter of Anne of Brittany, 1514.

No. 42.—Signature of “Bayard,” the Chevalier.

No. 43.—Letter from Charles V. to Francis I.

No. 44.—Letter from Calvin, 1559.

No. 45.—Letter of the Earl of Essex, 1567.

No. 46.—Letter of Copernicus, 1473.

No. 47.—William H. Prescott.

No. 48.—Letter of Charles the XII of Sweden.

No. 49.—Rosseau, 1757.

No. 50.—Letter of Erasmus, 1476.

No. 51.—Letter of Queen Elizabeth to Henry IV of France.

No. 52.—Christina of Sweden, 1626.

No. 53.—Charles I. to his sister.

No. 54.—Oliver Cromwell, 1643.

No. 55.—Duke of Marlborough, June, 1706.

No. 56.—The Empress Catherine II. of Russia, July, 1773.

No. 57.—Washington, 6th Sept. 1788.

No. 58.—Louis XVI, June 30, 1773.

No. 59.—Robespierre.

No. 60.—Napoleon to Soult.

No. 61.—Wellington, June 19, 1815.

No. 62.—Lord Byron, Nov. 4, 1821.

No. 63.—Voltaire, July 29, 1757.

No. 64.—Edmund Burke.

No. 65.—William Pitt, March 27, 1803.

No. 66.—Wellington, April 21, 1834.

The colored engraving is an illustration of the picture writing of the Mexicans, from Lord Kingsborough’s great work. The blue border represents a series of years, distinguished by the dots. The compartment with five dots representing the fifth year of the reign, that with ten the tenth, and so on. The pictures of the acts of the Prince being connected with each special year by means of a connecting line. The additional symbols have different significations—that of the flower signifying a calamitous year, &c. In this plate King Acamapich is represented in the first and sixth year of his reign; at the top of the page are warlike instruments, signifying his preparation for war; the figures below, on the right, are the four cities—Quahnahuac, Mezquic, Cuitlhuac and Xochimilco—represented by descriptive symbols. The four heads on the left are those of the respective kings or chiefs of these cities, beheaded by Acamapich, each distinguished by the iconographic symbol by which his name was expressed in this system of writing.

These picture records, which would have illustrated the unknown history of this continent, were destroyed in “mountain heaps” by the first Spanish archbishop of Mexico—an act of fanatical vandalism equalled only by the burning of the Alexandrian Library, and the vast hoard of Moorish literature at Granada by Ximenes.

2. ...μασιν.στερον πο.αι ...ιψόμεθα ὅταν δὲ πε. ...αν καὶ δόξαν ἐ[κ] τοῦ μαθήματος φῶσι περιγί- νεσθαι λέγωμεν ὅτι <π>κο<λ>ι- νά τε προφέρονται πολ- λ<α>ῶν ἐπιτηδευμάτων καὶ λειπόμενα [π]λειόνων καὶ

3. ναὶ οὐ Ἀλκμὰν ὁ ποιητὴς οὕτως ἀπεφαίνετο οὐ-

4. Διοσκουρίδης Δωρίωνι χαίρειν. τῆς πρὸς Δωρίωνα ἐπιστολῆς τὸ ἀντίγραφον ὑπόκει-

_Snyder Black & Sturn 92 William St_]

7. κῡ, καὶ προσοίσουσιν οἱ υἱοὶ Ααρων οἱ ἱερεῖς

8. ἐξῆλθεν δὲ -τησιν αὐτῷ

_Snyder Black & Sturn 92 William St_]

_Snyder Black & Sturn 92 William St_]

17. KAROLVS

18. in eisdem degentium orem nostre celsitudinis

19. h. dei gra rex

20. S rex—Anno m.cxxix

21. Ricard di gra Rex Angl

22. IN þe biginyng was þe wrd and þe

_Snyder Black & Sturn 92 William St_]