Читать книгу Foot-prints of a letter carrier; or, a history of the world's correspondece - James Rees - Страница 11

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The art of writing is very ancient. Its origin is actually lost in the distance of time. From one point, however,—this side of the gulf of lost ages, in which high art perished, and with it the key to all its antediluvian greatness,—we date our history.

The Bible gives us the earliest notice on the subject that is anywhere to be found. The most ancient mode of writing was on cinders, on bricks, and on tables of stone; afterwards on plates of various materials, on ivory and similar articles. One of the earliest methods was to cut out the letters on a tablet of stone. Moses, we are told, received the two tables of the Covenant on Mount Sinai, written with the finger of God; and before that, Moses himself was not ignorant of the use of letters.9 [Exodus xxiv. 4; xvii. 14.] A learned writer says:—“In Genesis v. 1, ‘This is the book of the generations of Adam,’ reference is made to the book of genealogy; whence it irresistibly follows that writing must have been in use among the antediluvian patriarchs; and, under the view that writing was a divine revelation, the same almighty power that, according to the preceding proposition, instructed Moses, could have equally vouchsafed a similar inspiration to any patriarch from Adam to Noah. Nor does it seem consistent with the merciful dispensation which preserved Noah’s family through the grand cataclysm, and had condescended, according to the biblical record, to teach him those multitudinous arts indispensably necessary to the construction of a vessel destined to pass uninjured through the tempests of the Deluge, that the Almighty, by withholding the art of writing, should have left the account of antediluvian events to the vicissitudes of oral tradition, or denied to Noah’s family the practice of this art, which, it is maintained, was conceded first to Moses.”

It is said that “Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” The five books of Moses carry with them internal evidence, not of one sole, connected, and original composition, but of a compilation by an inspired writer from earlier annals. The genealogical tables and family records of various tribes that are found embodied in the Pentateuch, bear the appearance of documents copied from written archives. We have the authority of Genesis v. 1 for asserting the existence of a book of genealogies in the time of Noah; and a city mentioned by Joshua was named in Hebrew “Kirjath Sefer,” “The City of Letters.” It is impossible to prove that letters were unknown before Moses; and the Hebrews of his day appear to have had two distinct modes of writing the characters of which, in one case, were “alphabetic,” and in the other “symbolic.” The inscription on the ephod itself is said—Exodus xxviii. 36—to have been written in characters “like the engravings of a signet.”

The materials and instruments with which writing was performed were, in comparison with our pen, ink, and paper, extremely rude and unwieldy. One of the earliest methods was to cut out the letters on a tablet of stone. Another was to trace them on unbaked tiles, or bricks, which were afterwards thoroughly baked or burned with fire. When the writing was wanted to be more durable, lead or brass was employed. In the book of Job, mention is made of writing on stone. It was on tablets of stone that Moses received the law written by the finger of God himself. Tablets of wood were frequently used as being more convenient. Such was the writing-table which Zacharias used. [Luke i. 63.] Cedar was preferred as being more incorruptible; from this custom arose the celebrated saying of the ancients, when they meant to give the highest eulogium of an excellent work, et cedro digna locuti,—that it was worthy to be written on cedar. These tablets were made of the trunks of trees. The same reason which led them to prefer the cedar to other trees, induced them to write on wax, which is incorruptible. Men used it to write their testaments, in order better to preserve them. Thus, Juvenal says, cereus implere capaces. The leaves and, at other times, the bark of different trees were early used for writing. From the thin films of bark peeled off from the Egyptian reed papyrus which grew along the Nile, a material was formed in latter times answering the purpose much better. It bore the name of the reed, papyrus, or, in our language, paper. Long afterwards its name passed to a different material, composed of linen or cotton, which has taken place of all others in the use of civilized countries, and is called to this day paper. Paper made of cotton was in use in 1001; that of linen rags in 1319.10

“The paper reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of the brooks, ... shall wither, be driven away, and be no more.”—Isaiah xix. 7.

Pliny, speaking of the papyrus, says:—

“Before we depart out of Egypt, we must not forget the plant papyrus, but describe the nature thereof, considering that all civilitie of life, the memoriall, and immortalitie also of men after death consisteth especially in paper which is made thereof. M. Varro writeth that the first invention of making paper was devised upon the conquest of Ægypt, achieved by Alexander the Great, at what time as he founded the city of Alexandria in Ægypt, where such paper was first made.”—Holland, Plinie, b. xiii. c. 21.

We have alluded to the barks of trees being used. The thin peel which is found between the second skin of a tree was called liber,—from whence the Latin word, liber, a book; and we have derived the name of library and librarian in the European language, and in the French their livre for book.