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opinions of our remote progenitoi's, with the stirring events which in 

 bygone ages have influenced the fate of nations, and even with the 

 precepts and sanctions of our religion, and the personal history of its 

 holy Founder. 



The subject may be considered under the following heads : — 

 I. The substances written upon ; 

 II. The implements and materials employed in delineating the 

 characters ; 



III. The decorations bestowed upon manuscripts ; 



IV. The persons by whom they were usually written, and the 



places where ; 

 V. The means of ascertaining their age and authenticity. 



I. The Substances Written Upon. 



The earliest written documents were inscribed upon stone and 

 other materials calculated to insure their permanence. Thus the annals 

 of nations, the laws by which their civil and religious polity were regu- 

 lated, the actions of their worthies, and their attempts at astronomical 

 calculations, were often engraven rudely upon rocks, of which some may 

 be seen to this day in Norway and various parts of Asia. In places 

 where such depositories of writing were not easily found — as in Egypt — 

 pillars and obelisks were employed ; and of these many important 

 specimens still exist. In the ruins of Babylon we find the very bricks 

 of which the walls were constructed marked with characters which are 

 now nearly unintelligible; and the present excavations of Dr. Layard 

 and M. Botta ar j dragging out of the deserted mounds of Nimroud and 

 Khorsabad, sculptured slabs, from which the learned are laboriously 

 unravelling the long lost annals of the Assyrian empire. 



When writing became more frequent, the necessity became also 

 apparent, both of a portable material to work upon, and of an adequate 

 method of preservation. The laws of Moses, which were supplementaiy 

 to the Ten Commandments, were in the first instance inscribed upon 

 great plastered stones fixed in the ground.-!'^ In the Ark of the Cove- 

 nant had been originally deposited the stone tablets upon which the 

 finger of God had written. But when the divine lawgiver found his death 



* Deut. ch. xxvii. Voltaire endeavours to throw ridicule upon this, as a most inconvenient 

 and unsafe mode of recording the laws. But it must be remembered, that the stones were 

 protected bj the reverential awe of the people. The words used in our English translation 

 of the Scriptures by no means convey an adequate idea of the mode adopted. The Vulgate 

 version, following the original Hebrew, runs thus — " Eriges ingentes lapides, et calce leviga 

 bis eos, ut possis in eis scribcre omnia verba hnjus legis." It is evident, therefore, that the 

 characters were imprinted with a sharp instrument in the wet plaster, which was then suffered 

 to dry. 



