on the ground near him, out of which he has just taken a scroll which 

 he holds in his hand.* 



When the manuscript was read, it was evolved on the one side by the 

 reader, who rolled it up again on the other as he proceeded. It was 

 doubtless a scroll of this sort which was deposited with so much 

 ceremony by Alexander, and not (as delineated on the well-known chiaro- 

 scuro of Raphael in the Vatican), a square book cut into leaves, and 

 gathered and bound after the present fashion.f About two hundred and 

 eighty years before Christ, the export of papyrus having been prohibited 

 by the Eg}^tian monarch, parchment was, according to Pliny, invented 

 by Eumenes II., king of Pergamus. As, however, it is certain that 

 the skins of animals had long before been used for the purpose of 

 writing, it is most likely that Eumenes and his subjects merely manu- 

 factured a greatly improved description of parchment, which in conse- 

 quence acquired the name of Pergamena. This was found to be better 

 adapted to writing, and much more durable. It was not so easily elongated 

 into rolls as the old material ; but its toughness and tenacity more 

 than compensated for this defect, inasmuch as they rendered it capable 

 of being cut and squared into a convenient size, and of being firmly 

 stitched, so as to enable the reader to turn over the successive pages with 

 ease and rapidity. The inconvenience must have been very great of 

 opening out the rolls, which not unfrequently extended to the length of 

 fifty feet. Indeed there is now in the British Museum a roll brought 

 from Memphis, which, when entirely opened, will probably measure one 

 hundred. Out of this difficulty, and out of the Pergamenean invention 

 above mentioned, ultimately arose the method of stitching together 

 squared leaves in folio, quarto, &c., as now practised, although it seems 

 not to have come into general use until some centuries after. As the 

 opinion now expressed is at variance with that of some modern writers, 

 it may be proper to refer to the works of the great authors of the 

 Augustan period, not one of whom makes mention of books squared and 

 bound into leaves as at present. Ovid, Horace, and TibuUus speak of 

 the bosses, the ties, and other appendages of the rolls, employed by 

 them for writing upon. Catullus, in an epigram or ode addressed to 

 Varus, describes a beautiful volume decorated with new bosses (novi 

 umbilici) scarlet ribands (lora rubra,) &c. At a somewhat later period, 

 Juvenal mentions that a voluminous author of his day was obliged to 

 write the concluding part of his tragedy on the hack of his parchment, 

 which would have been nowise remarkable if a roll had not been used 

 by him. The Roman satirist also, in speaking of the second Philippic 



* Muesuin Florenliniim, vol. III., No. 84. Floreutite 1 and 34. 

 + See Passavant's Life of Raphael. 



