OF ARTS AN» SCIENCES. 373 



similar preparation. The border of one side is pierced with several 

 holes, as if for the insertion of a cord or wire. Two of these tablets 

 might be put together without touching the waxen surface, so as to 

 form what is technically called a dipUjclion. The wax is entirely 

 hardened, and nearly as black as iron. 



" One of the tablets is in almost complete preservation. The wax is 

 slightly worn in a few places. All of them contain written characters. 

 Upon carefully examining those upon the best-preserved tablet, with 

 the aid of a magnifying-glass, I found nearly all of them could be 

 made out, A few were obliterated. After an hour or two of in- 

 spection, I succeeded in copying all except the first syllable of a 

 single word, which ended a line. Here was an excellent opportunity 

 for critical conjecture, which I eagerly seized, supplied the missing 

 syllable, and completed the writing. Before, however, relinquishing 

 the interesting inquiry, I proceeded to examine the fragments of an- 

 other tablet. Nearly all the writing on it was obliterated or destroyed ; 

 but enough remained to show that the passage was the same as that 

 on the first, though not so carefully copied. Luckily the mutilated 

 word which I had patched up by my conjectural criticism was en- 

 tire, and proved, as generally happens in such cases, that my con- 

 jecture was wrong. But I was thus enabled to complete the text, 

 without the slightest doubt as to any part of it. 



" It is very neatly and finely written, evidently by a careful chirog- 

 rapher, while the others, which appear to be copied from this, are 

 more like the writings of schoolboys. This curious fact lends coun- 

 tenance to the opinion given in the catalogue, that the tablets were 

 used in some Alexandrian school, by a Greek schoolmaster, who was 

 teaching boys to write Greek ; and it is evident that they belong to the 

 age of the Ptolemies. The chai'acters are of the square or uncial 

 form, and closely resemble those of the Alexandrian Greek manu- 

 scripts ; for example, the lately discovered papyrus fragments of Hy- 

 pereides. The writing is not only excellent, in the copy which I sup- 

 pose to have been set by the master, but, when a word is divided 

 between two lines, the syllabication is careful and correct. All these 

 circumstances indicate pretty clearly that the tablet is very old ; 

 probably three or four hundred years older than the oldest (a Latin 

 one) in any European collection ; even older, it is likely, than the age 

 of Aristophanes the Grammarian, who invented accents for con- 

 venience in teaching Greek to foreigners. 



