1897.] Greek and Latin Palaeography. 375 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 

 Friday, March 19, 1897. 



Basil Woodd Smith, Esq. F.R.A.S. F.S.A. Vice-President, 

 in tlie Chair. 



Sir Edward Maunde Thompson, K.C.B. D.C.L. LL.D. F.S.A. 

 (Principal Librarian of the British Museum). 



Greeh and Latin Palseography, 



Our knowledge of Greek and Latin Palaeography has expanded so 

 largely during the last quarter of a century, that, in response to an 

 invitation to read a paper before the Eoyal Institution, I have 

 ventured to select it as the subject for the discourse this eveuinc^. 

 For, although palseography is a science which is, in the nature of 

 things, confined to the enquiries of comparatively few students, yet 

 that branch of it which deals with writings in Greek and Latin may 

 appeal to the interest of most of us, whose education has been 

 founded on the study of the classical authors of Greece and Eome. 

 And, further, the derivation of the alphabet now in use throughout 

 the greater part of the world, immediately from the ali^habet of the 

 Latins and more remotely from that of Hellas, and the various 

 changes through which it passed before attaining a simple and 

 regular form, are matters for the curiosity, if not for the study, of all 

 who claim to take an interest in the history of literature. 



The extension of the knowledge of our subject during recent 

 years is due in the highest degree to the invention of photography, 

 and to the perfection to which the art of photographic reproduction 

 has been brought. When we regard the rude and inexact facsimiles 

 from manuscripts, which appear in the older works on palaeography, 

 we cannot conceive the possibility of the student learning anything 

 of value from them. For all scientific purposes they are worthless, 

 and they could only serve to convey a very general idea of the 

 character in which the originals were written. Next came works 

 executed with more skill, but so costly that they were beyond the 

 reach of all but the wealthy ; and, again, careful and exact as they 

 are, they fail to reproduce those minute variations and delicate 

 nuances of the manuscript, which it is impossible for a second hand 

 to render faithfully. Photography came and made the path smooth. 

 Under ordinary conditions it gives us a facsimile of the original, 

 which, next to being the original itself, is the best that we can 

 desire. The agency of the second hand, which involuntarily but 



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