376 Sir Edward Maunde Thompson [March 19, 



inevitably imported its own character into the old hand-made 

 facsimile, is dispensed with ; the agency of light can never alter 

 the character of the first hand. The collections of photographic 

 facsimiles issued during the last five-and-twenty years form a 

 palaBographical corpus which renders the study a comparatively 

 easy one; and, further, we now have the immense advantage of 

 being in a position to compare side by side, through the medium of 

 those trustworthy facsimiles, texts which are in reality scattered 

 through the libraries of Europe. Five-and-twenty years ago the 

 palaeographer working in the public library of his own country 

 might have a good knowledge of the handwritings of the later 

 middle ages ; the material under his hands was sufficient ; but of 

 the earlier periods his experience was limited, and he could scarcely 

 speak without hesitation on questions of the palaeography of manu- 

 scripts, of which his library contained only a few examples. We are 

 in a very different position to-day. The abundant supply of fac- 

 similes has given us the meaus of training the eye and of familiarising 

 it with the handwritings of all periods. 



And while our material has thus been concentrated by photo- 

 graphy, it has also actually increased in amount. Kecent excavations 

 in Egypt have placed us in possession of documents which, for the 

 first time, have brought us almost in touch with the classical period 

 of Greek literature. Greek writing of the third century before 

 Christ was scarcely known to us before these modern discoveries ; 

 we now know that at that age writing was a common and widespread 

 accomplishment under the Ptolemies in Egypt. Nor in this direction 

 alone have we profited : the numerous papyri which have been and 

 are being found of the early centuries of the Christian era supply the 

 links, formerly wanting, to trace the descent of the uncial writing of 

 the earliest extant Biblical codices of the fourth and fifth centuries 

 from the earlier examples. The chain is now nearly complete, and 

 the history of Greek handwriting can be followed with more or 

 less precision through a period of some seventeen centuries before it 

 became fixed by the printing press. The additions to our material 

 for Latin palaeography have not been so abundant, but they have 

 been scarcely less interesting. Excavations on the site of Pompeii 

 and in other places have given us an insight into the character of 

 the handwriting of the Eoman people in the early time of the empire ; 

 and^ even if no great classical work has been recovered, we have in 

 the wall scribblings that have been laid bare, and in the waxen 

 tablets that have been found, invaluable examples of the writing of 

 everyday life and of the business transactions of the people. 



The connection between the Greek and Latin alphabets is obvious 

 when we compare their early forms. The primitive Greek alphabet 

 of two-and-twenty signs borrowed from the Phoenicians — written at 

 first from right to left, and eventually from left to right, after 

 passing through that curious period of boustrophedon writing, in which 

 a line written from the right was succeeded by one written from the 



