380 Sir Edward Maunde Thompson [Marcli 19, 



material for cartonnage mummy-cases in the Greek colony of Gurob 

 in the Fayum. The official deeds found among these fragments date 

 from about the year 260 B.C. ; this manuscript of Plato may therefore 

 be placed rather earlier, for it is not probable that a literary work 

 such as this would have been destroyed immediately after it had been 

 written, although ordinary documents would cease to have any value 

 after a few years. It is to be regretted that what remains of this 

 once beautiful manuscript is in such a fragmentary condition ; but 

 there is still enough to show that a very perfect style of hand- 

 writing was employed in the production of classical works intended 

 for the book market in the third century B.C. The chief charac- 

 teristic of the writing is the great breadth — almost flatness — of 

 many of the letters, as compared with their height.* 



The same invaluable Gurob collection of papyri also provides 

 us with material for ascertaining the capabilities of persons in dijBfer- 

 ent ranks of life to express themselves in writing — not in the formal 

 literary hand of the ' Phaedo,' but in the ordinary running hand of 

 the day. A beautiful document of the middle of the century, written 

 in a particularly clear and well- shaped character, is the letter of a 

 young man, well educated, named Polykrates, who addresses his 

 father with affectionate frankness, and invites him to come and stimu- 

 late the writer to ^hake off his present idleness ; but assures him also 

 that in money matters his son is quite solvent. Another letter, 

 equally well written, is addressed in the year 242 B.C., by one Horos, 

 an official, to a colleague named Armais, and seems to be prompted by 

 professional jealousy at his correspondent making a good thing by 

 the sale of oil at a price higher than that fixed by royal decree. 

 The writing is an excellent examjDle of that fine linked hand which 

 appears to have come into vogue at this time and which is so particu- 

 larly characteristic of the best written cursive documents of the next 

 hundred years. A third letter of the same time shows how a man of 

 the agricultural class could handle his pen. It is a communication 

 from a farm bailiff to his master, telling hira of the vineyard, the 

 olive-yard, and the dearth of water. The writing is the rough hand 

 of a practical man, not highly educated, but with knowledge enough 

 to express himself in a business-like way. In this example there is 

 none of the beautiful linking together of the letters which appeared 

 in the practised hand of the official's epistle ; here, every letter stands 

 apart, and perhaps we may style the bailiffs handwriting as rather of 

 the pothook order. 



In the third century, then, before Christ we have evidence that the 

 Greeks in Egypt practised the two styles of handwriting : the literary 

 and the cursive. And the possession of a literary hand implied a 

 long course of practice. Like all things, handwriting is subject to 

 the regular laws of nature. It developes, reaches perfection, and then 

 decays. And it is when in the stage of perfection, that a style of 



* Mahaffy, ' Flinders Petrie Papyri.' 



