1897.] on Greek and Latin Palaeography. 381 



handwriting is adopted for a literary hand. Hence as a literary hand 

 it seems to burst upon us in full life : Athene springs ready armed 

 from the head of Zeus. But it has been previously passing through a 

 long period of preparation and development, the evidences of which 

 are lost ; and it is only because it succeeds in reaching perfection, 

 that it is then employed as a literary hand. When once in that posi- 

 tion, it may maintain its excellence for a time, but not for a loner 

 time. It gradually becomes a formal hand, and then an artificial 

 hand, and, as such, is doomed to deterioration. Meanwhile, the 

 natural cursive hand continues its course, and again developes a new 

 style, which in turn reaches perfection and then supersedes the old 

 literary hand, which has by this time lost all life and has become a 

 mere imitative script. And thus the process goes on repeating itself. 

 The best illustration of this law of change is to be seen in the general 

 adoption, both for Greek and for Latin manuscripts, of the minuscule 

 or small hand, as the literary hand, in place of the uncial or large 

 hand, early in the ninth century. The creation of minuscule writing 

 is naturally a long process. The large letters have to be ground 

 down by a long course of cursive writing, and the small letters thus 

 formed have to take shape and be cast in an artistic mould before 

 they can aspire to be used in the production of literary manuscripts. 

 But in the end, because they can be more fluently formed, and thus 

 become the more natural means of the expression of thought, they 

 cannot fail to supersede the older and more slowly written uncials. 



The time at our disposal this evening will not allow me to take 

 you down to the moment of this great change. I propose to limit 

 my further remarks on Greek palaeography to the early centuries, and 

 only to touch the boundary of the mediaeval period. 



To illustrate the handwriting of the first half of the second 

 century B.C., we may turn to two literary documents, the one written 

 in a cursive hand, the other in a formal hand. The first is an astro- 

 nomical treatise, now in Paris, which must be earlier than the year 

 164 B.C., as some documents of that date are written on the back of 

 the papyrus. The hand is of a good bold character, the prominent 

 feature being the linking together of the letters by connecting strokes 

 which has been already referred to. This papyrus was no doubt a 

 copy made for a scholar's own use, and not for sale. It is copied in 

 the ordinary character which he would write naturally. The second 

 papyrus, containing a dialectical treatise, of the same age, is inscribed 

 in the formal literary hand by a professional writer, working for the 

 book market. Comparing these two works with those of the preced- 

 ing century we should pronounce a deterioration in the formal hand, 

 being a style which naturally tends to become artificial ; but we do 

 not perceive any great change in the cursive hand, which is the 

 natural hand, except that it may be rather more fluent than that of 

 the previous century.* 



* ' Notices et Extraits des MSS. de la Bibl. Imperiale,' xviii. pt. 2. 



