98 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book TIL 



been fufficlent. The invention of another art was neceflary, and 

 that was the invention of materials upon which to write or print. 

 The Romans ufed, for their common writing, the Fgypti, n plant 

 papyrus, (from which our word paper ^ of which they made w^hat 

 they called chartiu They had alfo the ufe of memhrana or parch- 

 ment ; but it was too coftly a material to be commonly ufed, and 

 tlierefore they only wrote upon it what they valued and intended 

 carefully to preferve *. 



But, in the 15th century, the Saracens were in pofTeflion of Egypt 

 from which the papyrus came; and, as the Europeans had no com- 

 merce with them, no more papyrus was to be got. And parchment 

 being, as 1 have fud, a coftly material for writing, and altogether 

 unfit for printing, it was neceflary to invent an art for making a ma- 

 terial fit both for writing and printing; and accordingly they con- 

 trived to make, of linen rags, what we ziHA paper ^ and which is now 

 fOf moft common, ufe. 



But there was (Fill one thing wanting, and of fuch confequence, 

 that, without it, the other things I have mentioned would have been 

 of little ufe for the reftoration of learning. What I mean is, men 

 of fo much genius, learning, and induftry, as thefe firft reftorers of 

 learning in Italy were. They recovered learning from duft and 

 worms, (which, as we are informed by Villoyfon, are now confum- 

 ing the manufcripts that yet remain in Greece,) and from manu- 

 fcripts which, I believe, few m.en of this age could read ; for they 

 not only wanted points and commas, fuch as we ufe, but they had 



not 



♦ lUudo chart'is^ Tays Horace when he wrote only for amufement, and to pafs an 

 idle hour; but he called for the parchment not four tiaics iu tiic ^^-^c^^', as Damafippus 

 tells him. 



.. ■ ■ toto r.on quiter anno 



Membranam pofcas, Lib. 2. Sat. 3. 



