C30 FEINTING 



tree, and he cuts away with a sharp instrument all those parts of the wood on which 

 nothing is traced, leaving the transcribed characters in relief and ready for printing. 

 The Chinese printer then, having no notion of the printing press, makes use of two 

 fine brushes, both held in the right hand, one of which contains ink, the other dry. 

 With the former he blackens the letters ; the latter he passes gently over the paper 

 which has been laid on them. By this means an expert workman can take a large 

 number of impressions in one day. As the Chinese paper is thin and transparent, it 

 is printed on one side only, two pages side by side, and the sheet has a black line 

 down the middle, as a guide to the binder, who folds it double, and fastens the open 

 leaves together. Various attempts have been made in the Celestial Empire to sub- 

 stitute moveable types for the wooden blocks, but they have always terminated in a 

 return to the old method. 



The ancient Komans made use of metal-stamps, with characters engraved in relief, 

 to mark their articles of trade and commerce ; and Cicero, in his ' De Natura Deorum,' 

 has a passage from which Toland imagines the moderns have taken the hint of print- 

 ing. Cicero orders the types to be made of metal, and calls them formes literarum, 

 the very words used by the first printers to express them. In Virgil's time, too, 

 brands, with letters, were used for marking cattle, &c., with the owner's name. 

 Landseer (Lectures on the Art of Engraving, 8vo. 1807) observes, ' Had the modern 

 art of making paper been known to the ancients, we had probably never heard the 

 names of Faust and Finiguerra ; for with the same kind of stamps which the Romans 

 used for their pottery and packages, books might also have been printed ; and the same 

 engraving which adorned the shields and pateras of the more remote ages, with the 

 addition of paper, might have spread the rays of Greek and Etrurian intelligence 

 over the world of antiquity. Of the truth of this assertion I have the satisfaction 

 to lay before you the most decided proofs, by exhibiting engraved Latin inscriptions, 

 both in cameo and intaglio, from the collection of Mr. Douce, with impressions taken 

 from them at Mr. Savage's letter-press but yesterday [1805]. One of them is an 

 intaglio stamp, with which a Roman oculist was used to mark his medicines ; the 



other, which is of metal, and in cameo, 

 1667 is simply the proper name of the 



s* K "^ B ** ll ** nr<iC *'"^^* - "^^"* > *iWfc. tradesman by whom it has probably 



T^ F A AL ^^ 1 been used. ' T[itus] Valagini Mauri.' 

 \i f\ I ^^ f * I i Fig. 1667 is a facsimile of the latter 



N9 k A M ^ m f^ I Books before the Invention of Print- 

 I 1^1 i\ \I LJ ing. The value of books and the 



* / T ft I V w J\ I / esteem in which they were held before 

 fc. [MMr~rjt-_-Ji^^MMr i ^ ne i nven tion of printing, were such, 



that notaries were employed to make 



the conveyance with as much care and attention as if estates were to be trans- 

 ferred. It was then thought the worthy occupation of a life either to copy or 

 collect an amount of reading which modern improvements now present to us for a 

 few shillings. Galen tells us that Ptolemy Philadelphus gave the Athenians 15 

 talents, with exemption from all tribute, and a great convoy of provisions, for the 

 autographs and originals of the tragedies of ^Esehylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. 

 ' Pisi stratus is said to have been the first among the earliest of the Greeks who pro- 

 jected an immense collection of the works of the learned, and is supposed to have 

 been the collector of the scattered works which passed under the name of Homer.' 

 B 'Israeli, Curiosities of Literature. 



Among the Romans the bulk or goodness of a man's library was the distinguishing 

 mark of his excellence or wisdom. Middleton (Life of Cicero), speaking of Cicero 

 himself, says : ' Nor was he less eager in making a collection of Greek books, and 

 forming a library, by the same opportunity of Atticus's help. This was Atticus's own 

 passion ; who, having free access to all the Athenian libraries, was employing his slaves 

 in copying the works of their best writers, not only for his own use, but for sale also, 

 and the common profit both of the slave and the master." 



The passion for the enjoyment of books has in all ages led their lovers to cover 

 them with the most costly and ornamental bindings. The ancients commonly 

 adorned them with pendent ornaments of variously-coloured cloth, and the covers 

 were stained with scarlet or purple colour: ' Hirsutus sparsis ut videaro comis* 

 (Ovid), and ' Purpureo fulgens habitu, radiantibus uncis' (Martial). The unfit wero 

 rollers of wood or ivory, round which the books were rolled to prevent injury to 

 their fronts. Ovid and Tibullus call them cornita, from the similarity of their ends to 

 horns. Epistles differed from books in this : the leaves were folded together, and 

 tied round with linen tape, and sealed with creta Asiatica, while books were ' bound ' as 

 above. If, however, there were more epistles than one, ' or if one epistle was to bo 



