38 LAWS SET TO MUSIC. 



graceful papyrus, bending its tufted head over the clear waters 

 of the river, presents a most elegant study to the artist. An 

 attempt at reviving the papyrus paper has been made, by the 

 Chevalier Landolina* of Syracuse; but as the best papyrus 

 paper could only prove a poor substitute for linen paper, the 

 attempt is a mere object of antiquarian curiosity. But I think 

 that we must now dismiss the subject of papyrus, and pro- 

 ceed to the other various materials and methods employed 

 for transmitting knowledge. 



FREDERICK. 



Thank you, aunt. 



MRS. F. 



In the earliest ages of society, the simple laws which were 

 then sufficient for a community were, among the Greeks, set 

 to music and chanted or sung, f This mode of conveying in- 

 struction was continued to a later period, and was so cus- 

 tomary among the Teutonic nations, that paraphrases of the 

 Bible were not unfrequently made in verse; the achievements 

 of their ancestors were celebrated in song, and, as I before 

 said, the Scriptures themselves were turned into rhyme. 



ESTHER. 



There is a very interesting account of Caedmon, the great 

 Saxon versifier of the Bible, in Sir Francis Palgrave's enter- 

 taining History of England. I will read it to you this evening. 



MRS. F. 



The next step in transmitting knowledge was the en- 

 graving of their laws, by the Greeks and Romans, upon 

 tables of wood, ivory, brass, or stone. 



ESTHER. 



I have often heard of the Arundelian Marbles being referred 

 to for dates; pray, mamma, what are they? 



* Hughes's Travels, vol. i. p. 90. 



t See Sir Francis Palgrave's Anglo-Saxon History, and the life 

 of Caxton, in the Library of Useful Knowledge, from which the 

 following account is principally taken. 



