40 WILLS OF THE ROMAN SOLDIERS. 



Well recollected, Frederick. I am glad to see that you can 

 apply your reading; but we must not wander from our history 

 of writing. Brass, lead, and copper were used for inscrip- 

 tions, but wood was most generally employed, both for public 

 as well as for private purposes. In the fourth century, the 

 laws of the empire were inscribed upon wooden tables. 



ESTHER. 

 Did not the ancients write upon bone or ivory? 



MRS. F. 



Yes. Among the relics in the Museum at Naples, is a 

 number of small oblong sheets of bone, fastened at their ex- 

 tremity by a piece of metal, which runs through a hole per- 

 forated through each, just like those which are used by us for 

 memoranda. The ancients wrote upon these tablets with 

 pencils of minium, or red lead, which is rubbed out as easily 

 as our black lead; so you see that even this little contrivance 

 is not a modern invention.* 



FREDERICK. 



But did not the Romans cover their tablets with wax 1 ? 



MRS. F. 



Yes. With their manner of writing upon them, with a 

 metal or ivory style, you are no doubt well acquainted; but 

 these waxen tablets were employed till a very late period. 

 At Geneva, I saw in the library a fragment of the account of 

 the household expenses of Philip the Fair,f written upon 

 waxen tablets with a style. The MS. is almost illegible 

 now, but was deciphered before it became in such bad order. 



' ^- ^ ESTHER. 



Shakspeare alludes to the table books in Henry the 

 Fourth, when the Archbishop of York says, 



* De Jorio. , f For part of the year 1308. 



J Valery, vol. i. p. 18. Part ii. act. iv. sc. 1. 



