ANCIENT WOOD-ENGRAVINGS. 41 



" And therefore Will he wipe his tables clean, 

 And keep no tell-tale to his memory;" 



and Hamlet also, after his interview with his father's ghost, 

 says,* 



" My tables meet it is I set it down." 



MRS. F. 



We also read that Lady Jane Grey gave her tables to Sir 

 John Gage, the Constable of the Tower, before her execution; 

 but, we must now proceed to writing or engraving upon wood. 



ESTHER. 



The Scandinavian nations appear always to have employed 

 wood, before their communications with the Latin Mission- 

 aries; and Sir F. Palgrave says that our verb to write, is de- 

 rived from a Teutonic root, signifying to scratch or tear,f 

 and is one of the testimonies of this usage. The Cymri 

 adopted the same plan. Their poems were graven upon small 

 stems or rods, one line upon each face of the rod; and the old 

 English word, stave, as applied to a stanza, is probably a 

 relic of the practice which, in early ages, prevailed in the 

 West. In the East, you will find the same custom still sub- 

 sisting. The slips of bamboo, upon which the inhabitants 

 of the Indian Archipelago now write or scratch their compo- 

 sitions with a bodkin, are substantially the same with our 

 ancient staves. " 



HENRIETTA. 



W T hat kind of wood was used? 



MRS. F. 



The ancients employed box and citron wood, but beech 

 was principally used in the middle ages. 



ESTHER. 



Were not leaves also used! 



* Act i. sc. v. t Ritzen or reissen. 



% Anglo-Saxon History, p. 153. 



4* 



