INKS. 387 



COLOUR. 



The colour of the ink is of no great assistance in authenticating 

 MSS. and charters. There is, says Mr. Astle, in my library, 

 along roll of parchment, at the head of which, is a letter that 

 was carried over the greatest part of England by two devout 

 monks, requesting prayers for Lucia de Vere, countess of Ox. 

 ford, a pious lady, who died in 1199; who had founded the 

 house of Henningham, in Essex, and done many other acts of 

 piety. This roll consists of many membranes, or skins of 

 parchment sewed together ; all of which, except the first, contain 

 certificates from the different religious houses, that the two 

 monks had visited them, and that they had ordered prayers to 

 be offered up for the countess, and had entered her name 

 in their bead-rolls. It is observable, that time halh had very 

 different effects on the various inks, with which these certificates 

 were written ; some are as fresh and black as if written yesterday, 

 others are changed brown, and some are of a yellow hue. It may 

 naturally be supposed that there is a great variety of hand-writings 

 upon this roll ; but the fact is otherwise, for they may be reduced 

 to three. 



The letter at the head of the roll is written in modern Gothic 

 characters*: four-fifths of the certificates are Norman, which 

 shews that this mode of writing had taken place of almost every 

 other. Some of the certificates are in modern Gothic letters, 

 which we conceive were written by English monks ; and a very 

 few are in Lombardic small letters. It may however be said in ge- 

 neral that black ink of the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth cen- 

 turies, at least amongst the Anglo-Saxons, preserves its original 

 blackness much better than that of succeeding ages + ; not even 

 excepting the sixteenth and seventeenth, in which it was frequently 

 very bad. Pale ink very rarely occurs before the four last cen- 

 turies. 



Peter Caniparius, Professor of Medicine at Venice, wrote a 

 cCrious book concerning inks, which is now scarce, though there 

 is an edition of it printed in London in 1660, 4 to. The title is, 

 u De Atramentis cujuscunque generis opus sane novum. Hactenus 



* The letter, with an account of it, is in Weevcr's Funeral Monuments, 

 last edit. Land. 1767, 4tn. p. 879. 



t TheTexta Sancti Cuthberti in the Cottonian library, (N'ero D. 4.) demoa- 

 Rtratcs the truth of this assertion. 



