VOL. XXrV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 22g 



vince, in which such a book was written. Nor is it easy (though one would be 

 apt to take such differences for so many land-marks,) to tell the age of a Greek 

 MS. without the date ; and I never yet saw such a date so high as the year 

 6400, according to the Greek computation. And it is still much harder, from 

 any remarks about the character, illumination, ink, parchment, paper, bind- 

 ing, &c. to find out what country, province, or island, such a Greek book 

 should be written in, or what countryman the scribe should be. What farther 

 adds to the difficulty is, that it is known that the shapes of the majuscule letters 

 found in Greek MSS. have been retained for above 6(X) years together, with 

 little variation; and also, that some MSS. written with minuscules, and with 

 accents, are older than some others which want them: and also, that the pre- 

 sent Greek copistes or librarij have three or four different hands commonly used 

 by them, one being their own common hand, the others an imitation of old 

 MSS. which are more beautiful, but troublesome in writing, than their ordinary 

 running hands: it being customary, I am told, when a man wants a copy of 

 such a book to be written, for the copiste to ask in what hand it must be writ- 

 ten, one hand being more costly than another; and according as they agree, 

 the book is written. And thus I have seen some very new things written in the 

 same hand with books which are certainly 400 years old. 



What methods learned men have taken, in order to inform themselves of the 

 different ages of MSS. I know not, but my own has been this, viz. I have been 

 careful to get all the dates I could, when it was said that such an individual MS. 

 was written, at such a time, or by such a particular person, every book with a 

 date; being as a standard by which to know the age of those books of the same 

 or a like hand, and of those that are not very much older or newer. Where dates 

 have been wanting in some books, perhaps they have had some succession of 

 emperors, kings, popes, bishops, or other officers; and setting down the con- 

 tinuance of their predecessors for so many years, months, and days, if there be 

 only the naked name of him who is the last in order, all other circumstances 

 concurring, I then judge the book to have been written during the life or reign 

 of such a person: especially if that succession be afterwards continued by a 

 more recent hand, or that there be two such successions, as of kings and 

 bishops, and the last of each happen to be cotemporaries. I have made other 

 observations from historical notes and ecclesiastical tables, in some books. x\t 

 other times I light upon some authentic charter or original writing, in the same 

 hand with such a book as I have remembered to have formerly seen, but with- 

 out any guess at its age. The age of the charter being known, that of the 

 book is then known also : for I never entertained any notion, or relied on any 



