230 PHILOSOPHICAL TBANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1705. 



observation, but as I found it confirmed by the suffrage of concurring circum- 

 stances, and sufficient authority. 



But even in dates, I have found that a man ought to be very cautious ; for 

 some have been altered by later hands, for corrupt and base ends. Some are so 

 worded, as when one thinks that the time they mention, is the time when the 

 MS. was finished by the copiste, or book- writer; it is meant only as to the time 

 when the author finished his composition. Other books are post-dated, that 

 they might be accounted new. Of this last kind, is a Greek MS. I saw in the 

 university library at Cambridge, which, as appears by an annotation written in 

 it, was bought such a year at Rome, for so much; and yet the date pretends 

 that the book was written at Rome in such a year, which happens to be two 

 years after it was bought and paid for. The reason of these post-dates was, 

 because, before printing came up, a book was so much the more valuable as it 

 was newer. An old book might be bought for an old song, as we say ; but he 

 that transcribed a fresh copy, must be paid for his pains. And therefore, I have 

 found in some catalogues of the MSS. formerly extant in our abbey-libraries, 

 that when they said such a book was liber vetus, they would often add, et 

 inutilis; but liber novus was nitidus, eleganter scriptus, lectu facilis, &c. which 

 mean opinion of the ancient copies, by the bye, may have been the occasion of 

 the loss of many a good author. 



The librarii or book-writers were from the time of the Romans a particular 

 company of men, and their business a trade : but though book-writing was 

 their profession, yet they afterwards had but a third part of the business. 

 Learning, after the erection of monasteries, was chiefly in the hands of the 

 clergy; and they were for the most part regulars, and lived in monasteries: 

 among these were always many industrious men, who wrote continually new 

 copies of old books, for their own use, or for the monastery, or for both ; 

 which seems to have swallowed up above half the business. Then, if an extra- 

 ordinary book was to be written, for the standing and more particular use of 

 the church or monastery, the antiquarius must be sent for, to write it in large 

 characters, after the old manner, and such a copy they knew would last for 

 many ages, without renovation. Between these two sorts of people, the 

 writing-monks and antiquarii, the poor librarii, or common scriptores, who had 

 i^milies to maintain, could hardly earn their bread. This put them upon a 

 quicker way of dispatch, that so they might undersell each other : and in order 

 to this dispatch, they would employ several persons at one time, in writing the 

 same book, each person, except him who wrote the first skin, beginning where 

 his fellow was to leave oS': or else they would form the letters smaller and 



