1859.] On the Introduction of Writing into India. 137 



mony which I shall give thee." The covenant here spoken of must 

 have existed as a book, or, at least, in some tangible form. 



A nation so early acquainted with letters and books as the Jews, 

 would naturally employ some of the terms connected with writing 

 in a metaphorical sense. Thus we read in the Psalms (lvi. 8.) 

 " Put thou my tears into thy bottle : are they not in thy book ?" 



lxix. 28. " Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and 

 not be written with the righteous." 



xl. 7. " Then said I, Lo I come : in the volume of the book it is 

 written of me." 



xlv. 1. " My tongue is the pen of a ready writer." 



In the Book of Job (xix. 23), we actually read, " Oh that my 

 words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! 

 That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for 

 ever!" " Printed" here can only mean " written." 



Proverbs iii. 3. "Write them upon the table of thine heart." 



In the Homeric poems, on the contrary, where the whole Grecian 

 life lies before us in marvellous completeness and distinctness, there 

 is not a single mention of writing. The Xvypa o-^/xeia, carried by 

 Bellerophon instead of a letter, are the best proof that, even for 

 such purposes, not to speak of literary compositions, the use of 

 letters was unknown to the Homeric age. The art of writing, when 

 it is not only applied to short inscriptions but to literature, forms 

 such a complete revolution in the history of a nation, and in all the 

 relations of society, both civil aud political, that, in any class of 

 ancient literature, the total absence of any allusion to writing 

 may safely be supposed to prove the absence of the art at the time 

 when that literature arose. We know the complete regeneration 

 of modern Europe which was wrought by the invention of printing. 

 Every page of the literature of the sixteenth century, every pam- 

 phlet or fly-sheet of the Reformation, tells us that printing had been 

 invented. The discovery of writing, and more especially the appli- 

 cation of writing to literary purposes, was a discovery infinitely 

 more important than that of printing. And yet we are asked to 

 believe that Homer should have hidden his light under a bushel, 

 aud erased every expression connected with writing from his dic- 

 tionary ! 



