ORIGIN OF THE MATERIALS OF WRITING. 
589 
th ief post-master for England before appointed. King Janies 1. origi- 
nally erected]a post-office, under the control of one Matthew de Quester, 
or del Equester, for the conveyance of letters to and from foreign parts, 
which office was afterwards claimed by lord Stanhope, but was con- 
firmed and ’continued to William Frizel and Thomas Witherings, 
by king Charles I. in 1632. Previous to this time it would appear 
that private persons were used to convey letters to and from foreign 
parts ; all such interference with the post* master’s office is therefore 
expressly prohibited. King Charles, in J635, erected a letter-office 
for England and Scotland, under the direction of the above Thomas 
Witherings ; who, however, was superseded for abuses in 1640. The 
rates of postage then established w as tw'o-pence from eighty to one 
hundred and forty miles. The allowance to the post-masters on the 
road, for horses employed in these posts, was fixed at two-pence 
halfpenny per mile, for every single horse. All private inland posts 
were discharged at this time ; and in 1637 all private foreign posts 
were in like manner prohibited. The posts thus established, how- 
ever, extended only to a few of the principal roads ; and the times 
of transmission were not in every case so certain as they ought to 
have been. 
Eastern Blode of Conveying Letters. 
Sanballat appears to have sent his letter to Nehemiah (chap. vi. 5.) 
open, i. e. unenclosed, in contempt, as the Turks do to this day when 
they write to mean or common persons ; but when they write to their 
superiors, they enclose their letters in a handsome bag, with a paper 
tied to it, directed and sealed. Niebuhr asserts, in his Travels, that 
the Turks send their letters to their equals in long purses of silk. — • 
The Arabs roll up their letters, and then flatten them to the breadth 
of an inch, and paste up the end instead of sealing them. The Per- 
sians make up their letters in a roll, about six inches long, and a bit 
of paper is fastened round it with gum, and sealed with an impres- 
sion of ink w hich resembles printers’ ink, but not so thick. The Mexi- 
cans conveyed intelligence from place to place by small portions of 
cotton, coloured, and tied in a peculiar manner which was well under- 
stood. These demi-hieroglyphics were conveyed with great rapidity 
by persons purposely stationed at given distances from each other. 
Origin of the Materials of Writing. 
From the “ Literary History of France,” by the learned Benedic- 
tines, Mr. D’Israeli collected the chief materials of the present article. 
It is curious to observe the various substitutes for paper before its 
discovery. When men had not yet discovered the art of recording- 
events by writing, they planted trees, erected rude altars, or heaps 
of stone, as remembrances of past events. Hercules probably could 
not write when he fixed his famous pillars. The most ancient mode 
of writing was on bricks, tyles, and oyster-shells, and on tables of 
stone; afterwards on plates of various materials, on ivory, on bark of 
trees, on leaves of trees, &c. Engraving memorable exents on hard 
