MAN 
dltlon to other forts of manure, the farmers about Leof- 
toff employ herring-fcales. The herrings are wafhed in 
large tubs before they undergo the operation of fmoking; 
and fuch fcales as come off in the procefs are difpofed of 
to the farmers at about fixpence the lalt, which are the 
fcales of 10,000 herrings. The manner of ufiug fcales of 
this fort is that of fowing them upon wheat on clover 
lays, having them harrowed in with the corn, from which 
management confiderable benefit is fuppofed to be de¬ 
rived. And it is fuggefted, that an additional advantage 
might probably be drawn from the life of the water in 
which the herrings have been wafhed, as it is found to be 
oily, bloody, and ftrongly impregnated with the fmell of 
the fifh. It is hinted that this water might be received 
into refervoirs, contrived at but little expenfe; from 
which it might occafionally be drawn off, and conveyed 
in watering-carts, firnilar to thofe employed in the roads 
near the metropolis, either direftly to the grounds which 
are in a proper (fate of preparation for its reception, or 
to a heap of earthy materials, which are defigned to be 
formed into compoft. Turf or fods are particularly 
adapted to this purpofe, from their quality of readily ab- 
forbing the moifture. Tung may be afterwards added 
with the beft effeft. 
Various other fubftances, both animal and vegetable, 
are enumerated by our author, accompanied by con- 
cife remarks on their nature and mode of operation. For 
thefe, we mult refer our readers to the work itfelf, con¬ 
tenting ourfelves with extracting the author’s concluding 
reflections on this branch of the fubjeCt. “ The doCtrine, 
of the proper application of manures from organized fub- 
Itances, offers (fays he) an illuftration of an important 
part of the economy of nature, and of the happy order in 
which it is arranged. The death and decay of animal 
fubftances tend to refolve organized forms into chemical 
conftituents ; and the pernicious effluvia difengaged in the 
procefs, feem to point out the propriety of burying them 
in the foil, where they are fitted to become the food of 
vegetables. The fermentation and putrefaction of orga¬ 
nized fubltances in the free atmofphere, are noxious pro- 
ceffes; beneath the furfaee of the ground, they are fa- 
lutary operations. In this cafe, the food of plants is 
prepared where it can be ufed ; anti that which would of¬ 
fend the fenfes, and injure the health, if expofed, is con¬ 
verted, by gradual proceffes, into forms of beauty and of 
-ufefulnefs; the feetid gas is rendered a conftituent of the 
aroma of the flower; and what might be poifon, becomes 
nourifhment to animals, and to man.” 
MANU'REMENT, f. Cultivation; improvement.— 
The manurement of wits is like that of foils, where, before 
the pains of tilling or fowing, men conlider what the 
mould will bear. Wotton on Education. 
MANU'RER, f. He who manures land ; a hufband- 
man. 
MA'NUS,y. [Lat. hand, from the ceremony of laying 
the hand on the book.] An old law-term for an oath ; 
alfo for the perfon that takes an oath; a compurgator. 
MAN'USCRIPT, f [from the Lat. manus, hand, and 
feriptus, written.] A book or paper written with the hand-, 
by which it ftands oppofed to a printed book or paper. A 
manufeript is ufually denoted by the two letters MS. and 
the plural by MSS.—What makes public libraries valuable, 
is the number of ancient manufcripts repofited in them. 
Chambers. 
In the Phil. Tranf. for 1705, there are fome judicious 
hints “ How. to judge of the Age of Manufcripts,” by 
Mr. Humfrey Wanley. Some of thefe remarks we fliaii 
prefent to our readers in the author’s own words. <l It is 
evident that a man may judge of fome manufcripts by the 
hand-writing ; and of the genuine and fpurious works of 
fome authors, and the time in which they lived, by their 
ftyle ; but can fcarcely be infallible. Suppofe, for inllance, 
a man fhould bring to any antiquary a good manufeript 
copy of the Hebrew Bible, Pentateuch, or Pfalter, written 
in a fmalL common letter, without points, fine knots, iiou- 
M A N 315 
riflies, pictures, and great letters, or any thing that fhould 
look pompous: fuppofe that the ink, parchment, See. 
fhould carry a feeming face of antiquity with them, and 
that a man fhould fay his MS. was 1000, 1200, or 1300, 
years old, whereas really it was written within a very few 
years; could the antiquary from the hand alone foon find 
out the cheat? All the Hebrew MSS. that I have feen 
are written either in Samaritan or Chaldee letters. As to 
the Samaritan, I own they bear a good refemblance to 
each other, and that they differ very much from thofe Sa¬ 
maritan characters which we find ftamped on fome truly 
ancient and genuine coins. But then there feems to be 
fuch a refemblance, as to the character, between thofe 
coins Itruck in ages far diftant from each other, that it is 
hard (from the confideration of the metal, its fabric, 
weight, or from the (hapes of the letters in the inferip- 
tion, &c.) to fay, which coin was made in the time of 
David or Solomon, and which no older than the time of 
the Maccabees ; this being rather to be gathered from tire 
words and meaning of their inscriptions, than from the 
figure of the characters which compofe them. The fame 
may be faid, in a great ineafure, of the old Greek, Punic, 
Roman, B.itifh, and other, coins. The Chaldee character 
has indeed varied in traCf of time, according to the dif¬ 
ferent fancies and humours of men. The even plain let¬ 
ter, I think, is the mod ancient. This they altered into 
a more neat way of making it, as in R. Stephens’ Hebrew 
Bibles. There is a third faftiion, of waving the perpendi¬ 
cular ftrokes like rays, as in fome of the Hebrew coins ex¬ 
hibited in the prolegomena to tiie Polyglot Bibles. Then, 
fourthly, there is a large fat letter in the MS. Rituals aiui 
Liturgies, belides the rabbinical letters of Italy and Ger¬ 
many, with their offspring, the litteras coronatae, and per¬ 
haps others that I never law ; not to mention here the 
Jewilh cullom of writing the vulgar language of the coun¬ 
try wherein they live with Hebrew letters. It feems a 
hard matter to trace the original and progrefs of all thefe 
ways of writing, fo as, on the bare light of a MS. written 
in the Hebrew language or character, to fay, by the lhape 
of the letters of this book, it appears to be fo old ; and 
it feems much more difficult to ailign the particular pro¬ 
vince or country where each Hebrew book was written ; 
as, for inltance, in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Eng¬ 
land, Holland, Germany, Poland, Barbary, Perlia, India, 
in the feveral provinces of Turkey, See. 
“ The fame nearly may be faid of the Greek manufcripts, 
in which language there has been a great diverlity of 
writing, according to the different humours of the feribes, 
the falhion then in ufe, or the manner of that particular 
province in which fuch a book was written. Nor is it 
ealy (though one would be apt to take fuch differences 
for fo many land-marks) to tell the age of a Greek MS., 
without the date ; and I neveryet law fuch a date lo high 
as the year 6+00, according to the Greek computation. 
And it is Hill much harder, from any remarks about the 
character, illumination, ink, parchment, paper, binding, 
&c. to find out what country, province, or jliand, fuch a 
Greek book Ihould be written in, or what countryman 
the feribe Ihould be. What farther adds to the difficulty 
is, that it is known that the fhapes of the majufcule let¬ 
ters found in Greek MSS. have been retained for above 
600 years together, with little variation; and alfo, that 
fome MSS. written with minufcules, and with accents,, 
are older than fome others which want them; and alfo, 
that the prefent Greek copifles, or librarii, have three or 
four different hands commonly ufed by them, one being 
their own common hand, the others an imitation of old 
MSS. which are more beautiful, but troublefome in writ¬ 
ing, than their ordinary running hands; it being cullo- 
mary, I am told, when a man wants a copy of fuch a book, 
to be written, for the copilte to alk in what hand it mult 
be written, one hand being more coftly than another,-, 
and, according as they agree, the book is written. And 
thus I have leen lome very new things written in the 
fame hand with books which are certainly 4.00. years old. 
“ Wliafe 
