Chapter XXI: Part 21

[1177] In Leibnitii Collectanea Etymologica, Hanoveræ, 1717, 8vo, p. 467, there is a catalogue of the effects and revenues of the church at Prüm, where a monastery of Benedictines was established as early as the eighth century. This catalogue, which was drawn up in the year 1222, says, “Solvit unusquisque pro vermiculo denarios sex.” But as allusion is made here to people who lived near Metz in Lorraine, it may be conjectured that we are to understand not _Coccus radicum_, but _Coccus arborum_, which they might have procured from thence. For this doubt, however, there is no room in Descriptio Censuum, Proventuum, ac Fructuum ex Prædiis Monasterii S. Emmerammi, in the year 1301, to be found in Pezii Thesaurus Anecdotorum Novissimus, i. p. 69. We are there told, “Singuli dant sex denarios pro vermiculo;” and p. 69 and 74, “singuli dant vasculum vermiculi;” p. 76, “reddunt vermiculi coppos duo.” The people of whom these passages speak belonged to the monastery of St. Emmeran, at Regensburg, and were settled in Bavaria. Papon relates in Histoire Générale de Provence, ii. p. 356, that the archbishop of Arles, in the middle of the twelfth century, sold to the Jews the kermes collected at St. Chamas and other parts of his diocese.

[1178] In Dioscoridem, iv. 39.

[1179] De subtilitate; exercit. 325, § 13.

[1180] The price of cochineal has in latter times fallen. In the year 1728 it cost fifty-eight schellings Flemish per pound; but in May 1786 it cost only twenty-seven and a half. [In 1814 the price of the best cochineal in this country was as high as 36_s._, 39_s._, but it has since gone on regularly declining till it has sunk to from 4_s._ to 6_s._ per pound.] Sifted cochineal is dearer than unsifted. It is often adulterated in Spain, but oftener in Holland, with the wild cochineal, as it is called. Some years ago an Englishman adulterated this article by mixing it with red wax; but the fraud required too laborious preparation, and was attended with too little profit to be long continued. [In France it is frequently adulterated with talc and white lead with a view of increasing its weight; and in London with sulphate of baryta or heavy spar and bone or ivory black].

[1181] There is reason to think that the Spaniards gave as names to several American articles the diminutives of like Spanish or European productions. Thus _sarsaparilla_ signifies prickly vine-stock; _platina_ little silver. Is the cause of this to be referred to the Spanish _grandezza_?

[1182] Raynal, Histoire des Indes. Gen. 1780, 4 vols. ii. p. 77.

[1183] Algemeine Geschichte der Länder und Völker von Amerika, Halle 1753, 2 vols. 4to, ii. p. 7.

[1184] See Anderson’s Hist. Commerce, iv. p. 73. It is possible however that Guicciardini may have meant Spanish kermes.

[1185] Histoire Naturelle et Générale des Indes. Paris, 1556, fol. p. 122, 130. [Figures of the _Opuntia cochinillifera_ and of the cochineal insects, will be found in Pereira’s Materia Medica, vol. ii. p. 1850.]

[1186] The title in the original is, Natuerlyke Historie van de Couchenille, &c. Amst. 1729, 8vo. This work is scarce. A German translation of it may be found in (C. Mylius) Physikalischen Belustigungen. Berlin, 1751, 8vo, i. p. 43.

[1187] Miller’s Gardener’s Dictionary.

[1188] Traité de la culture du nopal et de l’éducation de la cochenille. Au Cap-Francois 1787, 8vo.

[1189] In Vita Aureliani, cap. 29.

[1190] Those who are desirous of further information respecting the _sandix_, may consult Salmasius on Solinus, p. 810, and the editor of the Cyneget of Gratius Faliscus, x. 86. p. 46.

[1191] Some have considered sandix as a mineral. Minerals however can be used for painting but not for dyeing. It may be replied that the Romans themselves dyed with kermes at this period, and that they must have easily procured it. But they understood the art of dyeing with it so badly that they employed it only for giving the ground of their purple, and on that account it must have appeared improbable to them that the people in India could produce by it a more beautiful colour than their purple was. From the like ignorance in modern times, indigo was decried, because people imagined that a complete colour could not be communicated by it; and this false conclusion retarded many improvements in the art of dyeing. It is very likely that the Greeks and the Romans were unacquainted with the effect produced upon kermes by acids, which the Persians and Indians used.

[1192] Antiquit. Celt. p. 69, 70.

[1193] Spaten (Stiler) der Teutschen Sprache Stammbaum, 1691, 4to, p. 1062.

[1194] In his annotations on Constantini Libri de Ceremoniis Aulæ Byzantinæ, ii. p. 137. Reiske also on this occasion gives the derivation from _Charlatan_, a mountebank, juggler, _circumforaneus_, _agyrta_, because such people formerly on account of their red clothes were called _scarlatati_ or _scarlatani_. Other conjectures respecting this word may be found in Menage, Dictionnaire Etymologique. See in the same work also, p. 498, the word _écarlate_. In ancient French writers the highest degree of any colour in its perfection is called _écarlate_, and we therefore meet with _écarlate blanche_, _écarlate verte_. Braun de Vestitu Sacerd. Hebræor. Amstelod. 1701, 4to, lib. i. cap. 15, p. 229, says, “_Salacka_, Tyrian red, from _sar_, Tyrus.” He controverts the opinion of Gronovius that _scarlatum_ is derived from _Galaticum_.

[1195] Dillon’s Travels through Spain, 1780, p. 21. Rod. Toletanus De Rebus Hispan. lib. vii. 1.

[1196] G. J. Vossius De Vitiis Sermonis.

[1197] Pontani Historia Gelrica, 1639, fol. p. 83: “Tres pannos scarlitinos Anglicanos.” The year seems to have been 1050. In Lunig’s Codex Diplom. Germaniæ, ii. p. 1739, may be seen a document of the year 1172, in which the emperor Frederick I. confers on the count of Gueldres the heritable jurisdiction of Nimeguen, on condition, “_ut_ ipse et ejus successores imperatori de eodem telonio singulis annis tres pannos scarlacos bene rubeos Anglicenses ardentis coloris--assignare deberet.”

[1198] In Statutis Cluniacensibus, cap. 18.

[1199] See Porner’s Anleitung zur Farbekunst. Leipzig, 1785, 8vo, p. 16.

[1200] Page 113.

[1201] Monconys mentions in his Travels, p. 408, Dr. Keiffer, a son-in-law of Drebbel, who was a good chemist.

[1202] In Borrichii Dissertat. ii. p. 104: Color Kufflerianus.

[1203] Rabelais, xi. 22. Menage, Diction. Etymol. i. p. 682.

[1204] Francheville, in Dissertat. sur l’Art de la Teinture des Anciens et Modernes, in Histoire de l’Académ. de Berlin, 1767, p. 67. In this dissertation, however, there is neither certainty nor proof.

[1205] Suite de Teinturier parfait. Paris, 1716.

[1206] Anderson’s History of Commerce.

[1207] Cary’s Bemerkungen über Grossbritanniens Handel; übersetzt von Wichmann. Leipzig, 1788, i. p. 372. Boyle remarks in his Experimenta de Coloribus, Coloniæ, 1680, 4to, that a bright scarlet colour was never produced except when tin vessels were used. It appears, therefore, that he had observed the good effects of a solution of tin.

WRITING-PENS.

As long as people wrote upon tables covered with wax, they were obliged to use a style or bodkin made of bone, metal, or some other hard substance; but when they began to write with coloured liquids, they employed a reed, and afterwards quills or feathers. This is well-known, and has been proved by various authors[1208]. There are two circumstances however in regard to this subject, which require some further research; and which I shall endeavour to illustrate by such information as I have been able to collect. With what kind of reeds did people write? When, and where were feathers first employed and for that purpose?

It is rather astonishing that we are ignorant of what kind of reeds the ancients used for writing, though they have mentioned the places where they grew wild, and where, it is highly probable, they grow still. Besides, we have reason to suppose that the same reeds are used even at present by all the Oriental nations; for it is well known, that among the people of the East old manners and instruments are not easily banished by new modes and new inventions. Most authors who have treated on the history of writing have contented themselves with informing their readers that a reed was employed; but the genus of plants called by the ancients _Calamus_ and _Arundo_, is more numerous in species than the genus of grasses, to which their corn belonged; and it might perhaps be as difficult to determine with accuracy what kind of reed they employed for writing, as to distinguish the species of grain called _far_, _alica_, and _avena_.

The most beautiful reeds of this kind grew formerly in Egypt[1209]; near Cnidus, a city and district in the province of Caria, in Asia Minor[1210]; and likewise in Armenia and Italy[1211]. Those which grew in the last-mentioned country, seem to have been considered by Pliny as too soft and spongy: but his words are so obscure that little can be gathered from them; and though the above places have been explored in later times by many experienced botanists, they have not supplied us with much certain information respecting this species of reed. It is however particularly mentioned by the old botanists, who have represented it as a stem, such as I have seen in collections; but as they give no characters sufficiently precise, Linnæus was not able to assign any place in his system to the _Arundo scriptoria_ of Bauhin[1212].

Chardin speaks of the reeds which grow in the marshes of Persia, and which are sold and much sought after in the Levant, particularly for writing. He has even described them; but his account has been of no service to enlarge our botanical knowledge[1213]. Tournefort, who saw them collected in the neighbourhood of Teflis, the capital of Georgia, though his description of them is far from complete, has taught us more than any of his predecessors. We learn from his account, that this reed has small leaves, that it rises only to the height of a man, and that it is not hollow, but filled with a soft spongy substance. He has characterized it, therefore, in the following manner in his System of Botany: Arundo orientalis, tenuifolia, caule pleno, ex qua Turcæ calamos parant[1214]. The same words are applied to it by Miller; but he observes that no plants of it had ever been introduced into England. That the best writing-reeds are procured from the southern provinces of Persia is confirmed by Dapper and Hanway. The former says that the reeds are sown and planted near the Persian Gulf in the place mentioned by Chardin, and he gives the same description as that traveller of the manner in which they are prepared.

The circumstance expressly mentioned by Tournefort, that these writing-reeds are not entirely hollow, seems to agree perfectly with the account given by Dioscorides[1215]. It is probable that the pith dries and becomes shrunk, especially after the preparation described by Chardin, so that the reed can be easily freed from it in the same manner as the marrowy substance in writing-quills is removed from them when prepared. Something of the like kind seems to be meant by Pliny, who, in my opinion, says that the pith dried up within the reed, which was hollow at the lower end, but at the upper end woody and destitute of pith. What follows refers to the flowers, which were employed instead of feathers for beds, and also for caulking ships. I conjectured that Forskal had given an accurate description of this reed; but when I consulted that author, I did not find what I expected. He only confirms that a great many reeds of different kinds grow near the Nile, which serve to make hedges, thatch, and wattled-walls, and which are used for various other purposes[1216].

These reeds were split and formed to a point like our quills, but certainly it was not possible to make so clean and fine strokes, and to write so long[1217] and so conveniently with them as one can with quills. The use of them, however, was not entirely abandoned when people began to write with quills, which in every country can be procured from an animal extremely useful in many other respects. Had the ancients been acquainted with the art of employing goose-quills for this purpose, they would undoubtedly have dedicated to Minerva, not the owl, but the goose.

A passage in Clemens of Alexandria, who died in the beginning of the third century, might on the first view induce one to conjecture that the Egyptian priests even wrote with quills. This author, after describing a procession of these priests, says the sacred writer had in his hand a book with writing-instruments, and on his head feathers[1218]. But it is impossible to guess what might be the intention of these feathers or wings on the head, among a people who were so fond of symbols. Besides, Clemens tells us expressly, that one of the writing-instruments was a reed with which the priests used to write.

Some assert from a passage of Juvenal[1219], that quills were used for writing in the time of that poet; but what he says is only a metaphorical expression, such as has been employed by Horace[1220] and various ancient writers. Others have endeavoured to prove the antiquity of writing-quills from the figure of the goddess Egeria, who is represented with a book before her, and a feather in her right hand; but the period when this Egeria was formed is not known, and it is probable that the feather was added by some modern artist[1221]. No drawings in manuscripts, where the authors appear with quills, are of great antiquity. Among these is the portrait of Aristotle, in a manuscript in the library of Vienna, which, as expressly mentioned at the end, was drawn at Rome in the year 1457; and we have great reason to think that the artist delineated the figure for ornamenting his work, not after an ancient painting, but from his own imagination[1222].

If credit can be given to the anonymous author of the history of Constantius, extracts from which have been made known by Adrian de Valois, the use of quills for writing is as old as the fifth century. We are informed by this author, who lived in the above century, that Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, was so illiterate and stupid, that during the ten years of his reign he was not able to learn to write four letters at the bottom of his edicts. For this reason the four letters were cut for him in a plate of gold, and the plate being laid upon paper, he then traced out the letters with a quill[1223]. This account is, at any rate, not improbable; for history supplies us with more instances of such men not destined for the throne by nature, but raised to it either by hereditary right or by accident, who had neither abilities nor inclination for those studies which it requires. The western empire was governed, almost about the time of Theodoric, by the emperor Justin, who also could not write, and who used in the like manner a piece of wood, having letters cut in it, but with this difference, that, in tracing them out, he caused his hand to be guided by one of his secretaries[1224].

The oldest certain account however known at present respecting writing-quills, is a passage of Isidore, who died in the year 636, and who, among the instruments employed for writing, mentions reeds and feathers[1225]. Another proof of quills being used in the same century, is a small poem on a writing-pen, to be found in the works of Althelmus, called sometimes also Aldhelmus, Adelhemus, and Adelmus. This writer, descended of a noble family, was the first Saxon who wrote Latin, and who made the art of Latin poetry known to his countrymen, and inspired them with a taste for compositions of that kind. He died in the year 709[1226].

In the eighth century writing-pens are mentioned by Alcuin, who at that period, in the time of Charlemagne, was of service in extending literary knowledge. He composed poetical inscriptions for every part of a monastery, among which there is one even for a privy[1227], and another for a writing-study. Speaking of the latter, he says that no one ought to talk in it, lest the pen of the transcriber should commit a mistake[1228].

After the above period proofs occur which place the matter beyond all doubt. Mabillon saw a manuscript of the gospels, which had been written in the ninth century under the reign of Louis I., in which the evangelists were represented with quills in their hands. The same author mentions a like figure of the eleventh century[1229]. In the twelfth century, Peter de Clugny, who by scholastic writers is called _Venerabilis_, and who died in 1157, wrote to a friend, exhorting him to assume the pen instead of the plough, and to transcribe, instead of tilling land[1230]. In short, writing-quills are often called _calami_ by ancient and modern authors who wrote good Latin; and it is probable that this word is employed by older writers than Isidore to signify writing-pens, where, for want of other proofs, we understand reeds.

The poet Heerkens[1231] has asserted, that the use of quills for writing is much older, and that the Romans became acquainted with them during their residence in the Netherlands, where they could not easily procure Egyptian reeds, and where, according to the account of Pliny[1232], they paid so much attention to the catching of geese. That writer, however, says that this was done on account of the flesh of these animals, which they esteemed much when roasted, and of the softness of their feathers, on which they were fond of sleeping. Heerkens himself remarks, that Pliny, had he known the use of quills for writing, would not have passed it over in silence, when he gives so circumstantial an account of writing-reeds. He is of opinion also, that, as the Dutch terms of art which allude to writing, such as _schryfpen_, &c., are of Latin extraction, the Dutch must have acquired them as well as the things signified from the Romans. This however seems to afford very little support to his assertion. Of more importance is the observation that in an old and beautiful manuscript of Virgil, in the Medicean library, which was written soon after the time of Honorius, the thickness of the strokes, and the gradual fineness of the hair-strokes of the letters give us reason to conjecture that they must have been written by some instrument equally elastic as a quill, as it is not probable that such strokes could be made with a stiff reed[1233]. It is also certain that the letters of the greater part of ancient manuscripts, particularly those found at Herculaneum, are written in a much stiffer and more uniform manner. But little confidence is to be placed in this observation; for we do not know but the ancient artists may have been acquainted with some method of giving elasticity to their reeds, and may have employed them in such a manner as to produce beautiful writing.

Notwithstanding the great advantage which quills have over reeds for writing, the latter however seem to have continued long in use even with the former. This conclusion I do not form, because _calamus_ and _arundo_ are to be found in the works of late writers; for many authors may have employed these old Latin words to express quills, like Cassiodorus, who in the sixth century, when exhorting the monks to transcribe theological works, used both these terms indiscriminately[1234]; but I found my assertion on the testimony of diplomatists, and particularly on the undoubted mention made of writing-reeds in the sixteenth century.

Men of letters, well-versed in diplomatics, assure us, from comparing manuscripts, that writing-reeds were used along with quills in the eighth century, at least in France, and that the latter first began to be common in the ninth. The papal acts, and those of synods, must however have been written with reeds much later[1235]. In convents they were retained for texts and initials, while, for small writing, quills were everywhere employed.

I can allow little credit to a conjecture supported merely by a similarity of the strokes in writing, because it is probable that people at first would endeavour to write in as strong and coarse a manner with quills, as had been before done with reeds, in order that the writing might not seem much different from what was usual; and with quills one can produce writing both coarse and fine. M. Meiners, however, referred me to a passage in a letter of Reuchlin, which removes all doubt on the subject. When this worthy man, to whom posterity is so much indebted, was obliged to fly by the cruelty of his enemies, famine and the plague, and to leave behind him all his property, he was supplied with the most common necessaries by Pirkheimer[1236]. Among other articles the latter sent to him, in the year 1520, writing materials, good paper, pen-knives, and, instead of peacocks-feathers which he had requested, the best swan-quills. That nothing might be wanting, he added also proper reeds, of so excellent a sort, that Reuchlin considered them to be Egyptian or Cnidian[1237].

These reeds at that period must have been scarce and in great request, as it appears by some letters of Erasmus to Reuchlin, for my knowledge of which I am under obligations to M. Meiners, that the former received three reeds from the latter, and expressed a wish that Reuchlin, when he procured more, would send some of them to a learned man in England, who was a common friend to both[1238].

Whatever may have been the cause, about the year 1433 writing-quills were so scarce at Venice, that it was with great difficulty men of letters could procure them. We learn at any rate, that the well-known Ambrosius Traversarius, a monk of Camaldule, sent from Venice to his brother, in the above year, a bunch of quills, together with a letter, in which he said, “They are not the best, but such as I received in a present. Show the whole bunch to our friend Nicholas, that he may select a quill; for these articles are indeed scarcer in this city than at Florence[1239].” This Ambrosius complains likewise, that at the same period he had hardly any more ink, and requested that a small vessel filled with it might be sent to him[1240]. Other learned men complain also of the want of good ink, which they either would not or did not know how to make. Those even who deal in it seldom know of what ingredients it is principally composed.

[The softness of quill pens and the constant trouble required to mend them naturally led to the search for some substitute. Metals have supplied this, and the manufacture of metallic pens now gives occupation to an immense number of persons. Steel and other metallic pens have long been made occasionally[1241], but were not extensively used on account of their stiffness; this was remedied by Mr. Perry, who, in 1830, introduced the use of apertures between the shoulder and the point. Numerous other improvements have been made, the metals have all had a trial, and pens can now be obtained of almost every form and quality. Perhaps the most perfect and durable, although the most expensive, are those in which the pen is made of gold, with a nib of osmium and iridium. The total quantity of steel annually employed in the manufacture of pens has been estimated at 120 tons, from which upwards of 200,000,000 pens are produced. One Birmingham manufacturer employed in 1838, 300 persons in making steel pens. They are also extensively manufactured in London and Sheffield. When first introduced, steel pens were eight shillings a gross; they afterwards fell to four shillings a gross, and now they are procured at Birmingham for fourpence a gross[1242]!]

FOOTNOTES

[1208] See Fabricii Bibliotheca Antiquaria, p. 959. Reimmanni Idea Systematis Antiquitatis Litterariæ, 1718, 8vo, p. 169. Astle’s Origin and Progress of Writing, 4to.

[1209] Plin. lib. xvi. cap. 35. Martial, lib. xiv. epigram. 38.

[1210] Plin. lib. c. Catullus, carm. xxxvi. 13, mentions Cnidus arundinosa. Ausonius, epist. iv. 75, calls the reeds Cnidii nodi.

[1211] Plin. lib. xvi. cap. 36.

[1212] Bauhini Pinax Plantar, p. 17: _Arundo scriptoria atro-rubens_. Hist. Plant. ii. p. 487. Theatrum Botan. p. 273.

[1213] “Their writing-pens are made of reeds or small hard canes of the size of the largest swan-quills, which they cut and slit in the same manner as we do ours; but they give them a much longer nib. These canes or reeds are collected towards Daurac, along the Persian Gulf, in a large fen supplied with water by the river Hellé, a place of Arabia formed by an arm of the Tigris, and another of the Euphrates united. They are cut in March, and, when gathered, are tied up in bundles and laid for six months under a dunghill, where they harden and assume a beautiful polish and lively colour, which is a mixture of yellow and black. None of these reeds are collected in any other place. As they make the best writing-pens, they are transported throughout the whole East. Some of them grow in India, but they are softer and of a paler yellow colour.”--Voyages de Chardin, vol. v. p. 49.

[1214] “It is a kind of cane which grows no higher than a man. The stem is only three or four lines in thickness, and solid from one knot to another, that is to say filled with a white pith. The leaves, which are a foot and a half in length, and eight or nine lines in breadth, enclose the knots of the stem in a sheath; but the rest is smooth, of a bright yellowish-green colour, and bent in the form of a half-tube, with a white bottom. The panicle or bunch of flowers was not as yet fully blown, but it was whitish, silky, and like that of other reeds. The inhabitants of the country cut the stems of these reeds to write with, but the strokes they form are very coarse, and do not approach the beauty of those which we make with our pens.”--Voyage du Levant, vol. ii. p. 136.

[1215] Lib. i. cap. 114. Rauwolf says in his Travels, vol. i. p. 93, “In the shops were to be sold small reeds, hollow within and smooth without, and of a brownish-red colour, which are used by the Turks, Moors, and other Eastern people, for writing.” It appears that Rauwolf did not see these reeds growing, but prepared and freed from the pith. We are told by Winkelmann, in his second Letter on the Antiquities of Herculaneum, p. 46, that for want of quills he often cut into writing-pens those reeds which grow in the neighbourhood of Naples.

[1216] Flora Ægyptiaco-Arabica. Havniæ, 1775, 4to, p. 47, 61.

[1217] Those who wish to see instances of learned men who wrote a great deal and a long time with one pen, may consult J. H. Ackeri Historia Pennarum, Altenburgi, 1726. The author has collected every thing he ever read respecting the pens of celebrated men.

[1218] Clementis Alex. Opera. Coloniæ, 1688, fol. p. 633. The best account of these sacred writers may be found in the Prolegomena, p. 91, of Jablonski’s Pantheon Ægypt.

[1219] Sat. iv. 149.

[1220] Od. iii. 29, 53.

[1221] Gronovii Thesaurus Antiq. Græc. ii. n. 28.

[1222] Lambec. lib. vii. p. 76.--Montfaucon, Palæograph. Græca, lib. i. cap. 3, p. 21.

[1223] Amm. Marcellini Hist. ed. Valesii, Par. 1681, fol. p. 699. The letters might have been raised on the plate, or deeply engraven in it, so that Theodoric only followed with his pen an impression of them made upon the paper.

[1224] It is uncertain whether the characters were followed with a style, a reed, or a quill; for γραφὶς (the word used) is the general appellation. “There have been princes, also, acquainted with writing, but so lazy that they kept a servant who could imitate their hand to subscribe for them.” Of this we have an instance in the emperor Carinus, respecting whom Vopiscus says, “Fastidium subscribendi tantum habuit, ut quendam ad subscribendum poneret qui bene suam imitaretur manum.”

[1225] Origines, lib. vi. 13, p. 132.

[1226] His writings may be found in Maxima Bibliotheca Patrum. Lugduni, 1677, fol. tom. xiii. In p. 27, is the following poem on a pen:--

_De Penna Scriptoria._

Me pridem genuit candens onocrotalus albam
Gutture qui patulo sorbet in gurgite lymphas.
Pergo ad albentes directo tramite campos,
Candentique viæ vestigia cærula linquo,
Lucida nigratis fuscans anfractibus arva.
Nec satis est unum per campos pandere callem;
Semita quin potius milleno tramite tendit,
Quæ non errantes ad cœli culmina vexit.

The author does not speak here of a goose-quill, but of a pelican’s, which at any rate may be as good as that of a swan.

[1227] Ad latrinium (latrinam).

[1228] Alcuini Opera, cura Frobenii, Ratisbonæ, 1777, 2 vols. fol. ii. p. 211.

[1229] De Re Diplomatica, Par. 1709, fol. in Suppl. p. 51.

[1230] Petr. Venerabil. lib. i. ep. 20, ad Gislebertum. C. G. Schwarz, who quotes the passage in Exercit. de Varia Supellectili Rei Librariæ Veterum, Altorfii, 1725, 4to, § 8, ascribes them falsely to the venerable Bede, who died about the year 735.

[1231] Ger. Nic. Heerkens Aves Frisicæ, Rot. 1788, 8vo, p. 106.

[1232] Hist. Nat. lib. x. cap. 22.

[1233] This manuscript was correctly printed by P. F. Fogginius, in quarto, in 1741. A specimen of the writing is given, p. 15. See also Virgilius Heynii, in Elenchus Codicum, p. 41.

[1234] Divin. Lection. cap. xxx. p. m. 477, 478.

[1235] Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique, i. p. 537.

[1236] Reuchlin’s life may be found in Meiners’ Lebensbeschreibungen Berühmter Männer. Zurich. 1795, 8vo, vol. i.

[1237] Pirkheimeri Opera, Franc. 1610, fol. p. 259.

[1238] Illustrium Virorum Epistolæ ad Jo. Reuchlin.: Hagenoæ, 1519, 4to, p. 144.

[1239] Ambrosii Traversarii Epistolæ. ed. L. Mehus. Florentiæ, 1759, 2 vols. fol. ii. p. 566.

[1240] Ibid. p. 580.

[1241] [The publisher has in his possession an extremely well-made metallic pen (brass) at least fifty years old, and with it a style for writing by means of smoked paper, both in a morocco pocket-book, which formerly belonged to Horace Walpole, and was sold at the Strawberry Hill sale.]

[1242] Waterston’s Cyclopædia of Commerce, 1846.

WIRE-DRAWING.

It is highly probable that in early periods metals were beat with a hammer to thin plates or leaves, which were afterwards divided into small slips by means of a pair of scissors, or some other instrument; and that these slips were by a hammer and file then rounded, so as to form threads or wire. This conjecture seems to be confirmed by the oldest information respecting work of this kind. When the sacerdotal dress of Aaron was prepared, the gold was beaten and cut to threads, so that it could be interwoven in cloth[1243]. We are told also that Vulcan, desirous to expose Mars and Venus, while engaged in their illicit amour, repaired to his forge, and formed on his anvil, with hammers and files, a net so fine that it could be perceived by no one, not even by the gods themselves, for it was as delicate as a spider’s web[1244]. These fine threads therefore were at that time first beat upon the anvil, and afterwards rounded by a file, but were not drawn out like our wire. I do not remember to have found a single passage in ancient authors where mention is made of metal prepared by being wire-drawn. The _æs ductile_ of Pliny was so called because it was malleable, and could be beat into thin leaves; and he says “tenuatur in laminas[1245].” In my opinion, works made with threads of metal occur too seldom in the writings of the ancients, to allow us to suppose that they were acquainted with that easy and cheap method of forming these threads by wire-drawing. Wire-work is rarely mentioned, and wherever it is spoken of, it appears to have been prepared on the anvil.

Such threads of the dearest and most malleable metal, gold, seem to have been early employed for ornamenting different articles of dress, but certainly not in so ingenious and beautiful a manner as in modern times. It is probable that slips of gold were sewed upon clothes, and particularly on the seams, as is still practised with lace; and perhaps gold stars and other figures cut from thin plates of gold were applied to dresses in the same manner, as is the case at present with spangles, and perhaps they were only affixed to them with paste. People however soon began to weave or knit dresses entirely of gold threads, without the addition of any other materials; at least such seems to be the account given by Pliny[1246]. Of this kind was the mantle taken from the statue of Jupiter by the tyrant Dionysius[1247], and the tunic of Heliogabalus mentioned by Lampridius[1248]. These consisted of real _drap d’or_, but the moderns give that name to cloth, the threads of which are silk wound round with silver wire flattened and gilded.

The invention of interweaving such massy gold threads in cloth is by Pliny ascribed to king Attalus; but I consider it to be much older, though I have found no certain proofs to support this opinion. I conjecture that the cloth of Attalus, so much extolled on account of its magnificence, was embroidered with the needle; for in the passage where embroidery is mentioned by Pliny for the first time, he speaks of its being invented by the Phrygians; he then mentions the cloth of Attalus; and immediately after the Babylonian, which, as is proved by several expressions in ancient authors, was certainly embroidered with the needle[1249]. If I am not mistaken, Attalus first caused woollen cloth to be embroidered (not interwoven) with threads of gold; and the doubt that Pliny assigns too late a period to the interweaving cloth with threads of gold is entirely removed. It appears that in the third century gold was interwoven with linen, that linen was embroidered with gold threads, or that gold threads were sewed upon linen, which the emperor Alexander Severus considered as folly; because by these means the linen was rendered stiff, cumbersome and inconvenient[1250].

It was not till a much later period that silver began to be formed into threads by a like process, and to be interwoven in cloth. Salmasius and Goguet have already remarked that no mention of silver stuffs is to be found in the works of the ancients; for the passages which might be quoted from Homer speak only, without doubt, of white garments[1251]. Pliny certainly would not have omitted this manner of preparing silver, had it been usual in his time; especially as he treats so expressly of that metal, and its being employed for ornaments, and speaks of gold threads and embroidering with gold. Vopiscus, however, seems to afford us an indubitable proof that silver thread was not known in the time of the emperor Aurelian[1252]. This author informs us that the emperor was desirous of entirely abolishing the use of gold for gilding and weaving, because, though there was more gold than silver, the former had become scarcer, as a great deal of it was lost by being applied to the above purposes, whereas every thing that was silver continued so[1253]; but it has been fully proved by Salmasius that silver threads were interwoven in cloth in the time of the last Greek emperors[1254].

The period when attempts were first made to draw into threads metal cut or beat into small slips, by forcing them through holes in a steel plate placed perpendicularly on a table, I cannot determine. In the time of Charlemagne this process was not known in Italy; for however unintelligible may be the directions given in Muratori[1255], “de fila aurea facere, de petalis auri et argenti,” we learn from them that these articles were formed only by the hammer. It is extremely probable that the first experiments in wire-drawing were made upon the most ductile metals, and that the drawing of brass and iron to wire is of later date. It is likewise certain that the metal was at first drawn by the hand of the workman; in the same manner as wire is drawn by our pin-makers when they are desirous of rendering it finer. They wind it off from one cylinder upon another, by which means it is forced through the holes of the drawing-iron; and this process agrees perfectly with the description of Vanuccio[1256] and Garzoni[1257], as well as with the figures in the German translation of the latter.

As long as the work was performed by the hammer, the artists at Nuremberg were called wire-smiths; but after the invention of the drawing-iron they were called wire-drawers and wire-millers. Both these appellations occur in the history of Augsburg so early as the year 1351; and in that of Nuremberg in 1360[1258]; so that, according to the best information I have been able to obtain, I must class the invention of the drawing-iron, or proper wire-drawing, among those of the fourteenth century.

At first threads exceedingly massy were employed for weaving and embroidering. Among the ruins of Herculaneum were found massy gold tassels, the threads of which were wound neither round silk nor any other materials[1259]. It would be of some importance if one could determine the period when flatted metal wire began to be spun round linen or silk thread, by which improvement various articles of dress and ornament are rendered more beautiful as well as cheaper. The spinning-mill, by which this labour is performed at present, is so ingeniously contrived that the name of the inventor deserves to be made immortal[1260].

It appears that the wire first spun about thread was round; and the invention of previously making the wire flat is, in my opinion, a new epoch in the history of this art. Three times as much silk can be covered by flatted as by round wire; so that tassels and other articles become cheap in proportion. Besides, the brightness of the metal is heightened in an uncommon degree; and the article becomes much more beautiful[1261]. The wire is flatted at present by means of a flatting-mill, which consists of two steel cylinders, put in motion by a handle, and as the wire passes through between them it is compressed and rendered flat. These cylinders were at first procured from the Milanese, and afterwards from Schwarzenbruck in Saxony; but since the death of the artists in those parts who were acquainted with the secret of making them, they have generally been ordered from Neufchatel. A pair of them cost two hundred dollars. The whole art, however, seems to consist in giving a proper hardness to the steel and in polishing them. In the earliest ages wire was flatted with a hammer on the anvil; and the broad slips were cut into small threads by women with a pair of scissors. The process is thus described by Vannuccio and Garzoni, without mentioning the flatting-mill which is now used for brass work, coining money, and various other purposes.

Before I proceed to the newest inventions I shall add the following observations. Of the wire-work of the ancients we have very few remains, and these are to be found upon cast statues, on which one cannot expect any fine wire spun or entwisted round other substances, even supposing that they had such. In the museum at Portici, which contains a variety of articles discovered at Herculaneum, there are three metal heads, with locks in imitation of hair. One of them has fifty locks made of wire as thick as a quill, bent into the form of a curl. On the other the locks are flat like small slips of paper which have been rolled together with the fingers, and afterwards disentangled[1262]. A Venus, a span in height, has on the arms and legs golden bracelets[1263] (_armillæ et periscelides_), which are formed of wire twisted round them. Grignon found in the ruins of a Roman city in Champagne a piece of gold thread which was a line in thickness[1264]. Among the insignia of the German empire is the sword of St. Maurice, the handle of which is wood bound round with strong silver wire[1265]. The ancients, however, must have been acquainted at an early period with the art of making gold-wire of considerable fineness, as they used it in weaving and for embroidery. When surgeons were desirous to fasten a loose tooth or to implant one of ivory in the room of one that had dropped out, they bound it to the next one by a piece of fine gold wire[1266].

The greatest improvement ever made in this art was undoubtedly the invention of the large drawing-machine, which is driven by water, and in which the axle-tree, by means of a lever, moves a pair of pincers, that open as they fall against the drawing-plate; lay old of the wire, which is guided through a hole of the plate; shut as they are drawn back; and in that manner pull the wire along with them[1267]. What a pity that neither the inventor nor the time when this machine was invented is known! It is, however, more than probable that it was first constructed at Nuremberg by a person named Rudolf, who kept it long a secret; and by these means acquired a considerable fortune. Conrade Celtes, who wrote about the year 1491, is the only author known at present who confirms this information; and he tells us that the son of the inventor, seduced by avaricious people, discovered to them the whole secret of the machinery; which so incensed the father that he would have put him to death, had he not saved himself by flight[1268]. Von Murr, however, has not been able to find any proofs of this circumstance; and amongst the names of wire-drawers, which he met with in the records of Nuremberg, it appears that there must have been no Rudolf, else he would certainly have mentioned it. Doppelmayer[1269], from mere conjecture, places Rudolf’s invention in the year 1400; but Von Murr makes it older, because he found in the year 1360 the name Schockenzier, which signifies a person who works at wire-drawing.

This art, it appears, was brought to the greatest perfection at Nuremberg. Several improvements were from time to time found out by different persons, who turned them to their advantage, and who received exclusive patents for using them, sometimes from the emperor, and sometimes from the council, and which gave occasion to many tedious law-suits. We have, however, reason to believe that the finer kinds of work, particularly in gold and silver, were carried on with great success, above all, in France and Italy; and that many improvements were brought from these countries to Germany. I have not materials sufficient to enable me to give a complete account of the progress of the art of wire-drawing at Nuremberg; but it affords me pleasure that I can communicate some important information on this subject, which was published[1270] by Dr. F. C. G. Hirsching of Erlangen, taken from original papers, respecting the wire-drawing manufactory at Nuremberg[1271], and which I shall here insert.

In the year 1570, a Frenchman named Anthony Fournier, first brought to Nuremberg the art of drawing wire exceedingly fine, and made considerable improvement in the apparatus used for that purpose. In 1592 Frederick Hagelsheimer, called also Held, a citizen of Nuremberg, began to prepare, with much benefit to himself, fine gold and silver wire, such as could be used for spinning round silk and for weaving, and which before that period had been manufactured only in Italy and France. Held removed his manufactory from France to Nuremberg, and received from the magistrates an exclusive patent, by which no other person was allowed to make or to imitate the fine works which he manufactured, for the term of fifteen years. On account of the large capital and great labour which was required to establish this manufactory, his patent was by the same magistrates continued in 1607 for fifteen years more.

As this patent comprehended only fine work, and the city of Nuremberg, and as works of copper gilt with silver or gold were of great importance, he obtained on the 19th of March, 1608, from the emperor Rodolphus II., an extension of his patent, in which these works were included, and by which power was granted to him to seize, in any part of the empire, as well as in Nuremberg, imitations of his manufactures made by others, or such of his workmen as might be enticed from his service. A prolongation of his patent for fifteen years was again granted to him at the same time.

After the death of the emperor Rodolphus, his patent was in everything renewed, on the 29th of September, 1612, by the emperor Matthias, and extended to the term of fifteen years more. On the 16th of June, 1621, the Nuremberg patent expired; and the same year the family of Held, with consent of the magistrates of that city, entered into an agreement, in regard to wages and other regulations, with the master wire-drawers and piece-workers[1272], which was confirmed in another patent granted to Held on the 28th of September, 1621, by the emperor Ferdinand II., agreeably to the tenor of the two patents before-mentioned, and which was still continued for fifteen years longer. On the 26th of September, 1622, this patent, by advice of the imperial council, and without any opposition, was converted into a fief to the heirs male of the family of Held[1273], renewable at the expiration of the term specified in the patent.

It appears that in the fifteenth century, there were flatting-mills in several other places as well as at Nuremberg. In the town-books of Augsburg there occurs, under the year 1351, the name of a person called Chunr. Tratmuller de Tratmul, who certainly seems to have been a wire-drawer. In 1545, Andrew Schulz brought to that city the art of wire-drawing gold and silver, which he had learned in Italy. Before this period that art was little known in Germany; and Von Stetten mentions an imperial police ordinance of the year 1548, in which gold fringes are reckoned among those wares for which large sums were at that time sent out of the empire. Schulz obtained a patent from the council, but his attempt proved unsuccessful. The business, however, was undertaken afterwards in Augsburg by others, and in particular by an opulent mercantile family named Hopfer, who bestowed great pains to establish it on a permanent footing. For this purpose they invited from Venice, Gabriel Marteningi and his son Vincent, who were excellent workmen and had great experience in the art. George Geyer, who learned under them, was the first person who introduced the flatting of wire at Augsburg; and he and his son endeavoured for a long time to monopolize the employment of wire-drawing, and to prevent other people from engaging in it near them. In the year 1698, M. P. Ulstatt, John George Geyer, Joseph Matti and Moriz Zech obtained a new patent, and out of gratitude for this favour they caused a medal to be struck, which deserves to be reckoned among the most beautiful works of Philip Henry Muller, the artist who cut the die.

In the year 1447 there was a flatting-mill at Breslau[1274]; and another, together with a burnishing-mill was constructed at Zwickau[1275] in 1506. All the wire in England was manufactured by the hand till 1565, when the art of drawing it with mills was introduced by foreigners[1276]. Before that period the English wire was bad; and the greater part of the iron-wire used in the kingdom, as well as the instruments employed by the wool-combers, was brought from other countries. According to some accounts, however, this art was carried to England at a much later period; for we are told that the first wire-making was established at Esher by Jacob Momma and Daniel Demetrius[1277]. Anderson himself says that a Dutchman constructed at Sheen, near Richmond, in 1663, the first flatting-mill ever seen in England.

Iron-wire in France is called _fil d’ Archal_; and the artists there have an idea, which is not improbable, that this appellation took its rise from one Richard Archal, who either invented or first established the art of drawing iron-wire in that country. The expression _fil de Richard_ is therefore used also among the French wire-drawers[1278]. Of this Archal, however, we know as little as of the Nuremberg Rudolf; and Menage will not admit the above derivation. He is of opinion that _fil d’Archal_ is compounded of the Latin words _filum_ and _aurichalcum_[1279].

To conclude this article, I shall add a few observations respecting filigrane works and spangles. The first name signifies a kind of work of which one can scarcely form a proper idea from a description. Fine gold and silver wire, often curled or twisted in a serpentine form, and sometimes plaited, are worked through each other and soldered together so as to form festoons, flowers and various ornaments; and in many places also they are frequently melted together by the blowpipe into little balls, by which means the threads are so entwisted as to have a most beautiful and pleasant effect. This work was employed formerly much more than at present in making small articles, which served rather for show than for use; such as needle-cases, caskets to hold jewels, small boxes, particularly shrines, decorations for the images of saints and other church furniture. Work of this kind is called _filagrame_, _filigrane_, _ouvrage de filigrane_; and it may be readily perceived that these words are compounded of _filum_ and _granum_. We are told in the Encyclopédie that the Latins called this work “opus filatim elaboratum,” but this is to be understood as alluding to the latest Latin writers; for _filatim_ occurs only once in Lucretius, who applies it to woollen thread.

This art, however, is of great antiquity, and appears to have been brought to Europe from the East. Grignon informs us that he found some remains of such work in the ruins of the Roman city before-mentioned[1280]. Among church furniture we meet with filigrane works of the middle ages. There was lately preserved in an abbey at Paris, a cross ornamented with filigrane work, which was made by St. Eloy, who died in 665; and the greater part of the works of that saint are decorated in the like manner[1281]. In the collection of relics at Hanover is still to be seen a cross embellished with this kind of work, which is said to be as old as the eleventh or twelfth century[1282]. The Turks, Armenians and Indians make at present master-pieces of this sort, and with tools exceedingly coarse and imperfect. Marsden extols the ingenuity of the Malays on the same account[1283]; and articles of the like nature, manufactured at Deccan, are, we are told, remarkably pretty, and cost ten times the price of the metal employed in forming them[1284]. This art is now neglected in Europe, and little esteemed. Augsburg, however, a few years ago had a female artist, Maria Euphros. Reinhard, celebrated for works of this kind, who died in 1779. In 1765 she ornamented with filigrane work some silver basons, which were sent to Russia for the use of the church, and which gained her great honour[1285].

Spangles, _paillettes_, are small, thin, round leaves of metal, pierced in the middle, which are sewed on as ornaments; and though they are well-known, it might be difficult for those who never saw them manufactured, or read an account of the manner in which they are prepared, to conceive how they are made. The wire is first twisted round a rod into the form of a screw; it is then cut into single spiral rings, like those used by pin-makers in forming heads to their pins; and these rings being placed upon a smooth anvil are flattened by a smart stroke of the hammer, so that a small hole remains in the middle, and the ends of the wire which lie over each other are closely united. I remember to have seen on old saddle-cloths and horse-furniture large plates of this kind; but the small spangles seem to be of later invention. According to Lejisugo[1286], whose real name I do not know, they were first made in the French gold and silver manufactories, and imitated in Germany, for the first time, in the beginning of the seventeenth century. The method of preparing them was long kept a secret.

FOOTNOTES

[1243] Exodus, chap. xxxix. ver. 3.--Braun, De Vestitu Sacerdotum Hebræorum, p. 173.

[1244] Homer, Odyss. lib. viii. 273, 278.--Ovid. Metamorph. lib. iv. 174.

[1245] Lib. xxxiv. cap. 8.

[1246] Lib. xxxiii. cap. 4.--Aldrovandus relates, in his Museum Metallicum, that the grave of the wife of the emperor Honorius was discovered at Rome about the year 1544, and that thirty-six pounds of gold were procured from the mouldered dress which contained the body.

[1247] Cicero de Nat. Deor. iii. 34, 83.--Valer. Max. i. 1. exter. § 3.

[1248] Lamprid. Vita Heliogab. cap. 23.