Human Industry, Chapter 4
CAP. IV.
foreign: OR, The Art and Mistery of Writing, with the Instruments thereunto belonging.
AMong all the Inventions and productions of humane Wit, there is none more admirable and more useful then Writing, by means whereof a man may coppy out & delineate his very thoughts and minde, and make that visible which none can see but he that made it; whereby a man can utter his minde without opening his mouth, and signifie his pleasure at a thousand miles distance, and this by the help of four and twenty letters, and fewer in some places; by various joyning and combining of which letters, as also by the transposing and moving of them to and fro, all words that are utterable or imaginable may be framed; for the several combinations of these Letters and different ways of joyning them, do amount (as Clavius the Jesuite hath taken the pains to compute and observe) to 5852616738497664000 ways;In sphaer… Joh. de Sacro …osco c. 1. so that all things that are in heaven or in earth, that are, or were, or shall be, that can be either uttered or imagined, may be expressed and signified by the help of this marvellous Alphabet▪ which may be described within the compass of a farthing.
The Chinois have 40000 letters at least, as Purchas and others tell us, which makes the language so difficult, that a man cannot learn it in an age, which renders our Alphabet of 24 letters the more admirable.
Though the vulgarity and commonness of this art hath made it less esteemed and set by, yet wise and considerate men that look upon things erudit is oculis (as Cicero speaks) do much admire the Invention.
The Hebrews call it Dick-Duk, inventum subtile, a subtile and ingenious Invention: Greg. Theolosanus, Divinum Miraculum, l. 16. de Rep. c. 2. a Divine miracle; Cicero speaks of it with admiration, Quis sonos vocis, qui infiniti videbantur paucis litterarum notis terminavit? l. 1. Tuscul. The Indians admired it not a little,Purchas l. 8. of America. when they saw the Spaniards send Letters to and fro, and maintain a kinde of a dumbe Commerce among themselves by this way; they fancied that these Letters were some Spirits that were the Internuncii or Interpreters between them.
Quisquis erat meruit senii transcendere metas
Tho. Readi inventa AdespotaEt fati nescire modum, qui mystica primus
Sensa animi docuit magicis signare figuris. &c.
So a modern Poet sings in commendation of it.
For the first Invention of Letters, the Phoenicians carry most voices.
Phoenices primi (Famae si credimus) ausi
Mansuram rudibus vocem signare figuris.
Phoenicians, that (if Fame we dare believe)
To Humane Speech first Characters did give.
Among the Phoenicians Cadmus had the honour of this Invention; whence one calls letters foreign, and another, ingellas Cadmi filias, the black and swarthy daughters of Cadmus: Auson. Epigr.But the truth is, they did but borrow them from the Hebrews, as all other Nations did; though perhaps by adding some few, or varying and altering their form and character, they seem now to have different Alphabets, Herm. Hugo.
The Librarians of old, who lived by writing books which others had made, were very admirable in handling the pen as appears by ancient manuscripts, which are so neatly and artificially done as if they were printed. Some of the latter age have been excellent in this Mistery. One Francis Alumnus did write the Apostles Creed and the first fourteen verses of St John's Gospel, in the compass of a penny, and in full words, which he did in the presence of the Emperour Charles the 5th, and Pope Clement the 7th, as Genebard relates in his Chronologie, and Sim. Maiolus out of him, who had also in his own possession such a miracle (as he calls it) or the very same I believe, Nos domi idem miraculum servamus, these are his words in his 23d Colloquy. Pliny hath a parallel example of one (whom he doth not name) that wrote all the Iliad of Homer in a piece of Parchment that was so little, that it was conteined in a Nutshel. Cicero and others mention the same, though Lancelotti puts it among his Farfalloni, and reckons it for one of the popular errors of Pliny.
I read of one Thomas Sweicker, a Dutchman, who being born without hands and arms, could write with his feet, and that elegantly; he could also make his pen with his feet, and many other feats, which I finde expressed in these verses.
Mira fides! pedibus dextre facit omnia Thomas
Cui natura Parens brachia nulla dedit.
Nam que bibit pedibus, pedibus sua Fercula sumit
Voluit & his libros praeparat his calamos.
Quin & litterulas pede tam benè pingere novit
Artificis superet grammata Ducta manu.
Maximus hoc Caesar stupuit quondam Aemilianus *Maximilian the Emperour.
Dona que scribenti largus honest a dedit.
The Duke of Saxony doth keep some Copies of his Writing among his foreign, or Rarities, as Fel. Platerus relates in his observations. There was a woman in this Kingdom of late years that could write with her feet, and do many other things to the wonder of the beholders, and went about the Kingdom.
Besides the common way of Writing, there are some misteries and secret ways, and that either by abbreviation, setting a letter for a word, and a word for a sentence for brevity sake, as the Hebrews and Romans anciently used to do; or else by using different characters from the common and vulgar ones, such as none can read or understand but the author or deviser of them, and such as he is pleased to impart the mysterie to, and give him a key to decipher and open the secret by; which sort of characters the Ancients used to call Furtivas notas, and Sifras, and Ziglas, and the Art it self Ziglography and Brachygraphy, it is very useful for two respects,
1. For haste and brevity.
2. For privacy and secrecy.
1. For brevity and expedition; it is a good way to take a speech or a sermon, or any thing else that is dictated, as fast as it is spoken; hereby the Notaries hand will keep pace with the speakers tongue, and out-strip it too;
Currant verbalicet,Mart. l. 14. tamen est velocior illis,
Nondum lingua suum, dextra peregit opus.
This is scribere foreign, as Cicero Ep. 13. l. 5.l. 5. ad Atticum. Dion ascribes the invention to Mecoenas,
foreign.
He first found (saith he) these Abbreviatures and compendious way of Writing for expeditions sake.
Hic erit & foelix scriptor,Manil. l. 4. Astron. cui litterum verbum est,
Qui que notis linguam superet, cursum que lequentis,
Excipiat, longas nova per compendia voces.
2. This Ziglography is useful for secrecy or privacy ad elusionem examinis; for hereby a man may carry a letter open in his hand, and understand never a word of it; and they that make no Religion of opening letters, finde themselves deluded; which is of good use in time of war, and at other times against paperpyrats that lie in wait for such poor booties; Quod ad te de decem legatis scripsi, parum intellexti credo, quia foreign scripseram, saith Cicero to his friend Atticus, who did not understand all the letter that Cicero had written unto him, because he had written part of it in characters.
Julius Caesar had found out such a device for secrecie, sic structo litterarum ordine ut nullum verbum effici posset, he did so tumble, invert, and transpose the Alphabet in his writing, that no man could pick any sense out of it; and this he devised when he began to think of the Roman Monarchy, and was by him used but to private and tryed friends that were his confederates, and privie to his Designe.
An Appendix of the Instruments of Writing.
THe Instruments of Writing are either 1. Active, or 2. Passive. That is, either the Instruments wherein we write, or wherewith we write.
The instruments wherein we write are divers; as Stone, Brass, Wax, Lead, Barks and Leaves of Trees, Paper and Parchment.
The first Writing that we read of was in stone, God did write the Law in two Tables of Stone, Exod. 19. which Salvian calls Rupices paginas. Moses wrote in Saphyr and Onix, Exod. 28. 10. Saxo Grammaticus speaks, that the Danes did record the noble Acts of their Ancestors in verse, which were cut in stone, in saxis ac rupibus (as he saith) voluminum loco, vastas moles amplectebantur, codicum usum à cautibus mutuantes. Marmora Arundell. …oliisque … & …Apud Seldenum.
The Sybils books were written in the leaves of Trees; the Indians of the west do write in the leaves of the Plane tree, which are as broad as any sheet of paper, and four times as long, saith Jos. Acosta l. 4. cap. 21. So in Malabar, and other parts of the Levant, they write in the leaves of the Palm, as the Syracusians did in an Olive leaf; from which manner of Writing the pages of books are termed to this day folios or leaves.
The ancients used also to write in sheets of lead; this is intimated by Job, O that my words were graven with an Iron pen, and lead in the rock for ever, Job 19. 23.
The Poems of Hesiod call'd foreign were found in Boeotia written in plates of lead, saith Pausanias in Boeoticis. There was a common manner of writing also in thin rindes of trees growing under the upper bark, which is called by the Latines Liber, or Caudex & Codex.
Udo que docent inolescere libro. Virg. Georg. l. 2.
Whence books are called Libri and Codices; for liber properly is interior tunica corticis quae ligno cohaeret in quâ antiqui scribebant, as Isiodor defines it. The Indians of the East used such a kinde of writing, as Q. Curtius mentions l. 8. libri Arborum teneri, haud secus quàm Cerae, litterarum notas capiunt: They wrote also in the leavs of certain reeds, which Isaiah called papyr-reeds, Isa. 19. 7. growing in the marishes of Egypt, which reed …or sedge is called Biblus or Byblos, so Lucan,
Nondum flumineas Memphis contexere biblos
Noverat—Which the Translator doth english papyr.
The River yet had not with papyr serv'd Aegypt. Tho. May.
From which term or name of Biblos, books are by the Grecians called Bibloi and biblia dimunitively; and that book of books the Bible; because books were usually made of this kinde of reed or sedge; and the manner was thus; they divided these leaves into thin flakes called Phylirae, into which they naturally divide themselves, then laying them on a smooth table, and moistning them with the water of Nilus (which is of a glutinous nature) they placed one cross under the other, like a woof and warp in a weavers loom, & then having pressed them, they set them to dry in the Sun, as Pliny relates in l. 13. of his Natural History.
The Roman Laws called the Laws of the 12 Tables, were written in leaves, or tables of brass.
Smal boards or tables of wood waxed were in frequent use among the later Romans to write in, which were called Cerei pugillares in sundry Authors, and Ceratae tabulae or tabellae, whence Letter-carriers were called Tabellarii. These were the Writing tables that Zacharias called for Luke 1. 36. Write these things upon a table: Isa. 30. 8. foreign Septuagint, box tables. These boards were somtimes made of Box and Cedar…wood, whence that of the Poet Persius,
—Cedro digna locutus:
He spake things worthy to be written in Cedar, and worthy of immortality. Eumenes King of Pergamus devised a way to dress the skins of beasts, and to make them fit for writing, as Vellam & Parchment. This latter is called Pergamum, from the Town of Pergamus, where it was first made. But the modern invention of paper surpasseth all in this kinde. My Lord Bacon reckons it inter monodica artis among the singularities of Art, as being a singular and excellent invention; adeo ut inter materias artificiales vix inveniatur simile aliquid, saith he, it is a web or piece of cloth that is made without a Loom, & without spinning or weaving▪ as a modern Poet is pleased to describe it,
Deni que compacta est nullo subtemine tela,
Exuperans candore nives, AEtate metella, &c.
It derives its pedigree from the dung-hill, being made of rags, and things cast out of doors as useless; we do not go to the expence of making it of Cotton-wool, as the Mexicans do, but of nasty clouts; Magnarum usque adeo sordent primordia rerum; of so mean a birth and original is this commodity, Quâ humanitas vitae & memoria maximè constat, imo quâ hominum immortalitas, as Plin. lib. 13. cap. 11. which Grotius describes thus:
Nunc aurata comas, & sicco pumice laevis
Charta, senis scabri fascia nuper eram.
In some parts of the East they make paper of silk, as was to be seen in Ferdinand Imperatus his Cabinet of Rarities.
Now speak we of the active instruments, or those wherewith we write: The two Tables of the Law were written with a miraculous pen, to wit, Gods own finger: for writing in brass or lead they had certain Graving tools that were hollow, called by the Latines c…lum and celtes, from the hollowness thereof,foreign,…. In waxen tables they wrote with pointed bodkins of iron, steel, or brass called stylus; this was sharp at one end for to make impression in that wax; but it was flat and broad, and somwhat hooked at the other end, for to scrape or blot out the letter if need were. Men write in glass with pointed Diamonds, which yeild to be cut by nothing else, except the Smiris or Emeril.
In ancient paper made of seggs, they wrote with a reed called calamus scriptorius & arundo, which kinde of reed grew much about Memphis and Cnidos, and the banks of Nile.
Dat Chartis habiles calamos Memphitica tell us.Mart. l. 14. Epigr. 38.
In parchment and the modern paper, they write with a pen or quil pluckt from the wing of some Fowl, called by Ausonius Fissipes, from the slit that is made in it for to let down Ink, which is a very useful invention, and commended by an ingenious Muse of the Low Countries.
Praeteritos reddit, praesentes prorogat annos,Barlaeus de Penna.
Invidiam que feri temporis una domat:
Absenti loquitur, laedit rostra…a juvat que ;
Dum que aliis vitā foenerat, ipsa caret.
Past years it rescues, makes the present spread
To ages, and times envy striketh dead,
Instructs the absent, hurts and helps at need,
And wanting life, makes others live indeed.
Opmerius makes mention of the three last in his Chronicle, In pugillares scribebant stylis ferreis, in papyros autem arundineis calamis & postmodum etiam avium pennis; so he. Some write with coals, but the verse tells you who they are,
Stultorum calami carbones, moenia chartae.
The Cutlers of Damascus write in iron steel, and brass, with corroding waters only, wherewith they make frets of curious figures and characters in sundry colours; as may be seen on Turkish Scimiters, and those Gladii Damascinati, Swords made at that City of Damascus, beautified with Damask work and Embroidery. It lasts long, for with one pen did Dr Holland a Physitian of Coventry, a learned and industrious man, write out the great Volume of Pliny, translated into English by himself, which (for a memorial) a Lady preserved, and bestowed a silver case upon it. The Queen of Hungary in the year 1540 had a silver pen bestowed upon her, which had this Inscription on it,
Publii Ovidii Calamus.
Found under the ruines of some Monument in that Country, as Mr Sands in the life of Ovid (prefixt to his Metamorphosis) relates.