WRITING-INKS.

Dark-colored liquids were used to stain letters previously engraved on some hard substance, long before they were made to flow in the calamus or pen for forming them on a smooth surface; and the Chinese made their “Indian Ink” in the samemanner as now, 1120 years before the Christian Era; but, only used it, at that time, to blacken incised characters.[1]Ink was termed by the ancient Latin authorsatramentum scriborium,[2]orlibrarium, to distinguish it fromatramentum sutoriumorcalchantum. It was made of the soot of resin, or pounded charcoal, and other substances, mixed with gum, and not, like ours, of vitriol, gall-nuts, alum, &c. The earliest positive mention of ink is perhaps the passage in Jeremiah, in the Vulgate, “Ego scribebam in volumine, atramento.”[3]

1. Here we might add, without fear of contradiction, thatInkis still extensively used to “blacken characters,” without regard to the depth of the incision.

2. The specimen of the English language which we quote, is not faultless; and theLatinis execrable. There is no such word asscriboriumin any language, ancient or modern. The Romans called writing-inkatramentum scriptorum.

3.Thisis a very paltry piece of pedantry. Why could not this author (who shows that he does not understandLatin,) give us the text in English? The passage is in Jeremiah, chap.XXXVI, verse 18: “I wrote them withInkin a book.” The only other references in the Bible toInk, are the following: 2 Corinthians,III, 3: “written not withInk, but the spirit.” 2 John,XII: “I would write with paper andInk.” 3 John,XIII: “I had many things to write, but I will not withInk.” Ezekiel,IX, 2: “with a writer’sink-horn by his side.”

Gold liquids, and also silver, purple, red, green, and blue inks, were eventually used in manuscripts after the fourth century,—red and gold having been employed much earlier. St. Jerome speaks of rich decorations, which must have been executed with colored inks; but, before his time, Ovid alludes not only to the purplecharta, made use of for fine books, which were also tinged with an oil drawn from cedar-wood, to preserve them, but, also to titles written in red ink, which were the first kind of illuminations. The passage occurs in his first elegy, “Ad Librum:”

“Nec te purpureo velent vaccinia succo;Non est conveniens luctibus ille color.Nec titulus minio, nec cedro charta notetur.Candida nec nigra cornua fronte geras.”

“Nec te purpureo velent vaccinia succo;

Non est conveniens luctibus ille color.

Nec titulus minio, nec cedro charta notetur.

Candida nec nigra cornua fronte geras.”

The last line proving, as Casley observes, that Ovid wrote upon aroll.

This author, not having been kind enough to translate Ovid for us, we are compelled to do it for him. This “Elegy” of the poet is addressed “To his Book;” and the following words contain the meaning of the four lines above quoted:

Nor shall huckleberries stain [literally,VEIL] thee with purple juice:That color is not becoming to lamentations.Nor shall title (or “head-letter”) be marked with vermilion, or paper with cedar,Thou shalt carry neither white nor black horns on thy forehead (or front, or frontispiece).

Nor shall huckleberries stain [literally,VEIL] thee with purple juice:

That color is not becoming to lamentations.

Nor shall title (or “head-letter”) be marked with vermilion, or paper with cedar,

Thou shalt carry neither white nor black horns on thy forehead (or front, or frontispiece).

The word “huckleberries,” we have rightly spelled here. The dictionaries generally are wrong in spelling the word “whortleberry.” Huckleberry, or Hockleberry, is found in the kindred languages of Northern Europe.

Diplomas were seldom written in gold or colored inks; but some charters of the German Emperors are known, not only in gold, but on purple vellum; and Leukfeld mentions one of the year 912, ornamented also with figures; while several early English charters have gold initial letters, crosses, &c. The black ink that has kept its color best, in mediaeval manuscripts, is that used from the tenth to the thirteenth century. The signatures of the Eastern Emperors are frequently in red ink.

Colored inks were common in mediaeval manuscripts,—the red being most usual for titles, which has given rise to the termRubric. The writers of books (that is, the copyists,) often appended their names to the end of the work, generally in ink of a different color from that of the body of the work, stating the time and place in which the work was executed.

To this may be added, with advantage, some instructive account of

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