The ink of the ancients was not so fluid as ours. Demosthenes
reproaches Æschines with labouring in the grinding of ink, as painters
do in the grinding of their colours. The substance also found in an
inkstand at Herculaneum, looks like a thick oil or paint, with which the
manuscripts there have been written in a relievo visible in the letters,
when you hold a leaf to the light in a horizontal direction. Such
vitriolic ink as has been used on the old parchment manuscripts would
have corroded the delicate leaves of the papyrus, as it has done the
skins of the most ancient manuscripts of Virgil and Terence, in the
Vatican library; the letters are sunk into the parchment, and some have
eaten quite through it, in consequence of the corrosive acid of the
vitriolic ink, with which they were written. The inkhorn is also
mentioned in Scripture: “And one man among them was clothed with linen,
with a writer’s inkhorn by his side,” Ezek. ix, 2. The eastern mode and
apparatus for writing differs so materially from those with which we are
conversant, that it is necessary particularly to describe them.
D'Arvieux informs us that “the Arabs of the desert, when they want a
favour of their emir, get his secretary to write an order agreeable to
their desire, as if the favour were granted, this they carry to the
prince, who, after having read it, sets his seal to it with ink, if he
grants it; if not, he returns the petitioner his paper torn, and
dismisses him. These papers are without date, and have only the emir’s
flourish or cypher at the bottom, signifying the poor, the abject
Mohammed, son of Turabeye.” Pococke says, that “they make the impression
of their name with their seal, generally of cornelian, which they wear
on their finger, and which is blacked when they have occasion to seal
with it.” The custom of placing the inkhorn by the side, Olearius says,
continues in the east to this day. Dr. Shaw informs us, that, among the
Moors in Barbary, “the _hojas_, that is, the writers or secretaries,
suspend their inkhorns in their girdles; a custom as old as the Prophet
Ezekiel, ix, 2.” And in a note he adds, “that part of these inkhorns (if
an instrument of brass may be so called) which passes between the girdle
and the tunic, and holds their pens, is long and flat; but the vessel
for the ink which rests upon the girdle is square, with a lid to clasp
over it.” So Mr. Hanway: “Their writers carry their ink and pens about
them in a case, which they put under their sash.”
reproaches Æschines with labouring in the grinding of ink, as painters
do in the grinding of their colours. The substance also found in an
inkstand at Herculaneum, looks like a thick oil or paint, with which the
manuscripts there have been written in a relievo visible in the letters,
when you hold a leaf to the light in a horizontal direction. Such
vitriolic ink as has been used on the old parchment manuscripts would
have corroded the delicate leaves of the papyrus, as it has done the
skins of the most ancient manuscripts of Virgil and Terence, in the
Vatican library; the letters are sunk into the parchment, and some have
eaten quite through it, in consequence of the corrosive acid of the
vitriolic ink, with which they were written. The inkhorn is also
mentioned in Scripture: “And one man among them was clothed with linen,
with a writer’s inkhorn by his side,” Ezek. ix, 2. The eastern mode and
apparatus for writing differs so materially from those with which we are
conversant, that it is necessary particularly to describe them.
D'Arvieux informs us that “the Arabs of the desert, when they want a
favour of their emir, get his secretary to write an order agreeable to
their desire, as if the favour were granted, this they carry to the
prince, who, after having read it, sets his seal to it with ink, if he
grants it; if not, he returns the petitioner his paper torn, and
dismisses him. These papers are without date, and have only the emir’s
flourish or cypher at the bottom, signifying the poor, the abject
Mohammed, son of Turabeye.” Pococke says, that “they make the impression
of their name with their seal, generally of cornelian, which they wear
on their finger, and which is blacked when they have occasion to seal
with it.” The custom of placing the inkhorn by the side, Olearius says,
continues in the east to this day. Dr. Shaw informs us, that, among the
Moors in Barbary, “the _hojas_, that is, the writers or secretaries,
suspend their inkhorns in their girdles; a custom as old as the Prophet
Ezekiel, ix, 2.” And in a note he adds, “that part of these inkhorns (if
an instrument of brass may be so called) which passes between the girdle
and the tunic, and holds their pens, is long and flat; but the vessel
for the ink which rests upon the girdle is square, with a lid to clasp
over it.” So Mr. Hanway: “Their writers carry their ink and pens about
them in a case, which they put under their sash.”