Page:A dictionary of printers and printing.djvu/65

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LITERATURE

The paper in question came firom the Arabs, who, on their arrival in Spain, where both silk and cotton were both equally rare, made it of hemp and flax. Their first manufactories were established at Xativa, the San Felipe of the present day ; a town of high repute in ancient times, as Pliny and Strabo report, for its fabrication of cloth. Edrisi observes, when speaking of Xativa, " Ex- cellent and incomparable paper is likewise made here." Valentia too, the plams of which produce an abundance of flax, possessed manufactories a short time afterwards; and Catalonia wasnot long in following the example. Indeed the two latter provinces at this moment furnish the best paper in Spain. The use of the article, made from flax, did not reach Castile until the reign of Alfonso X. in the middle of this century, and thence it cannot be questioned that it spread to France, and after- wards to Italy, England, and Germany. The Arabic manuscripts, which are of much older date than the Spanish, were most of them written on satin paper, and embellished with a quantity of ornamental work, painted in such gay and re- splendent colours, that the reader might behold his face reflected as if from a mirror.

Dr. Robei-tson, remarks, " that the invention of paper from linen rags, preceded the dawning of letters, and improvement in knowlege,towar£ the close of the eleventh century, and that by means of it, not only the number of manuscripts increased, but the study of the sciences nas won- derfully facilitated." So far, indeed, as respects material, after this period the European world was as nearly as well on for the means of circulating and transmitting knowledge, as we are of the present day. But we must never lose sight of this fact, that all books were manuscript.

"As to the origin of the paper we now use, nothing can, with certunty," says Father Mont- faucon, " be affirmed concerning it." Thomas Demster, in his Glossary, or the Institutes of Justinian, says, that it was invented before the time of Accursius, who lived in the beginning of the thirteenth century. Notwithstanding he there speaks of bombycine paper, there is reason to believe he also comprehends under that name, the linen-rag paper, which is much like cotton paper. In some countries both were equally used; as in Sicily, the state of Venice, ana perhaps others. Several editions of Aldus Manu- tius, made at Venice, are on cotton paper: the proximity of GreecaJiad, no doubt, mtroduced the use of it there.

Paper, fabricated &om linen rags, is now used throughout Europe, and almost every part of the world where Europeans have penetrated; and is a much more valuable material for writing upon, than the cotton paper. We are ignorant both of the invention and of the date of wis im-

Eortant discovery. Dr. Prideaux delivers it as is opinion, that linen paper was brought from the East, because many of the orientid manu- scripts are written upon it. Mabillon believes its invention to have been in the twelfth century. The inventor of the linen rag paper, whoever he was, is entitled to the gratitude of posterity,

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who are enjoying the advantages of the discoret;. The art of printing would have been coinpaa. tively of little importance without having the means of procuring a proper material to recdte the impressions ; while the papyrus was the oil; kind of -paper, it was impossible to have pio. cured it in sufficient quantities to have mi4 large editions of books, without which the giest bulk of mankind would for ever have retained the ignorant barbarity of the dark ages ; die cotton paper, though an improvement, was tint a rude and coarse article, unfit for any of tk nice purposes, to which paper is now applied. The perfection of the art of paper-making con- sisted in finding a material which could be pn. cured in sufficient quantities, and would be ei^ of preparation.

A more common, or economical substance could not be conceived, than the tattered remnants of our clothes, linen worn out and otherwise incapable of being applied to the least use, and of which the quantity every day increases. Nor could a more simple labour be imagined than a few hours trituration by mills. The dispatch ii so g^reat, that it has been observed by a Fiendi writer, that five workmen in a mill may famisb sufficient paper for the continued labour of 3,900 transcribers. This was on the suppositioii of the process being conducted upon the old system of hand labour, but by the implored system of our modern mills, when the paper it produced in a constant and regular sheet bra curious machine, instead of the workman mabiv sheet by sheet separately, the quantity prodncea is infinitely greater.

The paper which had been for a long time used by the Romans and Greeks, was made of the baik of an Egyptian aquatic plant. According to the description Pliny after Theophrastus, gives of it, its stalk is triangular, and of a thickness thst may be grasped in the hand; its root croohed; and it terminates by fibrous bunches composed of long and weak pedicles. It has been observed in Egypt by Guilandinus, an author of the ISth century, who has given a learned conunentan o« the passages of Pliny, where mention is made of it ; and it is also described in Prosper Alpiam and in Lobel. The Egyptians call it herd, and they eat that part of the plant which is near the roots. A plant named papero, much resemblii^ papyrus of Egypt, grows likewise in Sicily; its described in Lobel's Adversaria. Ray, ui several others after him, believed it was of tka same species; however, it does not seem thattli* ancients made any use of that of Sicily; aadM. de Juffieu thinks they ought not to be coi- founded, especially by reading, in Strabo, that the papyrus grew only in Egypt, or in the Indiei Pliny, Guilandinus, Montiaucon, and the Count de Caylus, are of his opinion.

Paper made of bark, is said to hare been an- ciently used for the imperial protocols, in order to render the forging of false diplomas more difficult. Montfaucon notices a diploma, of charter, written on bark, in the Longobudic character, about the beginning of the eighth

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