Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Volume 2.djvu/1069

 P A P

PAP

Bcfidcs paper, they make fails, ropes, and other naval rigging ; as alfo mats, blankets, clothes, and even mips, of the ftalk of the papyrus. Mufes, we are told, when a child, was expofed on the banks of the Nile, tv hfai *a*vp3, i. e. in a bafket of papyrus. Add, that the Egyptian priefts wore fhocs of papyrus. Guilandinus, a Pruffian phyfician, has a cele- brated work exprefsly on the ancient papyrus, by way of commentary on three chapters of fifiny*, wherein is am- ply, and with great learning, explained all that relates to this ftibjeft ; yet Scaliger has written a fevere critique on it, in which fome inaccuracies of Guilandinus are pointed out**, which has not hindered Kirchmayer from adopting almoft Guilandinus's whole book in a differtation on the pa- pyrus ***. Add, that the moft ingenious and learned count Scipio Maffei has lately vindicated Guilandinus againft the exceptions of Scaliger, as well as of Voffius and Hardouin. — Vid, If or. Diplomat. 1. 2. Bibl. Ital T. 2. p. 248.

Majoris de papyro capita, fc. lib- XIII. c. II, 12, 13. firft puolifhed at Venice in 1572, and afterwards at Amberg in 1613, by -Salmu th.— It feems Guilandinus intended a com- mentary on the whole of Pliny's Natural Hiftory ; but this fmall part, not exceeding a moderate page, taking him up full fix months, it is no wonder he was difcouraged from pro- ceeding with the reft. In thefe three chapters he has re- Itored above twenty paffages in the text of Pliny, not merely from his own conjecture, or the help of MSS. but from the nature of the things defcribed, and the teftimonies of authors of the nrft rank : beiides that, he had been upon the fpot where formerly the papyrus was manufactured, and had care- fully examined all the ancient Greek and Latin authors who fpeak of it. C&mnentarium in tria C. Plitiii capita, lib. XIII. Hiftoria? Mun- di five Naturalis, qitibus agi't de papyro, firft publiihed in the Leiliones Mhliotbecaria: memorabiles, of Rudqlphus Capellus, at Hamburgh in 1682. — Where he follows Guilandinus flep by ftep, finds as many faults in him as his father had done in Cardan, and ufes him altogether as coarfely ; every where pointing out his literary miftakes, and labouring to ihow, that inltead of reftoring Pliny, he has often miitaken and corrupted him.
 * Melcb. Guilandin't Papyrus, h. e. Gommentarius in tria C. Plinii
 * J°f- J "ft- Scaligeri Animadverjisnes in Melchioris Guilandini
 * M. Seb. Kirchma'uri Uffenhaimenfts Fraud Differtatio Phihlo-

fica de papyro •veterum. Witteberga, 1666. 4to. — He had done etter fervice, if befides Guilandinus he had confulted others, and particularly Scaliger. But as he chofe to follow one ra- ther than many, and that too as the blind follow their guides, his fate has been much the fame. The origin of the art of making paper of the papyrus is very obfeure : no doubt it was firft difcovered in Egypt. Ifidore fixes it more particularly to the city Memphis. — Orig. 1. 6. c. 10. In which he feems to be countenanced by Lucan, where he fays,

Nondum flumineas Memphis contexere Bibbs

Noverat • Pharfal. 1. 3. v. 222.

The sera of this invention is warmly difputed : Varro the moft learned of the Romans, fixed it to the time of Alexan- der the Great, after the building the city Alexandria by that conqueror; but feveral objections of no fmall weight are brought agatnft this decifion. Pliny recites a paflage out of a very ancient annalift, one Caflius Hemina, wherein men- tion is made of paper books found in Numa's tomb 535 years after his death, which had been buried with him * ; now Numa was prior to Alexander by above 300 years. Guilandinus in effect, maintains with great erudition, that the name and ufe of the papyrus were known to the Greeks long before Alexander conquered Egypt ; and that the word: /3«;3a©- and Pipjuo* occur in their received fignification in au- thors prior to, or at leaft older than Alexander, particularly Anacreon, AIceus, Plato the comedian, Ariftomenes, Cra- tinus, Antiphanes, Plato the philofopher, yEichylus and Ari- ibotle. And whereas fome fpeak of I know not what pfeudo- hlblus, known before the difcovery of the true fort, he ar- gues on the contrary, that the blblus mentioned by thofe au- thors prior to the conqueft of Alexander, appears from Herodotus, Theophraftus, and others, to be the very fame plant with the blblus or papyrus, of which paper was made. Even Homer and Hefiod, the moft ancient Greek poets, and who, by Herodotus's teftimony, lived about 400 years before himfelf, appear to have been no ftrangers to the pa- pyrus, fince they make exprefs mention of it b. , a Fid. Plin. 1. 13. c. 13. b Guiland. Papyr. Membr. 2. Re-

imm. Idea Syft. Autiq. Liter, p. 285, feq. Kirchmai. Dijf. de Papyr. Art. II. §. 2. To this' it may be anfwered, that fuppofing the phntpapyrus known in Greece long before Alexander's conqueft of Egypt, it no more follows, that they had then the ufe of papa; than it follows that men had wine immediately on the difcovery of the vine: this laft it is certain was known among them long before they made wine ; and to this day, a part of the new world called Florida is fald to abound with vines, though no ufe have been yet made of them either by the inhabi- tants or the Spaniards. As it was with the vine, which mull have been known before wine could he made from it, fo it is with papyrus, which among the Greeks was long ufed for tying up things, before it came to be written on. In reality, Guilandinus produces teftimonies from Anagreon

t ~H 2

and Alcasus, in which the papyrus is employed for binding and not for paper : add, that he ill translates rvifaptx au%mc, ellychnium, fince aujc«©- here is the torch itfelf. Nor does the poet fay it was made of papyrus, but tyed up with it. — Vid. Scalig. lib. cit. Reimm. ubl fupra, p. 305, feq. Some have even doubted whether the art of manufacturing the papyrus wa9 fo ancient as Alexander's time ; chiefly on this ground, that for 200 years after Alexander, men wrote on fkms, and barks of trees: but this is no-wife conclufive. The fcarcity of the new manufacture may account for it : fome ages afterwards, even as low as Tiberius, we read of fuch a fcarcity of paper, that its ufe even in contracts was difpenfed with by a decree of the fenate, and the opinion of the judges. The .fame confederation may be carried further : paper might have been known in Egypt, Judaea, Syria, and Afla on this fide Taurus, long before the birth of Alexander, though not in common ufe : but it was later ere the Europe- ans received it ; and probably it was by means of Alexan- der's conqueft that it firft became publickly known there. When the manufacture of the Egyptian paper ceafed, is a- nother queflion ; for at prefent the Papyrotechnia /Egyptiaca may be reckoned among thofe arts that are loft. Euftathius, the learned commentator on Homer, teftifies, that even in his time, viz, in 1170. it was difufed'; Mabillon indeed maintains that it continued till the Xlth century after Chrift, and cites one Fridegod, a monkifh poet of the Xth century, as fpeaking of it as fubfifling in the age before his, that is in the IXth ; but that it continued longer, the fame Mabillon endeavours to evince from feveral papal bulls wrote on it as low as the Xlth century* 1.

c Vid. Euftath. ed Homer. Odyff. . Fojf. de Art. Gramm. 1. I. c. 37. d Fid. Mabill. de Re diplomat. 1. i.e. 8. §. 6, feq.

Reimm. Idea Syft. Antiq. Liter, p. 311. Maffei, on the other hand, maintains with more probability, that the papyrus was generally difufed before the Vth centu- ry j for we find no authentic records written on it dated fince that time ; thofe bulls of popes, cited by Mabillon, ap- pearing rather to be written on cotton paper c. But this we may obferve, relates only to the general and legal ufe of the papyrus. — For that it mould have continued to be made by particular perfons feveral hundred years after it firft began to give way, is not to be wondered at.

c Fid. Maffei Ijtor. Diplomat, he. cit. Bibl. Ital. T. z. p. 251. In reality, a more commodious fort of paper, made of cot- ton, having been invented fome ages before in the eaft, and coming to be introduced into Europe, feems to have turned the papyrus out of doors.— -To which the continual wars with the Saracens, by which the traffick to Alexandria was rendered precarious, might polhbly contribute. Yet feveral books written on leaves of the papyrus have even continued to our days : Mabillon fays, he had one of them, and adds, that there is another in the Petavian library, being a volume in fmall folio, containing feveral fermons of St. Auguftin j he alfo mentions a third, containing that father's epiftles, formerly belonging to the church of Narbonne, and now in the cuftody of Madame de Phirmacon. Befides the homilies of Avitus bifhop of Vienne, and divers diplo- ma's or charters all written on the papyrus, which appear not to be lefs than 1100 years old f. — But the decifions of this learned father concerning MSS. notwithftanding all his diplomatic fkill fo highly boafted of, are not always infalli- ble : witnefs his taking the MS. of St. Mark's gofpel at Ve- nice to be written on Egyptian papyrus, and that of Jofephus at Milan not to be fo. — Maffei fhews on the contrary, that the former is cotton paper, and that the fatter appears at firft fight to be Egyptian : not but the Venetian MS. is ve- ry old j but it has been fo much ufed, that its leaves are as it were transformed into the original pafte from whence they were made s.

f Fid. Mabill. Suppl. ad Libr. de Re diplomat. Joum. des Seav.

T. 32. P. 2. p. 992. s Fid. Maffei lib. cit. Bibl. Ital. T.

2. p. 252.

Manner of making the Egyptian Paper. — They began with

lopping off the two extremes of the papyrus, viz. the head

and root, as of no ufe in this manufacture : the remaining

ftem they flit length-wife into two equal parts, and from

each of thefe they ftripped the thin fcaly coats or pellicles *,

whereof it was compofed, with the, point of a penknife**.

The innermoft of thofe pellicles were looked on as the beft ;

and thofe nenreft the rind or bark the- worft : they were-

kept apart accordingly, and conftituted different forts of

paper.

viz. phihtra, ramentum, febeda, cutis, plagula, corium, ta-nia, fubtegmen, Jlatumai, pagiva, tabula and papyrus. needle to feparate the pellicles ; in which they are warranted bv the common text of Pliny : Pr&parantur ex eo charts, di- <vifo am in prateuues, fed quam latijjimas philuras. But Gui- landinus makes a corre&ion here : he had found by experi- ment, that the pellicles of papyrus cannot be feparated by a needle ; but that a very fharp knife is required : for which reafon inflcad of diwfo acu, he reads dlvifo fcapo'-. In which he is followed by Maffei ; though Hardouin, Voffius, Pitif- cus, and others, retain the ancient reading h. a Fid, Guiland. Papyr, Mrmh: 10. $. 3 ^ S- Maffei, Ifiar.
 * Thefe pellicles are called in Pliny by twelve different names,,
 * The generality of criticks, in lieu of a penknife, employ a

Dipl'W.