him for having taken an arm of St. Denis in the church of thofe monks to place it in his oratory, is not fo probable.

If there were no other than fuch like ftories to be erafed from the history of France, or rather the hiftery of the kings of the Franks and their mayors, we might prevail upon cartelves to read it. But how can we endure the barbarous lies with which it is replete? Villages and fortreffes that never exare continually beñeged. There was nothing beyond the Rhine but a few hamlets without walls, defended by wooden ftakes and ditches. We know that Germany, before the time of Henry the Fowler, had no walled or fortified towns. In a word, all the details of thofe times are fo many fables, and, what is worfe, tirefome fables.

Obfervations on the books, and materials and mode of writing in uje amongst the eoferns.

N the book of Job we meet with a remarkable diftinction between the writing of words, and writing them in a book: it is in the following ejaculation of that great pattern of holy patience. Oh that my words were now written! Ob that they were printed in a book! that they were graven-in the rock for ever! ch. xix. 23, 24. To explain this, it may be proper to obierve that there is a way of writ

ing in the east, which is defigned to fix words on the memory, but the writing of which is not intend ed to continue. In Barbary, 25 we are affured by the late learned and excellent Dr. Shaw, the children who are fent to school, make no ufe of paper, but each boy writes upon a smooth thin board, flightly daubed over with whiting, which may be wiped off, or renewed at pleasure *; and it feems they learn to read, write, and get their leffons by heart, all at the fame time. The words then of job may be confidered to this effect; "0) "that my words might not be, like "many of thofe of the miferable,

immediately loft in inattention or forgetfulness, but that they 66 were written, fo as to be fixed

in the memory!" There are few, fays Dr. Shaw, who retain what they have learned in their youth; and without doubt things were often wiped out of the memcory of the Arabs in the days of job, as well as out of their writing tables, as it now often happens in Barbary. Job therefore proceeds to fay; "O that they were writter " in a book! from whence they "fhould not be blotted out!" In conformity to which Mofes fpeaks of writing things for a memorial in a book. But books likewife were liable to injuries; for which reafon Jeremiah commanded that the book containing the purchase he made of fome lands in Judea, just before the captivity, fhould be put into an

earl'er

Egyptians ufed to write upon linen thofe things which they defigned fhould last long; and we are affured by those who have examined mummies with attention, that the characters fo written, continue to this day. Thus Maillet, in his 7th letter, p. 278, tells us, that the fil. letting, or rather, (as it was of a confiderable breadth) the bandage of a mummy which was prefented to him, and which he caufed to be opened in the houfe of the Capuchin monks of Cairo, was not only covered from one end to the other with hieroglyphical figures; but they alio found certain un"known characters, written from the right hand towards the left, "and forming a kind of verfes. "Thefe, he fuppofed, contained the eulogium of the perfon whofe body this was, written in the language ufed in Egypt in the time in which he lived. Some part of this writing was afterwards copied out by an engra"ver in France, and thefe papers "were fent to the virtuofi through

66

out Europe, that, if poffible, they might decypher them, but "in vain."

Now, might not a copy of the law of Moles, written after this manner, have lafted 830 years? Is it unnatural to imagine that Mofes, who was learned in all the arts of Egypt, wote after this manner on linen? and doth not this fuppofition perfectly well agree with the accounts we have of the form of their books; their being rolls; their being eafily cut in pieces with e knife, and liable to be burned? The old Jewish books therefore might indeed be written on other materials; but thefe confiderations are fufficient to engage us to think,

that their being written upon parch ment is not fo indubitable as the before-mentioned learned writer fuppofes.

The most confiderable arguments brought by Dr. Prideaux, are quotations from Diodorus Siculus and Herodotus, which give an account of the writing on skins by the old Perfians and Romans long before the time of Eumenes; and yet it is furprising that he should fo confidently prefume, that thofe fkins muft of course be dreffed like parchment. It is evident that they muft have been prepared in a much more rude manner, and must have been very unlike the parchment of which, we are affured, Eumenes was the inventor; and which, if found out before, would have readered the want of the Egyptian papyrus no inconvenience to that prince. Such fkins might do for records, and fome occasional writings, but would have been by no means agreeable for books. Ir it not then, upon the whole, moft natural to fuppofe that the ancient Jews wrote on linen, as the Egyp tians did?

And if fo, ink, paint,, or fomething of that kind, must have been made ufe of; whereof accordingly we read, Jer. xxxvi. 18. But their pens must have heen very different from ours; accordingly the word which is ufed for a pen, Judg. v. 14. [They that handle the PEN of the writer,] fignifies a fceptre, red, or branch of a tree; and confequently may be thought to have much more nearly refembled the modern pens of Perfia, which are canes or redi,

their paper not bearing foch pens as ours,-than the quills we make ufe of. See Olearius, p. 857. and Rawolff in Ray's collection of

travels,

travels, p. 87. The other word, which we tranflate a pen, feems precifely to fignify a thing with which they lay on colours; and confequently is equally applicable to a quill, a pencil, or reed. It is the ufing the other word in poetry, which explains the nature of their pens, of which we might other wife have been ignorant; the proper word for them not at all determining their nature. St. John evidently fuppofes paintings, or drawings, in that volume which he faw while in the vifions of God in Patmos, which was fealed with feven feals. The firft figure being that of a man on a white borje, with a bow in his hand, &c. Rev. vi. We are used to expect copperplates in our printed books, but, may be, never thought of drawings in a manufcript. The eaftern manufcripts, however, are not without these ornaments. Thus Olearius, p. 636, defcribing the library belonging to the famous fepulchre of Schich Sefi, fays, that the manufcripts are all extremely well written, beautifully bound, and thofe of hiftory illuftrated with many reprefentations in miniature.

it

The more ancient books of the Eaft are alfo found to be beautified in this manner. Dr. Pocock speaks of two manuscripts of the pentateach, one in the monaftery of Patmos, the other belonging to the bishop of Smyrna, adorned with Several paintings well executed for the time; one of which is fuppofed to be above nine hundred years old. Such a fort of book, it fhould feem, was that which St. John faw in vifion.

TH

HE fepulchral honours paid to the manes of departed friends in ancient times demand attention, and are extremely curious. Their being put into a coffin has been particularly confidered as a mark of diftinction. With us the poorelt people have their coffins. If the relations cannot afford them, the parish is at the expence. On the contrary, in the Eaft, they are not at all made ufe of in our times; Turks and Chriftians, as Thevenot affures us, agree in this. The ancient Jews feem to have buried their dead in the fame manner; neither was the body of our Lord, it fhould feem, put into a coffin: nor that of Elifha, 2 Kings xiii. 21. whofe bones were touched by the corpfe that was let down a little after into his fepulchre. However, that they were anciently made ufe of in Egypt, all agree; and antique coffins of stone, and ycamore-wood, are ftill to be seen in that country, not to mention those faid to be made of a kind of pafteboard; formed by folding and glewing cloth together a great many times, curioully plaistered, and then painted with hieroglyphics. Its being an ancient Egyptian cuftom, and not practifed in the neighbouring countries, were, doubtlefs, the caufe that the facred hiftorian exprefly obferves of Jofeph, that he was not only embalmed, but that he was put into a coffin 190, Gen. 1. 26. both being managements