from about the eighth to the tenth century. The earlier examples, however, are much finer, as may be seen by comparing the examples in Plate XIV. No. 2, Plate XIV. is from a fragment of a copy of the Gospels, in the Cottonian Library, in the British Museum (numbered Titus 6, xv.). The letters are large silver uncials, with the names of the Deity, Christ, &c. &c., written in gold wherever they occur. The passage in the example reads AYNOMEOATH (N), &c. &c. This MS. is one of the few existing which are really of stained purple vellum, and is probably of the fourth or fifth century, and very distinct in character from the more common painted purple vellum of the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. No. 4, Plate XIV., is a specimen from the Latin Psalter of the Bishop of St. Germains, which is also a stained MS. of the highest class and of the most beautiful execution. Nos. 3 and 5 are specimens from Latin MSS. on painted vellum, of about the tenth century, the manifest inferiority of which to the earlier specimens will be perceived at once. They are both taken from the great work of M. Bastard. For specimens of Greek writing of this period, of a more cursive style than that of the set character of careful MSS., we must again look to Egypt. In that country, after its reduction to a Greek province by Alexander, the character, language, and modes of writing of the conquerors became general, and even retained their ascendancy under the Roman yoke. When forming a portion of the Eastern or Greek empire, the national character of the Egyptian Greeks became still more marked; for, after the final abolition of the hieroglyphic system of writing, by the Christian hierarchy of that portion of the Eastern empire, the mass of the people were compelled to use the Greek alphabet;* so that the whole population became more or less Grecian in general character; and as this portion of the empire had the good fortune to remain comparatively free from barbaric invasion, while Greece Proper had been repeatedly ravaged by the incursions of various savage hordes, the arts of Greece were there carried forward with little interruption. Many monuments of Greek writing have, therefore, been found in Egypt of a distinct class; and these have been, in most cases, preserved by the peculiarities of the Egyptian sepulture; important documents being frequently buried in the mummy-case with the embalmed body of their possessor. By such means a complete series of illustrations of the progress of the art of writing, as practised by the Greeks in Egypt, has been preserved from the third century B.C., to the overwhelming incursion of the Mahommedan Arabs in the seventh century A.D.; a period of a thousand years. The examination of the series of monuments furnished, from this and other sources, has enabled the most learned modern investigators in this interesting branch of archæology to adopt the following broad principles of classification for Greek MSS., and the following terms have been selected to express them. MSS. are divided into those written in capitals, those written in uncials, and those written in completely cursive or minuscule characters. The last class may * With the addition of a few demotic characters. Р be again subdivided into such MSS. as were written by calligraphers (beautiful writers, as the term implies), and tachyographers, or rapid writers. The calligraphers, may be considered to be that class of scribes who transcribed carefully MSS. of importance, which were generally written in capitals, or uncials, up to the ninth century; while the tachyographers were those employed upon current affairs, public or private, and who adopted an expeditious mode of writing, in which the letters gradually lost their exact original form, and became, as it were, tied together by connecting lines, to prevent the necessity of continually raising the writing instrument from the substance written upon-a practice which eventually developed a cursive style, complete and consistent in all its innovations, and which was the origin of the minuscule, or, as we at present term them in typographic phrase, "lowercase characters." As a specimen of the tachyographic transition in the midst of its career, M. Champollion has engraved two specimens of the seventh century, being charters or protocols of the Eastern Emperors Maurice and Heracleius, issued in Egypt shortly before the Arab conquest of that country. That of the Emperor Maurice (Plate VI. No. 9) commences with the sign of the cross; and the mingling of Greek and Latin forms is very remarkin this document, as it is also in the inscriptions of the coinage of the Eastern empire; in which a strange confusion of the Greek and Latin letters occurs, both being employed in the same inscription. In the charter under description, the letters which have assumed a somewhat Latin form, or which display marked deviations from the correct Greek character, are the d for 8, the h for n, and the dipthong ou, which is sometimes written ō. The most common words are abridged at their termination, as we shall have occasion to observe in the Latin manuscripts of Western Europe; and the form of the is arbitrarily varied on different occasions. The commencement of this charter reads, in our modern typographic Greek, as follows: • Εν ονόματι του Κυρίου και δεσποτου Ιησου (Χρισου), Θεού και Σωτηρος ἡμω[ν β]ασιλείας του γαληνότατου ἡμων δεσποτου Φλαβιου) Μαυρικίου Τιβεριου, αιωνιου Αυγουστου και αυτοκρα τορος οκτωκαιδεκατου έτους Επειφ. κ, τριτης ινδικτου). Which may be translated: "In the name of the Lord and Master, Jesus Christ and our Saviour, and of the reign of our most serene master Flavius (written Flabius) Mauritius Tiberius, always Augustus and emperor, the year 18, the 20th of Epiphi, the third indiction," &c. &c. The charter of the Emperor Heracleius (No. 1, Plate VII.) exhibits a more leaning cursive hand, but with fewer changes of character. Like the former example, it begins with the sign of the cross, and in our typographic Greek reads: « Εν ο[νο]ματι της άγιας και ζωοποιου Τριαδος* which may be translated, "In the name of the holy and vivifying Trinity." The protocol then continues: "the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, in the * These fragmental examples are but small portions of the original monuments, and the same length of line has not been observed, as not suitable to the size of the plate. |