HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY LONDON: PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND GREENING, GRAYSTOKE PLACE, FETTER LANE. PREFACE. THE rapid sale of a large edition of a work, which, in an age of "shilling volumes," may be considered an expensive one, has sufficiently proved that it supplied a gap in the literature of popular Archæology, in a manner not altogether unsuited to the wants of the public. It also proved that the plan of the work, in reducing its intricate subject to the form of a simple continuous narrative, divested of learned technicalities, and philological ramifications, was, with all its inherent blemishes, deemed on the whole satisfactory. I have, therefore, in the Second Edition, which is now called for, adhered to that form of treating the subject; only making such additions as a subsequent revision of his labours always enables an author to effect. My original inducement to undertake a work on this branch of the history of art, was, as stated in my First Edition, the great public interest excited by the recent discovery and interpretation of the sculptured records of Assyria; the successful decyphering of the wedge-formed characters of which excited public curiosity in an extraordinary manner, and created a desire for information respecting other ancient methods of writing, and their origin. But no work adapted to gratify this curiosity was in existence. Astle's treatise on the progress of writing can only be said to commence after the art was reduced to its present alphabetic form; while the valuable and extensive works of the learned Benedictines, written before our present knowledge of Egyptian hieroglyphics was acquired, exhibit the same deficiency; and while more recent works of the class were published, previous to the successful interpretation of the Cuneatic character. No work, therefore, was in existence, written since the great recent discoveries, which has supplied to the history of "The Origin and Progress of the Art of Writing" the missing links in the chain of its development. To supply this deficiency was my aim in the present volume; in which I have attempted to condense and simplify the subject in such a manner as to make it easily intelligible; and at the same time entertaining to the general reader. I have endeavoured, nevertheless, to produce a work sufficiently copious and complete to embody the most essential features of the subject, from the first rude dawn of the art in its pictorial form among semi-barbarous nations, to the curious development of the first phonetic characters, and the eventual formation of perfect "alphabets ;" and from that epoch to exhibit the subsequent modifications in the various modes of writing among European nations to the present day. In the space of such a volume as the present, much that the learned philologist might wish to find is of necessity excluded, even the list of authorities, which would, in fact, encumber the text with a body of notes, altogether disproportionate to the extent of the work. I cannot, however, in this place, omit to mention the valuable assistance I have derived from the Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique, and the works of Champollion and Sylvestre; and also from the able treatises of Dr. Young, S. Sharp, Esq., Dr. Lamb, Colonel Rawlinson, and Dr. Hincks, and to Lord Kingsborough's great work on Mexican Antiquities, and the collection of Medieval Specimens of Calligraphy engraved by Astle and Casley. H. N. H. CONTENTS. CLAIMS OF DIFFERENT NATIONS OF ANTIQUITY TO THE INVENTION OF WRITING OF ITS PROBABLE INVENTION IN SEVERAL COUNTRIES SIMULTANEOUSLY—AND OF THE THE PROGRESS OF WRITING AND ITS DECORATIONS IN ENGLAND; WITH A GLANCE AT THEIR STATE IN IRELAND AND SCOTLAND, FROM THE DEPARTURE OF THE ROMANS TO THE THE PROGRESS OF THE ART OF WRITING, AND ITS ILLUMINATION, IN ENGLAND, FROM THE NORMAN INVASION TO THE INVENTION OF PRINTING; WITH SOME EXAMPLES OF ITS VARIATIONS OF STYLE ON THE CONTINENT, TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SIXTEENTH SPECIMENS OF PRIVATE HANDWRITING FROM HOLOGRAPH LETTERS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS THE FOURTEENTH, FIFTEENTH, SIXTEENTH, SEVENTEENTH, EIGHTEENTH, AND NINE- 163 LIST OF PLATES. III Egyptian Hieroglyphics (interpreted) IV. Egyptian Writing of three classes, and Phoenician Writing V. Early Alphabets from Phoenician to Roman XVIII. Specimens of Penmanship in Blue, Red, and Black Ink XIX. Writing of Edward III. . |