PENS.

425

nib. These canes are collected towards Daurac, along thePersian gulf , in a large fen supplied with water by the riverHetlv, a place of Arabia, formed by an arm of the Tigris,and another of the Euphrates united; they are cut in March,when gathered, tied ill bundles, and laid six months under adunghill, where they harden and assume a beautiful colour,mixed of yellow and black. Of these the best writing-pensare made.”— Voyages de Chardin, vol. v.

It is remarked, that Dioscorules, in lib. i. cap. 114, con-firms tbe preceding remarks of Tournefort and Chardin ;Pliny also speaks nearly to the same purpose: adding, how-ever, that the reed was hollow at the lower end, but, at the-.upper end, woolly, and destitute of pith.

A passage in Clemens of Alexandria, who died in thecommencement of the third century, might, perhaps, withsome, induce the conjecture that the Egyptians wrote withquills. This author, describing a procession of the priests,says, the sacred writer had in his hand a book with wri-ting INSTRUMENTS, and on his head feathers. But todecypher which, requires a knowledge of hieroglyphical sym-bols, which it is not probable a man who devoted hislife to Christian purposes, could acquire. But this we canventure to aftirm, had no reference to writing, besides thoseinstruments were in the hand: a feather in hieroglyphics de-notes air, and probably in this signification Juvenal mightspeak figuratively, when he alludes to quills. Horace likewise copies Juvenal ’s thought, and uses it, perhaps, inthe same sense with that poet, when he says:

-— Si celercs quatit

Pennas, resigno qua dedit.

IIorat. Od. iii. 29, 53.

Should credit be'attached to an anonymous author of thehistory of Constautius, from whom Adrian de Valois madeextracts, the use of our present quills were introduced asearly as the fifth century. This author informs us, thatTheodoric, King of the Ostrogoths, was so illiterate andstupid, that during the ten years of his reign he was not ableto learn to write even four letters at the bottom of hisedicts ; for which reason, the four letters were cut for himin a plate of gold, which being laid upon paper, he thentraced out the letters with a quill. History supplies variousother evidences of the unfitness of men for elevated stations,where hereditary right or accident has placed them uponthrones, whose dignity they were ill able to support. Thewestern empire, about the same period, was governed byJustin, whose letters were, however, cut in wood; even then