A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume I (of 2)

Spaten (Stiler) der Teutschen Sprache Stammbaum, 1691, 4to, p. 1062.

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In his annotations on Constantini Libri de Ceremoniis Aulæ Byzantinæ, ii. p. 137. Reiske also on this occasion gives the derivation from Charlatan, a mountebank, juggler, circumforaneus, agyrta, because such people formerly on account of their red clothes were called scarlatati or scarlatani. Other conjectures respecting this word may be found in Menage, Dictionnaire Etymologique. See in the same work also, p. 498, the word écarlate. In ancient French writers the highest degree of any colour in its perfection is called écarlate, and we therefore meet with écarlate blanche, écarlate verte. Braun de Vestitu Sacerd. Hebræor. Amstelod. 1701, 4to, lib. i. cap. 15, p. 229, says, “Salacka, Tyrian red, from sar, Tyrus.” He controverts the opinion of Gronovius that scarlatum is derived from Galaticum.

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Dillon’s Travels through Spain, 1780, p. 21. Rod. Toletanus De Rebus Hispan. lib. vii. 1.

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G. J. Vossius De Vitiis Sermonis.

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Pontani Historia Gelrica, 1639, fol. p. 83: “Tres pannos scarlitinos Anglicanos.” The year seems to have been 1050. In Lunig’s Codex Diplom. Germaniæ, ii. p. 1739, may be seen a document of the year 1172, in which the emperor Frederick I. confers on the count of Gueldres the heritable jurisdiction of Nimeguen, on condition, “ut ipse et ejus successores imperatori de eodem telonio singulis annis tres pannos scarlacos bene rubeos Anglicenses ardentis coloris – assignare deberet.”

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In Statutis Cluniacensibus, cap. 18.

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See Porner’s Anleitung zur Farbekunst. Leipzig, 1785, 8vo, p. 16.

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Page 113.

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Monconys mentions in his Travels, p. 408, Dr. Keiffer, a son-in-law of Drebbel, who was a good chemist.

1202

In Borrichii Dissertat. ii. p. 104: Color Kufflerianus.

1203

Rabelais, xi. 22. Menage, Diction. Etymol. i. p. 682.

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Francheville, in Dissertat. sur l’Art de la Teinture des Anciens et Modernes, in Histoire de l’Académ. de Berlin, 1767, p. 67. In this dissertation, however, there is neither certainty nor proof.

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Suite de Teinturier parfait. Paris, 1716.

1206

Anderson’s History of Commerce.

1207

Cary’s Bemerkungen über Grossbritanniens Handel; übersetzt von Wichmann. Leipzig, 1788, i. p. 372. Boyle remarks in his Experimenta de Coloribus, Coloniæ, 1680, 4to, that a bright scarlet colour was never produced except when tin vessels were used. It appears, therefore, that he had observed the good effects of a solution of tin.

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See Fabricii Bibliotheca Antiquaria, p. 959. Reimmanni Idea Systematis Antiquitatis Litterariæ, 1718, 8vo, p. 169. Astle’s Origin and Progress of Writing, 4to.

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Plin. lib. xvi. cap. 35. Martial, lib. xiv. epigram. 38.

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Plin. lib. c. Catullus, carm. xxxvi. 13, mentions Cnidus arundinosa. Ausonius, epist. iv. 75, calls the reeds Cnidii nodi.

1211

Plin. lib. xvi. cap. 36.

1212

Bauhini Pinax Plantar, p. 17: Arundo scriptoria atro-rubens. Hist. Plant. ii. p. 487. Theatrum Botan. p. 273.

1213

“Their writing-pens are made of reeds or small hard canes of the size of the largest swan-quills, which they cut and slit in the same manner as we do ours; but they give them a much longer nib. These canes or reeds are collected towards Daurac, along the Persian Gulf, in a large fen supplied with water by the river Hellé, a place of Arabia formed by an arm of the Tigris, and another of the Euphrates united. They are cut in March, and, when gathered, are tied up in bundles and laid for six months under a dunghill, where they harden and assume a beautiful polish and lively colour, which is a mixture of yellow and black. None of these reeds are collected in any other place. As they make the best writing-pens, they are transported throughout the whole East. Some of them grow in India, but they are softer and of a paler yellow colour.” – Voyages de Chardin, vol. v. p. 49.

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“It is a kind of cane which grows no higher than a man. The stem is only three or four lines in thickness, and solid from one knot to another, that is to say filled with a white pith. The leaves, which are a foot and a half in length, and eight or nine lines in breadth, enclose the knots of the stem in a sheath; but the rest is smooth, of a bright yellowish-green colour, and bent in the form of a half-tube, with a white bottom. The panicle or bunch of flowers was not as yet fully blown, but it was whitish, silky, and like that of other reeds. The inhabitants of the country cut the stems of these reeds to write with, but the strokes they form are very coarse, and do not approach the beauty of those which we make with our pens.” – Voyage du Levant, vol. ii. p. 136.

1215

Lib. i. cap. 114. Rauwolf says in his Travels, vol. i. p. 93, “In the shops were to be sold small reeds, hollow within and smooth without, and of a brownish-red colour, which are used by the Turks, Moors, and other Eastern people, for writing.” It appears that Rauwolf did not see these reeds growing, but prepared and freed from the pith. We are told by Winkelmann, in his second Letter on the Antiquities of Herculaneum, p. 46, that for want of quills he often cut into writing-pens those reeds which grow in the neighbourhood of Naples.

1216

Flora Ægyptiaco-Arabica. Havniæ, 1775, 4to, p. 47, 61.

1217

Those who wish to see instances of learned men who wrote a great deal and a long time with one pen, may consult J. H. Ackeri Historia Pennarum, Altenburgi, 1726. The author has collected every thing he ever read respecting the pens of celebrated men.

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