Clementis Alex. Opera. Coloniæ, 1688, fol. p. 633. The best account of these sacred writers may be found in the Prolegomena, p. 91, of Jablonski’s Pantheon Ægypt.
1219
Sat. iv. 149.
1220
Od. iii. 29, 53.
1221
Gronovii Thesaurus Antiq. Græc. ii. n. 28.
1222
Lambec. lib. vii. p. 76. – Montfaucon, Palæograph. Græca, lib. i. cap. 3, p. 21.
1223
Amm. Marcellini Hist. ed. Valesii, Par. 1681, fol. p. 699. The letters might have been raised on the plate, or deeply engraven in it, so that Theodoric only followed with his pen an impression of them made upon the paper.
1224
It is uncertain whether the characters were followed with a style, a reed, or a quill; for γραφὶς (the word used) is the general appellation. “There have been princes, also, acquainted with writing, but so lazy that they kept a servant who could imitate their hand to subscribe for them.” Of this we have an instance in the emperor Carinus, respecting whom Vopiscus says, “Fastidium subscribendi tantum habuit, ut quendam ad subscribendum poneret qui bene suam imitaretur manum.”
1225
Origines, lib. vi. 13, p. 132.
1226
His writings may be found in Maxima Bibliotheca Patrum. Lugduni, 1677, fol. tom. xiii. In p. 27, is the following poem on a pen: —
De Penna Scriptoria
Me pridem genuit candens onocrotalus albam
Gutture qui patulo sorbet in gurgite lymphas.
Pergo ad albentes directo tramite campos,
Candentique viæ vestigia cærula linquo,
Lucida nigratis fuscans anfractibus arva.
Nec satis est unum per campos pandere callem;
Semita quin potius milleno tramite tendit,
Quæ non errantes ad cœli culmina vexit.
The author does not speak here of a goose-quill, but of a pelican’s, which at any rate may be as good as that of a swan.
1227
Ad latrinium (latrinam).
1228
Alcuini Opera, cura Frobenii, Ratisbonæ, 1777, 2 vols. fol. ii. p. 211.
1229
De Re Diplomatica, Par. 1709, fol. in Suppl. p. 51.
1230
Petr. Venerabil. lib. i. ep. 20, ad Gislebertum. C. G. Schwarz, who quotes the passage in Exercit. de Varia Supellectili Rei Librariæ Veterum, Altorfii, 1725, 4to, § 8, ascribes them falsely to the venerable Bede, who died about the year 735.
1231
Ger. Nic. Heerkens Aves Frisicæ, Rot. 1788, 8vo, p. 106.
1232
Hist. Nat. lib. x. cap. 22.
1233
This manuscript was correctly printed by P. F. Fogginius, in quarto, in 1741. A specimen of the writing is given, p. 15. See also Virgilius Heynii, in Elenchus Codicum, p. 41.
1234
Divin. Lection. cap. xxx. p. m. 477, 478.
1235
Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique, i. p. 537.
1236
Reuchlin’s life may be found in Meiners’ Lebensbeschreibungen Berühmter Männer. Zurich. 1795, 8vo, vol. i.
1237
Pirkheimeri Opera, Franc. 1610, fol. p. 259.
1238
Illustrium Virorum Epistolæ ad Jo. Reuchlin.: Hagenoæ, 1519, 4to, p. 144.
1239
Ambrosii Traversarii Epistolæ. ed. L. Mehus. Florentiæ, 1759, 2 vols. fol. ii. p. 566.