fanciful varieties such as what we call Old English and Black Letter, and still use for ornamental purposes. This style of manuscript being in fashion when printing was introduced in Europe, English books were at first printed in it, as many German books are still. One has only to read a page of a German book so printed to satisfy oneself how great a gain of clearness it was to discard these letters with forms broken by unmeaning lines, and return to the more distinct Latin letters we now use.

Beside these general changes of alphabet, the history of writing shows how from time to time alterations have been made as to particular letters. The original Phoenician alphabet was weak in vowels, in a way which the learner of Hebrew can understand when he tries to read it without the vowel points, which are more modern marks put on for the benefit of those who do not know the language well enough to tell how each word should be pronounced. The Phoenician alphabet did not altogether suit the writers of Greek and Latin, who altered some letters and made new ones in order to write their languages more perfectly, and thus other nations have made free in adding, dropping, and altering letters and their sounds, to get the means required for each to express its own tongue. To such causes may be traced letters not known to the primitive alphabet, such as Greek and English W, which are explained by their names of Omega or “great-o," and "double-u.” The digamma or F fell out of use in Greek, and the two valuable Anglo-Saxon th letters, and p, are lost to modern English. The letters H and X are examples of letters which in Greek served purposes other than those English uses them for. By arranging their alphabets to suit the sounds of their languages, nations contrive with more or fewer letters to spell with some accuracy, Italian managing this

fairly with twenty-two letters, while Russian uses thirty-six. English has an alphabet of twenty-six letters, but works them without regular system, so that our spelling and pronunciation disagree at every turn. One cause of this state of things has been the attempt to keep up side by side two different spellings, English and French, as where g is used to spell both the English word get and the French word gentle. Another cause has been the attempt to keep up ancient sounds in writing, although they have been dropped in speaking; thus in throuGH, castle, scene, the now silent letters are relics of sounds which used to be really heard in Anglo-Saxon thurH, Latin castellum, Greek skënë. What makes this the more perplexing is, that in many words English writing does simply try to spell what is actually spoken; English tail does not keep up the lost guttural of AngloSaxon tægel, nor does English palsy retain letters for the sounds that have vanished in its derivation from French paralysie. Our wrong spelling is the result not of rule but of want of rule, and among its most curious cases are those where the grammarians have managed to put both sound and etymology wrong at once, writing island, rhyme, scythe, where their forefathers rationally wrote iland, rime, sithe. It is reckoned that on an average, a year of an English child's education is wasted in overcoming the defects of the present mode of spelling.

The invention of writing was the great movement by which mankind rose from barbarism to civilization. How vast its effect was, may be best measured by looking at the low condition of tribes still living without it, dependent on memory for their traditions and rules of life, and unable to amass knowledge as we do by keeping records of events, and storing up new observations for the use of future generations. Thus it is no doubt right to draw the line between

barbarian and civilized where the art of writing comes in, for this gives permanence to history, law, and science. Such knowledge so goes with writing, that when a man is spoken of as learned, we at once take it to mean that he has read many books, which are the main source men learn from. Already in ancient times, as compositions of value came to be written, there sprang up a class of copyists or transcribers, whose business was to multiply books. In Alexandria or Rome one could go to the bibliopole or bookseller and buy a manuscript of Demosthenes or Livy, and in later ages the copying of religious books splendidly illuminated, became a common occupation, especially in monasteries. But manuscripts were costly, only the few scholars could read them, and so no doubt it would have remained had not a new art come in to multiply writing.

This was a process simple enough in itself, and indeed well known from remote ages. Every Egyptian or Babylonian who smeared some black on his signet-ring or engraved cylinder, and took off a copy, had made the first step towards printing. But easy as the further application now seems to us, no one in the Old World saw it. It appears to have been the Chinese who invented the plan of engraving a whole page of characters on a wood-block and printing off many copies. They may have begun as early as the sixth century, and at any rate in the tenth century they were busy printing books. The Chinese writing, from its enormous diversity of characters, is not well suited to printing by movable types, but there is a record that this plan was early devised among them, having been carried on with separate terra-cotta types in the eleventh century. Moslem writers early in the fourteenth century describe Chinese printing, so that it was probably through them that the art found its way to Europe, where not long afterwards the

so-called "block-books," printed from whole page woodblocks after the Chinese manner, make their appearance, followed by books printed with movable types. Few questions have been more debated by antiquaries than the claims of Gutenberg, Faust, and the others to their share of honour as the inventors of printing. Great as was the service these worthies did to the world, it is only fair to remember that what they did was but to improve the practical application of a Chinese invention. Since their time progress has been made in cheapening types, making paper by machinery, improving the presses, and working them by steam-power, but the idea remains the same. Such is, in few words, the history of the art of printing, to which perhaps, more than to any other influence, is due the difference of our modern life from that of the middle ages.

In examining these methods of writing, we began with the rude hunter's pictures, passing on to the Egyptian's use of a picture to represent the sound of its name, then to the breaking down of the picture into a mere sound-sign, till in this last stage the connexion between figure and sound becomes so apparently arbitrary, that the child has to be taught, this sign stands for A, this for B. In curious contrast with this is the modern invention of the phonograph, where the actual sound spoken into the vibrating diaphragm marks indentations in the travelling strip of tinfoil, by which the diaphragm can be afterwards caused to repeat the vibrations and re-utter the sound. When one listens to the tones coming forth from the strip of foil, the South Sea Islander's fancy of the talking chip seems hardly unreasonable.

CHAPTER VIII.

ARTS OF LIFE.

Development of Instruments, 183-Club, Hammer, 184-Stone-flake, 185-Hatchet, 188-Sabre, Knife, 189 -Spear, Dagger, Sword, 190-Carpenter's Tools, 192-Missiles, Javelin, 193-Sling, Spear-thrower, 194–Bow and Arrow, 195-Blow-tube, Gun, 196— Mechanical Power, 197-Wheel carriage, 198-Hand-mill, 200Drill, Lathe, 202-Screw, 203-Water-mill, Wind-mill, 204.

THE arts by which man defends and maintains himself, and holds rule over the world he lives in, depend so much on his use of instruments, that it will be well to begin with some account of tools and weapons, tracing them from their earliest and rudest forms.

Man is sometimes called, to distinguish him from all lower creatures, the "tool-using animal." This distinction. holds good in a general way, marking off man with his spear and hatchet from the bull goring with his horns, or the beaver carpentering with his teeth. But it is instructive. to see how plainly the ape tribes, coming nearest to ourselves in having hands, have also rudiments of the implement-using faculty. Untaught by man, they defend themselves with missiles, as when orangs in the durian trees furiously pelt passers-by with the thorny fruit.