As long as people wrote upon tables covered with wax, they were obliged to use a style or bodkin made of bone, metal, or some other hard substance; but when they began to write with coloured liquids, they employed a reed, and afterwards quills or feathers. This is well-known, and has been proved by various authors1208. There are two circumstances however in regard to this subject, which require some further research; and which I shall endeavour to illustrate by such information as I have been able to collect. With what kind of reeds did people write? When, and where were feathers first employed and for that purpose?

It is rather astonishing that we are ignorant of what kind of reeds the ancients used for writing, though they have mentioned the places where they grew wild, and where, it is highly probable, they grow still. Besides, we have reason to suppose that the same reeds are used even at present by all the Oriental nations; for it is well known, that among the people of the East old manners and instruments are not easily banished by new modes and new inventions. Most authors who have treated on the history of writing have contented themselves with informing their readers that a reed was employed; but the genus of plants called by the ancients Calamus and Arundo, is more numerous in species than the genus of grasses, to which their corn belonged; and it might perhaps be as difficult to determine with accuracy what kind of reed they employed for writing, as to distinguish the species of grain called far, alica, and avena.

The most beautiful reeds of this kind grew formerly in Egypt1209; near Cnidus, a city and district in the province of Caria, in Asia Minor1210; and likewise in Armenia and Italy1211. Those which grew in the last-mentioned country, seem to have been considered by Pliny as too soft and spongy: but his words are so obscure that little can be gathered from them; and though the above places have been explored in later times by many experienced botanists, they have not supplied us with much certain information respecting this species of reed. It is however particularly mentioned by the old botanists, who have represented it as a stem, such as I have seen in collections; but as they give no characters sufficiently precise, LinnÆus was not able to assign any place in his system to the Arundo scriptoria of Bauhin1212.

Chardin speaks of the reeds which grow in the marshes of Persia, and which are sold and much sought after in the Levant, particularly for writing. He has even described them; but his account has been of no service to enlarge our botanical knowledge1213. Tournefort, who saw them collected in the neighbourhood of Teflis, the capital of Georgia, though his description of them is far from complete, has taught us more than any of his predecessors. We learn from his account, that this reed has small leaves, that it rises only to the height of a man, and that it is not hollow, but filled with a soft spongy substance. He has characterized it, therefore, in the following manner in his System of Botany: Arundo orientalis, tenuifolia, caule pleno, ex qua TurcÆ calamos parant1214. The same words are applied to it by Miller; but he observes that no plants of it had ever been introduced into England. That the best writing-reeds are procured from the southern provinces of Persia is confirmed by Dapper and Hanway. The former says that the reeds are sown and planted near the Persian Gulf in the place mentioned by Chardin, and he gives the same description as that traveller of the manner in which they are prepared.

The circumstance expressly mentioned by Tournefort, that these writing-reeds are not entirely hollow, seems to agree perfectly with the account given by Dioscorides1215. It is probable that the pith dries and becomes shrunk, especially after the preparation described by Chardin, so that the reed can be easily freed from it in the same manner as the marrowy substance in writing-quills is removed from them when prepared. Something of the like kind seems to be meant by Pliny, who, in my opinion, says that the pith dried up within the reed, which was hollow at the lower end, but at the upper end woody and destitute of pith. What follows refers to the flowers, which were employed instead of feathers for beds, and also for caulking ships. I conjectured that Forskal had given an accurate description of this reed; but when I consulted that author, I did not find what I expected. He only confirms that a great many reeds of different kinds grow near the Nile, which serve to make hedges, thatch, and wattled-walls, and which are used for various other purposes1216.

These reeds were split and formed to a point like our quills, but certainly it was not possible to make so clean and fine strokes, and to write so long1217 and so conveniently with them as one can with quills. The use of them, however, was not entirely abandoned when people began to write with quills, which in every country can be procured from an animal extremely useful in many other respects. Had the ancients been acquainted with the art of employing goose-quills for this purpose, they would undoubtedly have dedicated to Minerva, not the owl, but the goose.

A passage in Clemens of Alexandria, who died in the beginning of the third century, might on the first view induce one to conjecture that the Egyptian priests even wrote with quills. This author, after describing a procession of these priests, says the sacred writer had in his hand a book with writing-instruments, and on his head feathers1218. But it is impossible to guess what might be the intention of these feathers or wings on the head, among a people who were so fond of symbols. Besides, Clemens tells us expressly, that one of the writing-instruments was a reed with which the priests used to write.

Some assert from a passage of Juvenal1219, that quills were used for writing in the time of that poet; but what he says is only a metaphorical expression, such as has been employed by Horace1220 and various ancient writers. Others have endeavoured to prove the antiquity of writing-quills from the figure of the goddess Egeria, who is represented with a book before her, and a feather in her right hand; but the period when this Egeria was formed is not known, and it is probable that the feather was added by some modern artist1221. No drawings in manuscripts, where the authors appear with quills, are of great antiquity. Among these is the portrait of Aristotle, in a manuscript in the library of Vienna, which, as expressly mentioned at the end, was drawn at Rome in the year 1457; and we have great reason to think that the artist delineated the figure for ornamenting his work, not after an ancient painting, but from his own imagination1222.

If credit can be given to the anonymous author of the history of Constantius, extracts from which have been made known by Adrian de Valois, the use of quills for writing is as old as the fifth century. We are informed by this author, who lived in the above century, that Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, was so illiterate and stupid, that during the ten years of his reign he was not able to learn to write four letters at the bottom of his edicts. For this reason the four letters were cut for him in a plate of gold, and the plate being laid upon paper, he then traced out the letters with a quill1223. This account is, at any rate, not improbable; for history supplies us with more instances of such men not destined for the throne by nature, but raised to it either by hereditary right or by accident, who had neither abilities nor inclination for those studies which it requires. The western empire was governed, almost about the time of Theodoric, by the emperor Justin, who also could not write, and who used in the like manner a piece of wood, having letters cut in it, but with this difference, that, in tracing them out, he caused his hand to be guided by one of his secretaries1224.

The oldest certain account however known at present respecting writing-quills, is a passage of Isidore, who died in the year 636, and who, among the instruments employed for writing, mentions reeds and feathers1225. Another proof of quills being used in the same century, is a small poem on a writing-pen, to be found in the works of Althelmus, called sometimes also Aldhelmus, Adelhemus, and Adelmus. This writer, descended of a noble family, was the first Saxon who wrote Latin, and who made the art of Latin poetry known to his countrymen, and inspired them with a taste for compositions of that kind. He died in the year 7091226.

In the eighth century writing-pens are mentioned by Alcuin, who at that period, in the time of Charlemagne, was of service in extending literary knowledge. He composed poetical inscriptions for every part of a monastery, among which there is one even for a privy1227, and another for a writing-study. Speaking of the latter, he says that no one ought to talk in it, lest the pen of the transcriber should commit a mistake1228.

After the above period proofs occur which place the matter beyond all doubt. Mabillon saw a manuscript of the gospels, which had been written in the ninth century under the reign of Louis I., in which the evangelists were represented with quills in their hands. The same author mentions a like figure of the eleventh century1229. In the twelfth century, Peter de Clugny, who by scholastic writers is called Venerabilis, and who died in 1157, wrote to a friend, exhorting him to assume the pen instead of the plough, and to transcribe, instead of tilling land1230. In short, writing-quills are often called calami by ancient and modern authors who wrote good Latin; and it is probable that this word is employed by older writers than Isidore to signify writing-pens, where, for want of other proofs, we understand reeds.

The poet Heerkens1231 has asserted, that the use of quills for writing is much older, and that the Romans became acquainted with them during their residence in the Netherlands, where they could not easily procure Egyptian reeds, and where, according to the account of Pliny1232, they paid so much attention to the catching of geese. That writer, however, says that this was done on account of the flesh of these animals, which they esteemed much when roasted, and of the softness of their feathers, on which they were fond of sleeping. Heerkens himself remarks, that Pliny, had he known the use of quills for writing, would not have passed it over in silence, when he gives so circumstantial an account of writing-reeds. He is of opinion also, that, as the Dutch terms of art which allude to writing, such as schryfpen, &c., are of Latin extraction, the Dutch must have acquired them as well as the things signified from the Romans. This however seems to afford very little support to his assertion. Of more importance is the observation that in an old and beautiful manuscript of Virgil, in the Medicean library, which was written soon after the time of Honorius, the thickness of the strokes, and the gradual fineness of the hair-strokes of the letters give us reason to conjecture that they must have been written by some instrument equally elastic as a quill, as it is not probable that such strokes could be made with a stiff reed1233. It is also certain that the letters of the greater part of ancient manuscripts, particularly those found at Herculaneum, are written in a much stiffer and more uniform manner. But little confidence is to be placed in this observation; for we do not know but the ancient artists may have been acquainted with some method of giving elasticity to their reeds, and may have employed them in such a manner as to produce beautiful writing.

Notwithstanding the great advantage which quills have over reeds for writing, the latter however seem to have continued long in use even with the former. This conclusion I do not form, because calamus and arundo are to be found in the works of late writers; for many authors may have employed these old Latin words to express quills, like Cassiodorus, who in the sixth century, when exhorting the monks to transcribe theological works, used both these terms indiscriminately1234; but I found my assertion on the testimony of diplomatists, and particularly on the undoubted mention made of writing-reeds in the sixteenth century.

Men of letters, well-versed in diplomatics, assure us, from comparing manuscripts, that writing-reeds were used along with quills in the eighth century, at least in France, and that the latter first began to be common in the ninth. The papal acts, and those of synods, must however have been written with reeds much later1235. In convents they were retained for texts and initials, while, for small writing, quills were everywhere employed.

I can allow little credit to a conjecture supported merely by a similarity of the strokes in writing, because it is probable that people at first would endeavour to write in as strong and coarse a manner with quills, as had been before done with reeds, in order that the writing might not seem much different from what was usual; and with quills one can produce writing both coarse and fine. M. Meiners, however, referred me to a passage in a letter of Reuchlin, which removes all doubt on the subject. When this worthy man, to whom posterity is so much indebted, was obliged to fly by the cruelty of his enemies, famine and the plague, and to leave behind him all his property, he was supplied with the most common necessaries by Pirkheimer1236. Among other articles the latter sent to him, in the year 1520, writing materials, good paper, pen-knives, and, instead of peacocks-feathers which he had requested, the best swan-quills. That nothing might be wanting, he added also proper reeds, of so excellent a sort, that Reuchlin considered them to be Egyptian or Cnidian1237.

These reeds at that period must have been scarce and in great request, as it appears by some letters of Erasmus to Reuchlin, for my knowledge of which I am under obligations to M. Meiners, that the former received three reeds from the latter, and expressed a wish that Reuchlin, when he procured more, would send some of them to a learned man in England, who was a common friend to both1238.

Whatever may have been the cause, about the year 1433 writing-quills were so scarce at Venice, that it was with great difficulty men of letters could procure them. We learn at any rate, that the well-known Ambrosius Traversarius, a monk of Camaldule, sent from Venice to his brother, in the above year, a bunch of quills, together with a letter, in which he said, “They are not the best, but such as I received in a present. Show the whole bunch to our friend Nicholas, that he may select a quill; for these articles are indeed scarcer in this city than at Florence1239.” This Ambrosius complains likewise, that at the same period he had hardly any more ink, and requested that a small vessel filled with it might be sent to him1240. Other learned men complain also of the want of good ink, which they either would not or did not know how to make. Those even who deal in it seldom know of what ingredients it is principally composed.

[The softness of quill pens and the constant trouble required to mend them naturally led to the search for some substitute. Metals have supplied this, and the manufacture of metallic pens now gives occupation to an immense number of persons. Steel and other metallic pens have long been made occasionally1241, but were not extensively used on account of their stiffness; this was remedied by Mr. Perry, who, in 1830, introduced the use of apertures between the shoulder and the point. Numerous other improvements have been made, the metals have all had a trial, and pens can now be obtained of almost every form and quality. Perhaps the most perfect and durable, although the most expensive, are those in which the pen is made of gold, with a nib of osmium and iridium. The total quantity of steel annually employed in the manufacture of pens has been estimated at 120 tons, from which upwards of 200,000,000 pens are produced. One Birmingham manufacturer employed in 1838, 300 persons in making steel pens. They are also extensively manufactured in London and Sheffield. When first introduced, steel pens were eight shillings a gross; they afterwards fell to four shillings a gross, and now they are procured at Birmingham for fourpence a gross1242!]