the general name of almost every literary composition; but, in a more limited sense, is applied only to such compositions as are large enough to make a volume. As to the origin of books or writing, those of Moses are undoubtedly the most ancient that are extant: But Moses himself cites many books that behoved to be written before his time.

Of profane books, the oldest extant are Homer's poems, which were so even in the time of Sextus Empiricus; though we find mention in Greek writers of twenty others prior to Homer; as Hermes, Orpheus, Daphne, Horus, Linus, Mufus, Palamedes, Zoroaster, &c.: but of the greater part of these there is not the least fragment remaining; and of others, the pieces which go under their names are generally held, by the learned, to be supposititious.

Several sorts of materials were used formerly in making books: Plates of lead and copper, the barks of trees, trees, bricks, stone, and wood, were the first materials employed to engrave such things upon as men were willing to have transmitted to posterity. Josephus speaks of two columns, the one of stone; the other of brick, on which the children of Seth wrote their inventions and astronomical discoveries: Porphyry makes mention of some pillars preserved in Crete, on which the ceremonies practised by the Corybantes in their sacrifices were recorded. Hesiod's works were originally written upon tables of lead, and deposited in the temple of the Muses, in Boeotia: The ten commandments, delivered to Moses, were written upon stone; and Solon's laws upon wooden planks. Tables of wood, box, and ivory, were common among the ancients: When of wood, they were frequently covered with wax, that people might write upon them with more ease, or blot out what they had written. The leaves of the palm-tree were afterwards used instead of wooden planks, and the finest and thinnest part of the bark of such trees, as the lime, the ash, the mapple, and the elm; from hence comes the word liber, which signifies the inner bark of the trees: and these barks are rolled up, in order to be removed with greater ease; these rolls were called volumen, a volume; a name afterwards given to the like rolls of paper or parchment.

Thus we find books were first written on stones, witness the Decalogue given to Moses: Then on the parts of plants, as leaves chiefly of the palm-tree; the rind and barks, especially of the tilia, or phyllrea, and the Egyptian papyrus. By degrees wax, then leather, were introduced, especially the skins of goats and sheep, of which at length parchment was prepared: then lead came into use; also linen, silk, horn, and lastly paper itself.

The first books were in the form of blocks and tables; but as flexible matter came to be wrote on, they found it more convenient to make their books in the form of rolls: These were composed of several sheets, fastened to each other, and rolled upon a stick, or umbilicus; the whole making a kind of column, or cylinder, which was to be managed by the umbilicus as a handle, it being reputed a crime to take hold of the roll itself: The outside of the volume was called frons; the ends of the umbilicus, cornua, which were usually carved, and adorned with silver, ivory, or even gold and precious stones: The title συναγωγής, was struck on the outside; the whole volume, when extended, might make a yard and a half wide, and fifty long. The form which obtains among us is the square, composed of separate leaves; which was also known, tho' little used, by the ancients.

To the form of books belongs also the internal economy, as the order and arrangement of points and letters into lines and pages, with margins and other appurtenants. This has undergone many varieties. At first the letters were only divided into lines; then into separate words; which, by degrees, were noted with accents, and distributed, by points and stops, into periods, paragraphs, chapters, and other divisions. In some countries, as among the orientals, the lines began from the right and ran leftward; in others, as the northern and western nations, from left to right; others, as the Greeks, followed both directions, alternately going in the one, and returning in the other, called boustrophedon: In most countries, the lines run from one side to the other; in some, particularly the Chinese, from top to bottom.

Everlasting Book.—We find in Signior Caflaquio's account of the alphabet, a scheme for the making of a book, which, from its imperishable nature, he is for calling the book of eternity. The leaves of this book were to be of the alphabet paper, the covers of a thicker sort of work of the same matter, and the whole sewed with thread spun from the same substance. The things to be commemorated in this book were to be written in letters of gold; so that the whole matter of the book being incombustible, and everlasting permanently against the force of all the elements, and subject to no changes from fire, water, or air, must remain for ever, and always preserve the writing committed to it. He carried this project so far towards execution, as to find a way of making a sort of paper from the alphabet, which was so tractable and soft, that it very well resembled a thin parchment; this, by the same process, was capable of being thickened or thinned at pleasure, and in either state equally resisted the fire. The covering of the thinnest kind of this paper with fire, only makes it red hot and very clear, the fire seeming to pass through it without wasting or altering any part of it. Copper, iron, or any other metal except gold or silver, exposed to the same degree of fire in the same thin plates, would be found not to bear it in this manner, but to scale, and burn it into scorie at the surface, which this stone does not.

Book-Binding. The art of gathering together and sewing the sheets of a book, and covering it with a back, &c. It is performed thus: The leaves are first folded with a folding-flick, and laid over each other in the order of the signature; then beaten on a stone with an hammer, to make them smooth and open well; and afterwards pressed. They are sewed upon bands, which are pieces of cord or packthread; fix bands to a folio book; five to a quarto, octavo, &c.; which is done by drawing a thread through the middle of each sheet, and giving it a turn round each band, beginning with the first and proceeding to the last. After this the books are glued, and the bands opened and scraped, for the better fixing the pasteboards; the back is turned with a hammer, and the book fixed in a press between two boards, in order to make a groove for fixing the pasteboards; these being applied, holes are made for fixing them to the book, which is pressed a third time. Then the book is at last put to the cutting press, betwixt two boards; the one lying even with the press, for the knife to run upon; the other above it, for the knife to run against: after which the pasteboards are squared.

The next operation is the sprinkling the leaves of the book; which is done by dipping the brush into vermilion and sap-green, holding the brush in one hand, and spreading the hair with the other; by which motion the edges of the leaves are sprinkled in a regular manner, without any spots being bigger than the other.

Then remains the covers, which are either of calf-skin or of sheep-skin: these being moistened in water, are cut out to the size of the book; then smeared over with paste made of wheat-flour; and afterwards stretched over the pasteboard on the outside, and doubled over the edges withinside; after having first taken off the