FOOT-PRINTS
OF A
LETTER-CARRIER;

OR

CONTAINING

BIOGRAPHIES, TALES, SKETCHES,
INCIDENTS, AND STATISTICS CONNECTED WITH
POSTAL HISTORY.
BY
JAMES REES,
CLERK IN THE PHILADELPHIA POST-OFFICE.

“The Post-Office is properly a mercantile project. The government advances the expense of establishing the different offices, and of buying or hiring the necessary horses or carriages, and is repaid with a large profit by the duties upon what is carried.”

Smith, Wealth of Nations.

“A Messenger with Letters.”—Spenser.

PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1866.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern
District of Pennsylvania.

PREFACE.

There are few institutions in this or in any other country the history of which is so little known as is that of the post-office. The very name, in the opinion of the masses, is sufficient to enlighten them; and beyond this little or no interest is manifested. Yet the history, if fairly written, would surprise that very portion who consider the name alone an index to its unwritten pages.

Indeed, it seems strange that so important a branch of our government should have been so slighted by those who constituted themselves historic writers. Our school-books contain no allusion to it, nor are its officers mentioned with any marks of commendation in any of our national works. And yet there are names identified with this department, both as regards mind, intellect, and character, unequalled by those of any other in the country.

Perhaps it is looked upon as being merely an appliance to the wheels of government and not essential to its general movements. Is this so? is the department a mere workshop and its officers and employees simply workers?

We have endeavored in this work—perhaps feebly—to place the “post” before our readers as one of the most important branches of the General Government. We have thrown around its social and political history an interest by connecting with it incidents, facts, and local matter more immediately identified with events which have marked our country’s history from its earliest period to that of the present.

Much has transpired during all these years to render such a work both instructive and interesting; and although we do not claim for ours any such pretension, yet we may safely term it a pioneer in the cause of our postal history.

We have also endeavored, without any aid from the postal department at Washington, to furnish a somewhat desultory history of the post in this country, while at the same time we have given some account of those of other nations. Ours is not a mere statistic history, but one that blends with it a certain amount of information upon every subject more or less connected with it. Aiming at no high literary attainments, or attempting to excel others in language, beauty of sentiment, or construction of sentences, he has written a work in his own style, and in a manner which he flatters himself will be received favorably by the masses. The American language given in its plainest style will be far more appreciated by them than if clothed in the classic garb scholastic and academical tailoring has thrown around it.

The primitive style in which our forefathers wrote has been materially changed by the introduction of foreign and learned words. This, it is true, as Blair says, “gives an appearance of elevation and dignity to style;” but often, also, they render it stiff and forced; and, in general, a plain native style, as it is more intelligible to all readers, so, by a proper management of words, “it may be made equally strong and expressive with this Latinized English.” Barren languages may need such assistance, but ours is not one of these.

The author is also aware that in the general arrangement of his subject there may seem a want of connection; but, as the postal chain is linked to dates, he may be excused if other portions of the work fly off in tangents. This, however, is owing more to the variety of postal matter introduced than to any neglect on his part to bring them into harmonic action.

The post-office, dry and uninteresting as its name alone implies, possesses an interest few people are aware. It is not a mere commercial affair, but one that connects itself with the interest of every man, woman, and child in the country whose business and sympathies are alike linked to its operations. There is not a country or a spot of ground on the habitable globe where civilization, with its handmaid, intellect, treads, but is identified with this vast postal chain. Touch the wire at one end, and its vibration may tend to enlighten even the land of the heathen. The wire has been touched; for

“From Greenland’s icy mountains,

From India’s coral strand,

Where Afric’s sunny fountains

Roll down their golden sand,

From many an ancient river,

From many a palmy plain,”

come messages from our missionaries, who are endeavoring to extend the cause of Christianity, and which postal facility, the enterprise of civilized nations, affords.

The author in a great measure had to rely upon his own resources for all the postal information incorporated in this work. The department at Washington and post-offices throughout the country seem to consider the records of the institution not of sufficient importance to be preserved in such a manner as to make a reference to them an easy matter.

To M. Hall Stanton, Esq., and Thomas H. Shoemaker, Esq., the author feels highly indebted, not only for the interest they have taken in the work, but for placing at his disposal their valuable libraries and the loan of old and rare works.

For the valuable statistical tables so carefully and so well arranged, giving at a glance the Ledger account of the financial postal department, the author is indebted to William V. McKean, Esq., the able and talented editor of “The National Almanac and Annual Record,”—a work, to use the language of a distinguished public character, “which is a little library in itself, and one which answers nearly all questions on public affairs in a most satisfactory manner.”

To “the press” of our country, which has become its historian, is the author indebted for much valuable matter connected with the subject of the post. If from these sources he has compiled a work calculated to place the postal department in its proper light and render it in the least instructive or interesting, he will be fully repaid for the labor bestowed upon it.

DEDICATION.

The custom of dedicating works to individuals is of some antiquity, or, at least, as far as the antiquity of book-making extends. At one period it served the double purpose of creating a patron and enlarging the sale of the book. Again, dedications became popular when great men condescended to notice authors and placed their extensive libraries at their disposal. Books published in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries afford the curious reader rich specimens of this species of literary composition.

Others, again, dedicated their works to men whose opinions assimilated with their own. Thus, the philosopher dedicated his work to one who was considered versed in the mysteries of science; the poet dedicated his effusions to an admirer of rhyme; the dramatist, to a well-known patron of the stage and of the drama; the painter dedicated his work on art to a connoisseur,—one whose skill and judgment in the arts had secured him a “world-renowned reputation.”

In our day and country the sale of a book depends altogether upon its own merits and the honest criticism of the press. Dedications, therefore, are looked upon as one of those liberties an author can take with a friend, and thus bring his name before the public in connection with the work without being accused of selfish or interested motives.

Just such a liberty the author of this work takes with one whom he is proud to call friend,—one whose many amiable qualities endear him to all. It is, therefore, with much pleasure he dedicates this work to

M. HALL STANTON, Esq.
of Philadelphia,

as a memento of friendship and of the many happy hours that friendship has afforded.

The Author.

Philadelphia.

CONTENTS.

FOOT-PRINTS
OF A
LETTER-CARRIER.

I.
Posts—Post-Offices, Ancient and Modern.

“The Post-office is properly a mercantile project. The Government advances the expenses of establishing the different offices, and of buying or hiring the necessary horses or carriages, and is repaid with a large profit by the duties upon what is carried.”—Smith’s Wealth of Nations.

In the earlier periods of society, communication between the parts of a country was a rare and difficult undertaking. Individuals at a distance, having little inclination and less opportunity for such intercourse, were naturally satisfied with their limited means of communicating one with another.

As civilization advanced and trade became a national feature, these communications became more important and, of course, more frequent. Our readers will observe, as we progress in this work, how it assumes at last one of the most important branches of a government. Indeed, this it was destined to become from the fact that it originated with the people, and their interest made it a part and portion of the great postal system.

Posts and post-offices, as understood in modern parlance, are identified with trade and commerce, and in their connection with letters. The word post, however, was used long before post-offices were established, implying a public establishment of letters, newspapers, &c. In the Roman Empire, couriers, on swift horses, passed from hand to hand the imperial edicts to every province. Private letters were sent to their destination by slaves, or intrusted to casual opportunities.

Although we are apt to stigmatize two of the greatest nations of the earth—the Greeks and Romans—as being uncivilized, and historically termed barbarians, yet were they highly educated in many of the branches of literature, art, and science. The posts were well known among the Romans; yet is it difficult to trace with certainty the period of their introduction. Some writers carry it back to the time of the Republic,—posts and post-offices, under the name of statores and station, having been then, it is said, established by the Senate. Whether this was the case or not, Suetonius assures us that Augustus substituted posts along the great roads of the Empire. At first, the despatches were conveyed from post to post by young men running on foot and delivering them to others at the next route. Post-horses are mentioned in the Theodosian Code, decursu publico; but these were only the public horses for the use of the government messengers, who, before this institution was established, seized everything that came in their way.

Horace speaks of the post as “means of conveying rapid intelligence.” Flying posts in the days of Richard III. were used for military purposes, imparting news of war, victory, &c. “Equi positi”—post-horses—were common even before the idea of a general postage-system was conceived. “Post-haste” is a familiar phrase among the old poets. Drayton says,—

“A herald posted away

The King of England to the field to dare.”

The post of gods is come!”

Virgil, in one of his sublime epics, makes use of this expression:—

“Now Jove himself hath sent his fearful mandate through the skies:

The post of gods is come!”

After the introduction of letters and the conveyance of messages, written and printed, the word post was understood to mean “to ride or travel with post-horses;” “with speed or despatch of post-horses.” What it means now in such connection can only be explained by calculating the speed of lightning.

The modern post and post-office form a part and portion of a government, and act in concert with other great agents of civilization in the formation of permanent institutions.

The post-office is one of those tests by which the progressive prosperity of a country may be ascertained. In this respect, perhaps no other nation in the world presents a more extended view of such progress, in connection with the postal system, than does that of the United States. In the short space of eighty years she has set an example, by the action and the enterprise of her people, to nations who boast of a political and national existence of centuries.

The literary treasures of England,—accumulating from Alfred, Bede, and Chaucer, through a succession of enlightened ages, swelling up in their onward progress the vast catalogue of science, connecting with their recorded mental wealth the names of men who consecrated with their genius the age in which they flourished,—did less for her commercial interest, throughout all those periods, than has the United States in less than fifty years. Enterprise came forth under the light of liberty, and extended its operations to every department of trade, commerce, art, and science. England became alive to the fact that a new people had created and given a living principle to the mechanical workings in the world of trade and commerce. Its operations gave vigor to action, and infused a spirit into merchants and traders which, heretofore, followed in the wake of monarchial follies,

“As peddlers from town to town.”

We purpose to speak now of the post being a branch of the government, and, in some respects, one of the most important.

The post-office department should be, but it is not, a social agent. The peculiar character of a republican government is such that the post becomes essentially a great political one. Its connection with an administration is one of the links connecting party with its political interests, and which becomes broken immediately on the success attending that of a rival. It is rotary in its motion; hence the various changes which necessarily occur at elections have a tendency to retard, rather than advance, the postal system on its road to perfection. Indeed, it is not assuming too much if we say that civil liberty, practically speaking, partly consists in these changes; for opposition is an essential and vital element of such liberty, and opposition, with these possible changes, would have little or no meaning. If, however, they were limited to the heads of the department, and not extending down to the humblest workers in the office, the evil effects ever attending on such changes would not so materially operate against its interests, and, of course, that of the community. A general sweep of the employees of any one State or government department makes the whole system a gigantic political, rather than what it should be, a social, institution.

In whatever light, however, we view the post-office, it presents to us a subject of the highest interest. Connect it with commerce, and it assumes the power of a “Merlin,” whose magic wand, raised in the ages of superstition, astonished the world! Connect it with the arts, and nations are brought together by the mere stroke of the pen! Associate it with science, religion,—in fact, with any of the prominent features which make up civilized life,—it becomes at once the great medium through which their mysteries and developments are made manifest to all.

Viewed historically, we trace the history of the post to Moses, and the peopled countries, even to the children of Canaan, in the swamps of Egypt. We link it with the hieroglyphic, or symbolical, characters of that age, long before Hermes substituted alphabetical signs. We follow it up, through sacred and profane history, to the exclusive royal messengers in Persia mentioned by Herodotus, and the grant of the postal establishment as an imperial fief, made by Charles V. to the princely family of Thurn and Taxis, and from that down to the establishing of that system which is now followed by all civilized nations.

The making a branch of a government an hereditary one, particularly that of the postal, could only have originated under the genial rule of Charles. The family of Thurn and Taxis held the post-office as a fief, given to them by the Emperor Charles V., and they continued to hold it long after the different German States had become independent. Of course, like all such fiefs, (even those of Saxon notoriety,) it became, in time—instead of what the true meaning implied, “fealty or fidelity,” to “keep and sustain any thing granted and held upon oath, &c.”—a most vile and corrupt institution.[1]

THE FIRST RECORDED RIDING-POST.

The first recorded riding-post was established in Persia, by Cyrus, 599 B.C. Cyrus was the son of Cambyses, King of Persia, and Mandane, daughter of Astyages, King of the Medes. The history of Cyrus is a lesson worthy to be read by all who can appreciate in one man all those elements which combine to make a great one. He was educated according to the Persian institutions, of which Xenophon gives such glowing accounts. Among the numerous inventions he made and carried into operation, that of the posts and couriers, to facilitate the transportation of letters, was probably the most important. He caused post-houses to be built and messengers to be appointed in every province. There were one hundred and twenty provinces. Having calculated how far a good horse with a brisk rider could go in a day, without being spoiled, he had stables built in proportion, at equal distances from each other, and had them furnished with horses and grooms to take care of them. He likewise appointed a “postmaster,” to receive the packets from the couriers as they arrived, and give them to others, and to take the horses and furnish fresh ones. Thus, the post went continually, night and day, with extraordinary speed. Herodotus speaks of the same sort of couriers in the reign of Xerxes. He speaks of eleven postal stages, a day’s journey distant from one another, between Susa and the Ægean Sea.[2]

These couriers were called in the Persian language by a name signifying, as near as we can comprehend it, “service by compulsion.” The superintendency of the posts became a considerable employment. Darius, the last of the Persian kings, had it before he came to the crown. Xenophon notices the fact that this establishment subsisted still in his time, which perfectly agrees with what is related in the book of Esther concerning the edict published by Ahasuerus in favor of the Jews, which edict was carried through that vast empire with a rapidity that would have been impossible without these posts erected by Cyrus.[3]

Persia, in some respects, has not kept pace with the progress of other nations, or carried out those plans of government and schemes which Cyrus originated in his early reign. Traces of a race far more energetic than the present inhabitants of Persia are found in various parts of the kingdom. The ruins of many ancient cities scattered over the land are imposing and grand, especially those of Persepolis. Next to the pyramids of Egypt and the colossal ruins of Thebes, they have attracted the attention of travellers, and, like them, still remain an enigma,—their history, dates, and objects being involved in the gloom of antiquity. These evidences prove the existence of a state of refinement in art in the sixth century, scarcely equalled, certainly not excelled, since, and fully sustain the data given to that wonderful discovery,—the establishing the postal system and the first introduction of the “riding-post.”[4]

In the highest eras of their civilization, neither the Greeks nor the Romans had a public letter-post; though the conveyance of letters is as much a matter of necessity and convenience as the conveyance of persons and merchandise.

There were stationese and mounted messengers, called tabellarii, who went in charge of the public despatches; but they were strictly forbidden to convey letters for private persons.

In the time of Augustus, post-houses were established throughout the kingdom, and post-horses stationed at equal distances to facilitate the transmission of letters, &c. Under his reign, literature flourished, many salutary laws were established, and he so embellished Rome that he was declared “to have found it brick and left it marble.” He was born at Rome, B.C. 63, and died at Nola in the seventy-sixth year of his age.

We have alluded to the fact of nations, considerably advanced in civilization at the early period of the world’s history, being without a public post for the conveyance of letters. Yet, when we take into consideration that trade and commerce were then in their infancy, simple messengers only were required. Indeed, letters at that period were only written when great occasions called them forth. What with us is now a pleasure, was with the ancients a task.

It was not until the year 807 that a postal service was established by the Emperor Charlemagne,—a service which did not survive him. This, however, differed very little from that which was framed by Cyrus.

The first actual letter-post system, connecting countries together by communications, furthering the cause of trade and commerce, and established to facilitate the conveyance of letters throughout the commercial world, originated in the manufacturing and business districts of the “Hanse Towns.” The confederacy was established in 1169.

So early as the thirteenth century this federation of the republics required constant communication with each other; and it became almost a necessity of their existence that some letter-post system should be established.

The society termed the “Association of the Hanse-towns,” is better known in history under the name of “The Hanseatic League.” It consisted chiefly of merchants,—men who had brought commerce to all the perfection it was capable of acquiring at that period, which may justly be termed the dawn of our great commercial history. It was under this league the banking system, exchanges, and the principles of book-keeping, with double entries, and various other practices which facilitate and secure commercial intercourse, originated. We speak here of the banking system only. Banks existed long prior to this date, but in a very different form. Those of the ninth century were literally “benches,” from the custom of the Italian merchants exposing money to lend on a “banco,” or bench, or tables.

The towns of the “Hanseatic League” were originally a confederacy united in an alliance for the mutual support and encouragement of their commerce. Perhaps the world’s history does not present an example so fraught with interest to the commercial world than that which was here furnished. Industry, application, a union of interests, combined with a general knowledge of trade and commerce, the league soon became the wonder of surrounding nations, who not only imitated its example, but followed its precepts. It was under its dynasty the postal system was established and communications of post-routes opened with all the towns. In proportion as the reputation, opulence, and forces of the league subsequently changed to “The Hanseatic Confederacy” increased, there were few towns of note in Europe that were not associated with it. Thus, France furnished to the confederacy Rouen, St. Malo, Bordeaux, Bayonne, and Marseilles. Spain: Cadiz, Barcelona, and Seville. Portugal: Lisbon. Italy and Sicily: Messina, Leghorn, and Naples. Russia: Novogorod. Norway: Bergen, &c. Lastly, England furnished London to this celebrated association, whose warehouses and factories were the wonder and the admiration of the commercial world.[5] As we have said, it was under this league the first practical post system was established; and its legitimate object and purpose was only interfered with when it became subject to a higher power.

This great commercial league fully sustained the opinion—at least entertained at that period—that “Commerce alone is sufficient to insure greatness.” Subsequent events, arising out of the political elements of a country, afford convincing proofs that something more substantial than commerce is requisite to maintain the independence of any nation. This, however, is a question which involves that of the laws of nations and the ethics of political economy. Mr. Oddy ascribes the downfall of the Hanse Confederacy to their becoming warlike, and preferring political importance to wealth obtained by their original modes. It is, however, probable that no system of policy, either commercial or political, however wise or moderate, could have prevented the wars in which the Hanseatic League were involved. They stood on the defensive against their hostile neighbors, whose envy and jealousy were excited by the showy wealth of these cities. If commerce, therefore, brought on these wars, and defeated the great object of the league, it is evident that something more powerful than commercial sway was necessary to keep it in contact with the agricultural and political interests of the nation.[6]

The combination of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce is no doubt the true cause of greatness,—the opulence and power of those nations who study the interest of each alike. It ought therefore to be the policy of the rulers to guard the progress of these great branches with the same fostering care and protection,—to encourage one without depressing the other; and to watch their reciprocal bearings, connection, and affinity, that the general interest may be promoted and the resources consolidated into a mass of strength adequate or superior to the power of their enemies. The United States has not lost sight of this fact; and hence every department of its great interests is alike defended, protected, and encouraged. We may have wars; but they will never arise from our neglect of any one particular branch of the government, or of its source of revenue.

Perhaps no city in the world presented a greater display of wealth than did that of Bruges in the year 1301. She was one of the cities of the confederacy. It contained in that year sixty-eight companies of traders and artificers, while its citizens rivalled many of the European monarchs in their sumptuous mode of living. Some idea of their splendor may be formed from the following anecdote, recorded by Dr. Robinson in his “Historical Disquisitions,” who relates that, in the year 1301, Joanna of Navarre, the wife of Philip the Fair, of France, having been some days in Bruges, was so much struck with the splendor of the city and its grandeur, as well as the rich and costly dresses of the “citizen’s wives,” that she was moved by female envy to exclaim with indignation,—“I thought that I had been the only queen here; but I find that there are many hundreds more.”

The Hanse Towns had attained the summit of their power in 1428; but they began to decline the moment they became warlike,—thus neglecting their great commercial power, wealth, and influence. The rise of Holland accelerated their decline; and the general attention which other nations began to pay to manufactures and commerce, by distributing them more generally and equally amongst the people in different parts of Europe, destroyed that superiority which they had so long enjoyed.

The number and variety of the military undertakings in which the Hanse Towns embarked, contributed more powerfully, perhaps, than any of the causes above specified to accelerate their ruin. A general jealousy was raised; and the kings of France, Spain, and Denmark, and several States of Italy, forbid their towns to continue members of the confederacy. Upon this, the Teutonic Hanse Towns restricted the confederacy to Germany. About the middle of the seventeenth century the confederacy was almost wholly confined to the towns of Hamburg, Lubeck, and Bremen. They retained the appellation of the Hanseatic Towns, and claimed their former privileges, among which their postal system was included. Under the appellation of the Hanse Towns they were recognized at the peace of Utrecht, in 1715, and at the Definite Treaty of Indemnity, in 1805,—almost the last moment of their political existence.[7]

The first serious blow struck the postal system was that which it received from the Emperor Maximilian. He established a post between Austria and Normandy, and, as a sort of retaliatory measure, made it an espionage over his subjects through the medium of their correspondence, and also for the purpose of enriching himself by the profits of the enterprise. Fortunately, however, for the cause of justice and of letters, Maximilian died before he had inflicted this great wrong on the people to any extent. He died January 12, 1519.

Having brought the reader to this point of our postal history, it may not be out of place before we reach the fifteenth century—when it assumed a very different aspect—to give some account of the earlier history of art, pastoral life, language, writing materials, letters, &c., more or less connected with our subject.

II.
Nihil Sub Sole Novi.

“There is nothing new under the sun.” “There is no new thing,” says Solomon, “under the sun.”

We cannot speak of any thing, either of a useful or ornamental character, but we invariably cast our eyes over the ages of the world and trace up, or rather back, to its earliest period, their very origin. There is scarcely an art or a science of which we boast now but owes its existence to the past ages. We have the proofs on their paintings, their mechanics, their arts, and sciences: these are the evidences to prove how far they had advanced in knowledge before the world’s revolutions cast them back again to ignorance and gloom. With the downfall of cities—crumbling away under the fiat of the Almighty, or swallowed up by earthquakes—went the genius of ages; and from their ruins and the debris of classic temples came those traces of high art of which no other living evidences bore witness. The secret went down amid their tottering ruins, and left to after-ages the simple task of imitating their monumental sculptured beauties and fresco painting on the shattered walls of their ruined temples.

Well, then, may we exclaim with Solomon,

“There is no new thing under the sun.”

George R. Gliddon, in his great work of “Ancient Egypt,” speaking of the state of the arts in the earliest ages of Egyptian history, says:—

“Will not the historian deign to notice the prior origin of every art and science in Egypt a thousand years before the Pelasgians studded the isles and capes of the Archipelago with their forts and temples,—long before Etruscan civilization had smiled on Italian skies? And shall not the ethnographer, versed in Egyptian lore, proclaim the fact that the physiological, craniological, capillary, and cuticular distinctions of the human race existed on the distribution of mankind throughout the earth?

“Philologists, astronomers, chemists, painters, architects, physicians must return to Egypt to learn the origin of language and writing; of the calendar and solar motion; of the art of cutting granite with a copper chisel and giving elasticity to a copper sword; of making glass with the variegated hues of the rainbow; of moving single blocks of polished sienite 900 tons in weight for any distance by land and water; of building arches, round and pointed, with masonic precision unsurpassed at the present day, and antecedent, by 2000 years, to the “Cloaca Magna” of Rome; of sculpturing a Doric column 1000 years before the Dorians are known in history; of fresco painting in imperishable colors; and of practical knowledge in anatomy.

“Every craftsman can behold in Egyptian monuments the progress of his art 4000 years ago; and, whether it be a wheelwright building a chariot, a shoemaker drawing his twine, a leather-cutter using the selfsame form of a knife of old as is considered the best form now, a weaver throwing the same hand-shuttle, a whitesmith using that identical form of blowpipe but lately recognized to be the most efficient, the seal-engraver cutting in hieroglyphics such names as Shooph’s above 4300 years ago, or even the poulterer removing the pip from geese, all these and many more astounding evidences of Egyptian priority now require but a glance at the plates of Rosellini.”

Perhaps the post-office, being a more modern invention, the result of man’s progress, and its use essential to his present wants and governmental requirements, claims more originality than many of those inventions which a ruder state of society devised. And yet even here we actually owe to those ages much of the material which makes up our great postal superstructure. We learned from them how messengers, couriers, and the transmitting of letters formed an important part of their social system, and how it ultimately grew into a political one, under kings and emperors, through all subsequent ages.

PASTORAL LIFE.

“Nothing great, nothing useful, nothing high and ennobling, nothing worthy of man’s nature, of his lofty origin and ultimate exalted destiny has ever been accomplished but by toil; by diligent and well-directed effort, by the busy hand guided in its effort by the wise, thoughtful, hard-working brain.”—Anon.

When God said, “Let there be light: and there was light,” it was not the mere flash of the brightness of heaven over the earth, but a light that was to be as lasting as creation itself.

Every thing that sprung up from the earth in its order and beauty received the spirit of a new life from this holy and divine light. And when man in the image of his Maker stood in the Garden of Eden, there shone around him another light,—an emanation from God himself. Mind—intellect—power!

Man was the pioneer of the science of government. Deity planned it, and, as the crowning work of his creation, said:—

“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

As the earth became peopled the wants of man called forth all those energies requisite to sustain life by labor or otherwise; and these brought forth the mind’s attributes combined, and the world became a mirror reflecting Him who created it.

Pastoral life, in the early ages of the world’s history, afforded in itself the means of providing for the wants of man. This led to the cultivation of the soil and the raising of cattle.

Before the flood, Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Jabez was the father of such as dwell in tents and have cattle. Then came trades and professions. These led to art, art to science; and, as their numbers increased, they soon found that their sources from which they derived their subsistence—the spontaneous fruits of the earth and the flesh of wild animals killed in the chase—were insufficient to maintain them. Hence they were obliged to have recourse to other means. Property being established and ascertained, men began to exchange one rude commodity for another. While their wants and desires were confined within narrow bounds, they had no other idea of traffic but that of simple barter. The husbandman exchanged a part of his harvest for the cattle of the shepherd; the hunter gave the prey which he had caught at the chase for the honey and the fruits which his neighbor had gathered in the woods. Thus, commercial intercourse began and extended throughout the community. It reached still farther. It passed in its onward career from city to city, and from kingdom to kingdom, till at last it comprehended and united the remotest regions of the earth.

Then came trades and professions. These led to art, art to science, and science to the highest degree of knowledge the human mind is capable of attaining. Men became great: greatness led to power,—power to rule and govern. The combining of all these elementary steps led to the creation of kings, emperors, and lords. Then followed the division of classes. The phases of human intellect harmonized the whole system of rule, and men acknowledged in time the one great axiom, that “Knowledge is power.”

As language, writing, and writing-materials are all, more or less, connected with any subject identified with the welfare, the interest, and honor of a nation, as well as of mankind, they will not be considered out of place if alluded to here in connection with the subject of this work. First:—

LANGUAGE.

Blair, in his introduction to his Lectures on Rhetoric, speaking of language, says:—“One of the most distinguished privileges which Providence has conferred upon mankind is the power of communicating their thoughts to one another. Destitute of this power, reason would be a solitary and, in some measure, an unavoidable principle. Speech is the great instrument by which man becomes beneficial to man; and it is to the intercourse and transmission of thought, by means of speech, that we are chiefly indebted for the improvement of thought itself.”

Tooke, in one of his admirable golden sentences, says:—“The first aim of language was to communicate our thoughts; the second, to do it with dispatch.”

“And all the worlde was of one tongue and one language.”—Bible, 1551, Gen. xi.

Language came into the world along with all things that had life. It was the voice of nature speaking through things animate, giving form and harmony to objects animate as well as inanimate; and all of which, as soon as created, God pronounced good.

Flowers had their language, and there was music in the spheres. Trees murmured through their deep forest-home long before the woodman’s axe stripped them of their mode of expressing their wild æolian sounds to each other. And there was language in waterfalls, mountain cataracts, as well as music in the sound, though expressed in thundertones; and, as the spirit of Deity passed over the earth, all living things found tongue, thought, expression, and the human voice syllabled the words and commands of its Maker. Language, therefore, is a divine institution.

Horace, Pliny, Juvenal, and others, held the opinion that it was a divine institution, and only reached its present state after a long and gradual improvement of the human family.

Many of the ancient philosophers and poets believed that men were originally “a dumb, low herd.”

“Mutum et turpe pecus.”

Lord Monboddo—who, in his work on “the Origin of Language,” labors to prove that man is but a higher species of monkey—thinks that originally the human race had only a few monosyllables, such as, “Ha, he, hi, ho,” by which, like beasts, they expressed certain emotions. Others, again, assert that the early races were in all things rude and savage, totally ignorant of the arts, unable to communicate with each other, except in the imperfect manner of beasts, and sensible of nothing save hunger, pain, and similar emotions. Cicero, alluding to the human race in primeval ages, says:—

“There was a time when men wandered everywhere through life after the manner of beasts, and supported themselves by eating the food of beasts. Fields and mountains, hills and dales were alike their homes.”

Rousseau represents men as originally without language, as unsocial by nature, and totally ignorant of the ties of society. He does not, however, seek to explain how language arose, being disheartened at the outset by the difficulty of deciding whether language was more necessary for the institution of society, or society for the invention of language.

Language is beyond doubt a divine institution, invented by Deity, and by him made known to the human race. If language was devised by man, the invention would not have been at once matured, but must have been the result of the necessities and experience of successive generations. Adam and Eve, in the garden of Eden, spoke a language the purity of which continued until its final disruption at the building of the Tower of Babel.

What language is more beautiful and expressive than that of the Hebrew? It is the language of Deity, and it pleased our Lord Jesus to make use of it when he spake from heaven unto Paul.

There are said to be no less than 3425 known languages in use in the world, of which 937 are Asiatic, 588 European, 276 African, and 1624 American languages and dialects.

By calculation from the best dictionaries, for each of the following languages there are about 20,000 words in the Spanish, 22,000 in the English, 38,000 in the Latin, 30,000 in the French, 45,000 in the Italian, 50,000 in the Greek, and 80,000 in the German.

In the estimate of the number of words in the English language it includes, of course, not only the radical words, but also derivatives, except the preterites and participles of verbs; to which must be added some few terms which, though set down in the dictionaries, are either obsolete or have never ceased to be considered foreign. Of these about 23,000, or nearly five-eighths, are of Anglo-Saxon origin.

The alphabets of different nations contain the following number of letters:—English, 26; French, 23; Italian, 20; Spanish, 27; German, 26; Sclavonic, 27; Russian, 41; Latin, 22; Hebrew, 22; Greek, 24;[8] Arabic, 28; Persian, 32; Turkish, 33; Sanscrit, 50; Chinese, 214.

Anthony Brewer (1617) thus characterized those best known:—

“The ancient Hebrew, clad with mysteries;

The learned Greek, rich in fit epithets,

Blest in the lovely marriage of pure words;

The Chaldean wise; the Arabian physical;

The Roman eloquent; the Tuscan grave;

The braving Spanish, and the smooth-tong’d

French.”

The Hebrew language and letters are derived from the Phœnician, since Tyre, Sidon, &c. were distinguished cities in the age of Moses and Joshua. Even Abraham lived in their territory.

Sanscrit is the basis of Hindoo learning, and said to be the first character.

The most ancient Arabic, called Kufick, so named from Kufa, on the Euphrates, and is not now in use. The modern Arabic was invented by the Vizier Moluch, A.D. 933, in which he wrote the Koran.

Armenian is used in Armenia, Asia Minor, Syria, Tartary, &c. It approaches the Chaldean or Syriac, and the Greek.

Chaldean, Phœnician, or Syriac, ascribed to Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Moses, is the same as the Hebrew.

The Coptic is an alphabet so called from Coptos in Egypt,—a mixture of Greek and Egyptian.

Ethiopic, or Abyssinian, is derived from the Samaritan, or Phœnician.

The Etruscan was the first alphabet used in Italy, and so called from the Etrusci, the most ancient inhabitants.

Gothic: the most ancient characters under this name are attributed to Bishop Ulphilas.

Cadmus, the Phœnician, introduced the first Greek alphabet into Bœotia, where he settled in B.C. 1500; though Diodorus says the Pelasgian letters were prior to the Cadmean.

The Greeks called the Phœnicians Pelasgü quasi Pelagi, because they traversed the ocean and carried on commerce with other nations.

Scaliger supposes the Phœnician to have been the original Hebrew character, otherwise the Samaritan,—which is generally supposed to be that which was used by the Jews from the time of Moses to the Captivity.

The alphabet of the Sanscrit is called the devanagari.

The Oriental alphabets are the Hebrew, ancient and modern; Rabbinical; Samaritan, ancient and modern; Phœnician; Egyptian hieroglyphic; Chinese characters.

The Irish alphabet is the Phœnician.

III.
Origin of the Materials of Writing, Tablets, etc.

The art of writing is very ancient. Its origin is actually lost in the distance of time. From one point, however,—this side of the gulf of lost ages, in which high art perished, and with it the key to all its antediluvian greatness,—we date our history.

The Bible gives us the earliest notice on the subject that is anywhere to be found. The most ancient mode of writing was on cinders, on bricks, and on tables of stone; afterwards on plates of various materials, on ivory and similar articles. One of the earliest methods was to cut out the letters on a tablet of stone. Moses, we are told, received the two tables of the Covenant on Mount Sinai, written with the finger of God; and before that, Moses himself was not ignorant of the use of letters.[9] [Exodus xxiv. 4; xvii. 14.] A learned writer says:—“In Genesis v. 1, ‘This is the book of the generations of Adam,’ reference is made to the book of genealogy; whence it irresistibly follows that writing must have been in use among the antediluvian patriarchs; and, under the view that writing was a divine revelation, the same almighty power that, according to the preceding proposition, instructed Moses, could have equally vouchsafed a similar inspiration to any patriarch from Adam to Noah. Nor does it seem consistent with the merciful dispensation which preserved Noah’s family through the grand cataclysm, and had condescended, according to the biblical record, to teach him those multitudinous arts indispensably necessary to the construction of a vessel destined to pass uninjured through the tempests of the Deluge, that the Almighty, by withholding the art of writing, should have left the account of antediluvian events to the vicissitudes of oral tradition, or denied to Noah’s family the practice of this art, which, it is maintained, was conceded first to Moses.”

It is said that “Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” The five books of Moses carry with them internal evidence, not of one sole, connected, and original composition, but of a compilation by an inspired writer from earlier annals. The genealogical tables and family records of various tribes that are found embodied in the Pentateuch, bear the appearance of documents copied from written archives. We have the authority of Genesis v. 1 for asserting the existence of a book of genealogies in the time of Noah; and a city mentioned by Joshua was named in Hebrew “Kirjath Sefer,” “The City of Letters.” It is impossible to prove that letters were unknown before Moses; and the Hebrews of his day appear to have had two distinct modes of writing the characters of which, in one case, were “alphabetic,” and in the other “symbolic.” The inscription on the ephod itself is said—Exodus xxviii. 36—to have been written in characters “like the engravings of a signet.”

The materials and instruments with which writing was performed were, in comparison with our pen, ink, and paper, extremely rude and unwieldy. One of the earliest methods was to cut out the letters on a tablet of stone. Another was to trace them on unbaked tiles, or bricks, which were afterwards thoroughly baked or burned with fire. When the writing was wanted to be more durable, lead or brass was employed. In the book of Job, mention is made of writing on stone. It was on tablets of stone that Moses received the law written by the finger of God himself. Tablets of wood were frequently used as being more convenient. Such was the writing-table which Zacharias used. [Luke i. 63.] Cedar was preferred as being more incorruptible; from this custom arose the celebrated saying of the ancients, when they meant to give the highest eulogium of an excellent work, et cedro digna locuti,—that it was worthy to be written on cedar. These tablets were made of the trunks of trees. The same reason which led them to prefer the cedar to other trees, induced them to write on wax, which is incorruptible. Men used it to write their testaments, in order better to preserve them. Thus, Juvenal says, cereus implere capaces. The leaves and, at other times, the bark of different trees were early used for writing. From the thin films of bark peeled off from the Egyptian reed papyrus which grew along the Nile, a material was formed in latter times answering the purpose much better. It bore the name of the reed, papyrus, or, in our language, paper. Long afterwards its name passed to a different material, composed of linen or cotton, which has taken place of all others in the use of civilized countries, and is called to this day paper. Paper made of cotton was in use in 1001; that of linen rags in 1319.[10]

“The paper reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of the brooks, ... shall wither, be driven away, and be no more.”—Isaiah xix. 7.

Pliny, speaking of the papyrus, says:—

“Before we depart out of Egypt, we must not forget the plant papyrus, but describe the nature thereof, considering that all civilitie of life, the memoriall, and immortalitie also of men after death consisteth especially in paper which is made thereof. M. Varro writeth that the first invention of making paper was devised upon the conquest of Ægypt, achieved by Alexander the Great, at what time as he founded the city of Alexandria in Ægypt, where such paper was first made.”—Holland, Plinie, b. xiii. c. 21.

We have alluded to the barks of trees being used. The thin peel which is found between the second skin of a tree was called liber,—from whence the Latin word, liber, a book; and we have derived the name of library and librarian in the European language, and in the French their livre for book.

THE PEN.

The instruments employed by the ancients for making the letters on their tablets was a small, pointed piece of iron, or some other hard substance, called by the Romans a style: hence a man’s manner of composition was figuratively called his style of writing. The use of the word still continues, though the instrument has long since passed away.

Style derives its name from stylus, Latin, as also from a Greek word, columna, an instrument with a point.

Reeds formed into pens were used to trace the letters with ink of some sort after the fashion that is now common; or else they were painted with a small brush, as was probably the general custom at first. Pens made of quills were not in use until the fifth century. The oldest certain account of writing with quills is a passage of Isidore, who died in 636, and who, among the instruments of writing, mentions “reeds and feathers.” In the same century a small poem was written on a pen, which is to be found in the works of Althelmus. He died in 709.

We annex the following as giving a poetical original of the pen:—

“Love begg’d and pray’d old Time to stay

While he and Psyche toyed together;

Love held his wings: Time tore away,

But in the scuffle dropp’d a feather.

Love seized the prize, and with his dart

Adroitly work’d to trim and shape it,

O Psyche, though ’tis pain to part,

This charm shall make us half escape it.

Time need not fear to fly too slow

When he this useful loss discovers,

A pen’s the only plume I know

That wings her pace for absent lovers.”

PENCILS.

The ancients drew their lines with leaden styles; afterwards a mixture of tin and lead fused together was used. The mineral known under the name of plumbago is supposed to have been first employed for the purpose of drawing in the fifteenth century. In 1565, an old author notes that people had pencils for writing which consisted of a wooden handle, in which was a piece of lead; and a drawing is given of the pencil as an object of curiosity. They continued to be uncommon for upwards of a century, when we hear them spoken of being enclosed in pine or cedar.

THE SCRIBE.

“Scribe was a name which, among the Jews, was applied to two sorts of officers. 1. To a civil: and so it signifies a notary, or, in a large sense, any one employed to draw up deeds and writings. 2. This name signifies a church officer, one skillful and conversant in the law to interpret and explain it.”—South. vol. iv. ser. 1.

The word scribe is derived from the Latin, scribere, which has the same meaning as “schrabben” (Dutch), to scrape or draw a style, or pen, over the surface of paper or parchment.

The name, however, was given to such as excelled in the use of the pen, and who were likewise distinguished in other branches of knowledge. It came in time to mean simply a learned man; and, as the chief part of learning among the Jews was concerned with the sacred books of Scripture, the word signified especially one “who was skilled in the law of God”—one whose business it was, not merely to provide correct copies of its volume, but also to explain its meaning. Thus, Ezra is called “a ready scribe of the law of Moses.”—Ezra vii. 6.

Before the introduction of types, books were written generally upon skins, linen, cotton-cloth, or papyrus: parchment in later times was most esteemed. The business of the scribes was to make duplicate copies of these books, which, when completed, the leaves were pinned together so as to make a single long sheet. This was then rolled round a stick: hence books of every description or size were called “rolls;” our word volume means just the same thing in its original signification.

“Volumed in rolling masses.”

In the time of our Saviour the scribes formed quite a considerable class in society. Many of them belonged to the sanhedrim, or chief council, and are therefore frequently mentioned in the New Testament with the elders and chief priests.—See Luke v. 17, x. 25; Matthew xxiii. 2; Matthew ii. 4, also xiii. 52; and Mark xii. 35.

ANCIENT INK.

The ink used by the ancients appears to have been what is termed in art a “body color,” or a more solid medium than is at present used, and similar to what is used by the modern Chinese.

Subsequently, lamp-black, or the black taken from burnt ivory, and soot from furnaces and baths, according to Pliny and others, formed the basis of the ink used by old writers.

It has also been conjectured that the black liquor of the scuttle-fish was frequently employed.[11] Of whatever ingredients it was made, it is certain, from chemical analysis, from the blackness and solidity in the most ancient manuscripts, and from inkstands found at Herculaneum, in which the ink appears like thick oil, that the ink then made was much more opaque, as well as encaustic, than what is used at present. Inks red, purple, and blue, and also gold and silver inks were much used; the red was made from vermilion, cinnabar, and carmine; the purple from the murex, one sort of which, named the purple encaustic, was set apart for the sole use of the emperors. Golden ink was used by the Greeks much more than by the Romans. The manufacture of both gold and silver ink was an extensive and lucrative business in the Middle Ages. Another distinct business was that of inscribing the titles, capitals, as well as emphatic words, in colored and gold and silver inks.

INK-HORNS.

The ink-horns were sometimes made of lead, sometimes of silver, and were generally polygonal in their form.

HIEROGLYPHICAL WRITING.

The remote antiquity of hieroglyphical writing may be inferred from the fact that it must have existed before the use of the solar month in Egypt,—“which,” says Gliddon, “astronomical observations on Egyptian records prove to have been in use at an epoch close up to the Septuagint era of the Flood.” From Egyptian annals we may glean some faint confirmation of the view that they either possessed the primeval alphabet, or else they rediscovered its equivalent from the mystic functions and attributes of the “two Thoths,”—the first and second Hermes, both Egyptian mythological personages, deified as attributes of the Godhead.

To “Thoth,” Mercury, or the first Hermes, the Egyptians ascribed the invention of letters.

The first attempts of “picture-writing” were to imitate certain images, each representing a word or letter. Drawing, therefore, was the most natural medium; and the study of representing things pictorially became popular and the only mode of communication.

The true origin of alphabetical writing has never been traced; but that of the Egyptians has been proved by the Comte de Caylus to be formed, as stated above, of hieroglyphical marks, adopted with no great variations. “We find,” says Warburton, “no appearance of alphabetical writing or characters on their public monuments.”

This, however true at the time he wrote, cannot now be asserted; since the celebrated Rosetta stone, in the British Museum, is engraved with three distinct sets of characters,—Greek, Egyptian, and a third resembling what are called hieroglyphics. The only doubt that can be entertained is, whether these are strictly hieroglyphics,—that is, representations of things,—or rather an alphabetical character peculiar to the priesthood, and called hierogrammatics. 1. The existence of this sacred alphabet is attested by Herodotus, Diodorus, and several other writers. 2. It went occasionally under the name of hieroglyphic, as appears not only by the passage quoted above from Manetho, if we do not alter the text, but from one in Porphyry, which may be found in Warburton. 3. It was, however, considered as perfectly distinct from the genuine hieroglyphic, which was always understood to denote things, either by mere picture-writing, or, more commonly, by very refined allegory. 4. Works of a popular and civil nature were written in this character, as we learn from Clement of Alexandria; whereas the genuine hieroglyphic was exceedingly secret and mysterious, and the knowledge of it confined to the priesthood. 5. The inscription upon the Rosetta stone is said, in the terms of the decree contained in it, to be written in the sacred, national, and Greek characters. 6. It could not be a mysterious character, such as the genuine hieroglyphic seems to have been, because it was exposed to public view with a double translation. 7. It occupies a considerable space upon the stone, although an indefinite part of it is broken off; although the real hieroglyphic, as is natural to emblematic writing, appears to have been exceedingly compendious. 8. The characters do not appear to be very numerous, as they recur in various combinations of three, four, or more, as might be expected from the letters of an alphabet. But this argument we do not strongly press, because our examination has not been very long. It appears to hold out a decisive test, and we offer it as such to the ingenuity of antiquaries.

Upon these grounds we think that the characters upon the Rosetta stone, which are commonly denominated hieroglyphics, are in fact the original alphabetic characters of the Egyptians, from which the others have probably been derived by a gradual corruption through haste in writing. They are, however, in one sense, hieroglyphics, being tolerably accurate delineations of men, animals, and instruments. If we are right in our conjectures, the value of the Rosetta stone is incomparably greater than has been imagined. We have no need of hieroglyphics: Roman and Egyptian monuments are full of them. But a primitive alphabet, probably the earliest ever formed in the world, and illustrating an important link in the history of writing,—the adaptation of signs to words,—is certainly a discovery very interesting to any philosophical mind. Through what steps the analysis of articulate sound into its constituent parts was completed—if we can say that it ever has been completed—so as to establish distinct marks for each of them, and whether these marks were taken at random, or from some supposed analogy between the simple sounds they were brought to represent and their primary hieroglyphical meaning, are questions which stand in need of solution.[12]

The Rosetta stone is the only one yet discovered, being no doubt the pioneer to many more that may yet be unearthed. The importance of this stone—its inscription indicating the probability of its supplying a key to the deciphering of the long-lost meanings of Egyptian hieroglyphics—“was immediately,” says Gliddon, in his Lectures on Ancient Egypt, “perceived by the learned, who in vain endeavored to trace the analogy between symbolical and alphabetical writing. Its arrival in London excited the liveliest interest in all those who had devoted themselves to Egyptian archæology; and the attention of the greatest scholars of the age was directed to its critical investigation.” (See Gliddon’s work on Ancient Egypt.)

Any one who will examine the hieroglyphical alphabet closely will discover a most extraordinary coincidence in that of the symbolical writing of our North American Indians, specimens of which are in the museum at Washington City. A war despatch, giving an account of one of their expeditions, has the same emblematical figures as has that of the Egyptians as used 1550 B.C.

There are also among other tribes many remarkable similarities, and analogous with Egyptian symbolical writings, which strengthen the supposition that the Indians of North America are one of the lost tribes of Israel. Nor is it alone the mere words which these signs and figures convey, but certain traits of character in their habits and customs as compared with the ancients.—(See Isaiah xi. 11-15.)

The Indians have a tradition among them to this effect: “that nine parts of their nation out of ten passed over a great river.” They also have traditions of the “Flood,” “a good book,” “Tower of Babel,” “dispersion of the Jews,” and the “confounding of language.” It is related by Father Charlevoix, the French historian, that the Hurons and Iroquois in their early day had a tradition among them that the first woman came from heaven and had twins, and that the elder killed the younger. In 1641 an old Indian woman stated that this tradition among her tribe was that the Great Spirit had killed his brother. This is evidently a confusion of the story of Cain and Abel. Still, the tradition is remarkable from the fact that this, as well as the others alluded to, existed long before the discovery of this continent.

The Ottawas say that there are two great beings who rule and govern the universe, and who are at war with each other. The one they call “Mameto,” the other “Matchemaneto.” There is a wonderful, or rather, we should say, a remarkable, resemblance between the language of the Creek Indians with that of the ancient Hebrew; for instance: “Y He Howa” means Jehovah; “Halleluwah,” hallelujah; “Abba,” in Creek, has the same meaning as “Abba” in Hebrew; “Kesh,” kesh; “Abe,” Abel; “Kenaaj,” Canaan; “Awah,” Eve, or Eweh; “Korah,” Cora; “Jennois,” Jannon, both literally meaning, “He shall be called a son.” There is more in these similarities than can be attributed to mere chance.

Any one at all familiar with hieroglyphical writing need only to examine the Indian characters upon buffalo and other skins received in trade from the Indians to trace, as it were, a distinct line from that most ancient school of designing figures to suit expression and language, down to these tribes, who may well be called the descendants of the “remnant of” God’s people, who were scattered over the lands of Egypt and the “islands of the sea,” in the time of Isaiah.

In the Ambrosian Library at Milan there are to be seen Mexican hieroglyphics, painted in Mexico upon buck-leather, and were presented to the Emperor Charles V. by Ferdinand Cortez. These hieroglyphics are now as little understood as are those of Egypt, although both are now gradually yielding to the mind’s influence in their development. Impressions of these were taken on copper from fac-similes in the possession of Humboldt.

Perhaps the first real step made into the hieroglyphical arcana may be dated from 1797, when the learned Dane, George Zoega, published at Rome his folio “De Origine et Usa Obeliscorum,” explanatory of the Egyptian Obelisks.—(G. R. Gliddon.)

THE CONFUSION OF TONGUES—THE CONFOUNDING OF LANGUAGES.

One of the most remarkable passages in Holy Writ is that which speaks of the confounding of language. “And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language. Let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of the earth, and they left off to build the city.”

The name of it was called “Babel” (confusion), from the Hebrew. The consequence of this eternal fiat, which went forth like a flash of lightning, was, that the people became as strangers to each other, and spoke a language wild and chaotic. Gesticulation took the place of words; and hence their punishment for daring to contest power with their Creator.

The building of the Tower of Babel was an act of Nimrod’s, who “esteemed it a piece of cowardice to submit to God;” and he urged the people on to build this tower, saying, He would be revenged on God if he should ever have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build it so high the waters could not reach it. The place wherein they built the tower is now called Babylon. From this date may be ascribed the history of languages. It is supposed, however, that Noah and other pious persons, chiefly the descendants of Shem in the line of Eber, not being concerned in this project, retained the original language. Now, if this was, as it is highly probable, the Hebrew, we may conclude it was thus called from Eber, to whose descendants it was peculiar; and perhaps this is the most satisfactory reason that can be assigned why Abraham is called the Hebrew and his posterity Hebrews.

It was not, however, the mere confusion of tongues which rendered the people incapable of conversing one with another, but it was the extraordinary miracle connected with it of the mind’s confusion. Incapable, therefore, of bringing their original language back to its former use, they invented new languages, new phrases; and thus in time every great nation had its own language. The dividing of languages was therefore the dividing of nations. The precise number of original languages then heard for the first time cannot be determined. The Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Teutonic, Sclavonian, Tartarian, and Chinese languages are considered to be original: the rest are only dialects from them.

History is silent on the early data of the building of the Tower of Babel; nor is one of its builders’ names mentioned, except the somewhat obscure intimation respecting Nimrod.[13]

Babylon subsequently became the head-quarters of idolatry, and the type of the “mystical Babylon,” the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.

The glory of Babylon departed. Its walls of sixty miles in circumference, eighty-seven feet thick and three hundred and fifty feet high, built of brick and containing twenty-five gates of solid brass and two hundred and fifty towers, are now the wonder of men who gaze upon the debris of “splendor in ruins.”

The ruins of “Birs Nimrod,” on an elevated mount, are supposed to be the Tower of Babel of the sacred Scriptures, and the temple of Belus, so minutely described by Herodotus. The base of this tower measures two thousand and eighty-two feet in circumference. Babylon was in its glory in the time of Nebuchadnezzar. It was besieged and taken by Cyrus B.C. 538, and afterwards by Alexander the Great.

IV.
Messengers, Carriers, etc.

“The eye is a good messenger,

Which can to the heart in such manner

Tidings send as can ease it of its pain.”

Chaucer.

There are so many beautiful passages both in sacred and profane history alluding to messengers, in connection with our subject, that there is no doubt but as civilization progressed the word and its meaning laid the foundation for the many improvements which are to be found in our present postal system,—a system which now connects all nations together by a letter-line mode of communication.

There is a beautiful passage in Holy Writ from which, figuratively, we date the origin of first carrier or messenger: it is that of the dove that went forth from the ark. “And the dove came in to him in the evening, and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.”

THE RETURN OF THE DOVE.

“There was hope in the ark at the dawning of day,

When o’er the wide waters the dove flew away;

But when ere the night she came wearily back

With the leaf she had pluck’d on her desolate track,

The children of Noah knelt down and adored,

And utter’d in anthems their praise to the Lord.

Oh, bird of glad tidings! oh, joy in our pain!

Beautiful Dove, thou art welcome again.”

Mackay.

The name of messenger is derived from the Latin word missaticum, and this from missus, one sent. The old French mes was applied both to the message and the messager.

“But eare he thus had say’d,

With flying speede and seeming great pretence,

Came running in, much like a man dismay’d,

A messenger with letters, which his message say’d.”

Spenser.

Gower, the poet of the fourteenth century, says:—

“The raynbow is hir messagere.”

Angels are called “winged messengers.”

“The angels are still dispatched by God upon all his great messages to the world, and, therefore, their very name in Greek signifies a messenger.”—South, vol. viii. ser. 3.

Milton also thus beautifully alludes to the angel messengers:—

“For will deign

To visit the dwellings of just men

Delighted, and with frequent intercourse

Thither will send her winged messengers

On errands of supernal grace.”

Carriers, in connection with letters, are modern appendages to the post-office, and now form one of its most important branches. They are indeed welcome messengers.

“The very carrier that comes from him to her is a most welcome guest; and if he bring a letter she will read it twenty times over.”—Burton.

THE CARRIER-PIGEON.

The first mention we find made of the employment of pigeons as letter-carriers is by Ovid, in his “Metamorphoses,” who tells us that Taurosthenes, by a pigeon stained with purple, gave notice of his having been victor at the Olympic Games on the very same day to his father at Ægina.

Goldsmith, in his “Animated Nature,” says:—“It is from their attachment to their native place, and particularly where they have brought up their young, that these birds (pigeons) are employed in several countries as the most expeditious carriers.”

When the city of Ptolemais, in Syria, was invested by the French and Venetians, and it was ready to fall into their hands, they observed a pigeon flying over them, and immediately conjectured that it was charged with letters to the garrison. On this the whole army raising a loud shout, so confounded the poor aerial post that it fell to the ground; and, on being seized, a letter was found under its wings from its Sultan, in which he assured the garrison that “he would be with them in three days with an army sufficient to raise the siege.” For this letter the besiegers substituted another to this purpose: “that the garrison must see to their own safety; for the Sultan had such other affairs pressing him it was impossible for him to come to their succor;” and with this false intelligence they let the pigeon flee on his course. The garrison, deprived by this decree of all hopes of relief, immediately surrendered. The Sultan appeared on the third day, as promised, with a powerful army, and was not a little mortified to find the city already in the hands of the Christians.

In the East the employment of pigeons in the conveyance of letters is still very common, particularly in Syria, Arabia, and Egypt. Every bashaw has generally a basketful of them sent him from the grand seraglio, where they are bred, and, in case of any insurrection or other emergency, he is enabled, by letting loose two or more of these extraordinary messengers, to convey intelligence to the government long before it could be possibly obtained by other means.

The diligence and speed with which these feathered messengers wing their course is extraordinary. From the instant of their liberation their flight is directed through the clouds at an immense height to the place of their destination. They are believed to dart onward in a straight line, and never descend except when at a loss for breath; and then they are to be seen commonly at dawn of day lying on their backs on the ground, with their bills open, sucking with hasty avidity the dew of the morning. Of their speed the instances related are almost incredible.

The Consul of Alexandria daily sends despatches by these means to Aleppo in five hours, though couriers occupy the whole day, and proceed with the utmost expedition from one town to the other.

Some years ago a gentleman sent a carrier-pigeon from London, by the stage-coach, to his friend in St. Edmundsbury, together with a note desiring that the pigeon, two days after their arrival there, might be thrown up precisely when the town-clock struck nine in the morning. This was done accordingly, and the pigeon arrived in London and flew to the Bull Inn, Bishopsgate Street, into the loft, and was there shown at half an hour past eleven o’clock, having flown seventy-two miles in two hours and a half.

Carrier pigeons were again employed, but with better success, at the siege of Leyden, in 1675. The garrison were, by means of the information thus conveyed to them, induced to stand out till the enemy, despairing of reducing the place, withdrew. On the siege being raised, the Prince of Orange ordered that the pigeons which had rendered such essential service should be maintained at the public expense, and at their death they should be embalmed and preserved in the town-house as a perpetual token of gratitude.

At Antwerp, in 1819, one of the thirty-two pigeons belonging to that city, which had been conveyed to London and there let loose, made the transit back—being a distance in a direct line of one hundred and eighty miles—in six hours.

It is through the attachment of the animals to the place of their birth, and particularly to the spot where they had brought up their young, that they are thus rendered useful to mankind.

When a young one flies very hard at home, and is come to its full strength, it is carried in a basket or otherwise about half a mile from home and there turned out; after this it is carried a mile, two, four, eight, ten, twenty, &c., till at length it will return from the furthermost parts of the country.

LETTERS.

The word letter is derived from the Latin “litera,” of which Vossius has not decided its etymology,—perhaps, from litum, past participle of linere, to smear, as one of the oldest modes of writing was by graving the characters upon tablets smeared over or covered with wax. From this word comes that of letters; and, as they are more immediately connected with our subject, we incline to the opinion of Pliny that the word linere, to smear, is by far the most truthful definition. In this respect—that of “smearing”—it has lost nothing of its original character, if we were to judge from the appearance of many letters daily passing through the post-office.

“Smeared o’er with wax” would not cause any great surprise to a modern post-office clerk if a letter presented itself with this only on it; but when in addition he could scarcely read the name through the mists of blotted ink and bad spelling, we venture to say he would endorse Pliny’s opinion, above that of all others, without the least hesitation.

An Oriental scholar, speaking upon the subject of writing as connected with the ancients, makes use of this language:—“The origin of the art of writing loses itself among the nebulous periods of man’s primeval history. With the original ethnographic varieties of the human species, the primitive distribution of mankind, the patriarchal fountains of a once-pure religion, and the earliest sources of the diversity of language, must be associated the first developments of this art which, from the remotest periods, has enabled man to record his history, and to overcome space and time in the transmission of his thoughts.”

Symbolical or hieroglyphic writing is also very ancient. It was the ancient style of writing among the Egyptians. They were also termed “sacred sculptured characters,” which was the original or, rather, monumental method. The hieratic or sacerdotal was used by the scribes and priests in literary pursuits prior to 1500 B.C.

There is a beautiful conceit of Lord Bacon’s,—“Literæ Vocales” (vocal letters), the designation given by that philosopher to the popular lawyers of the House of Commons in the reign of James I., meaning those lawyers who were bold enough to speak their minds and to stand up for the rights of their constituents.

Words, however, will pass away and be forgotten; but that which is committed to writing will remain as evidence; for then you have them in “black and white.”

“Litera scripta manet.”

THE FIRST LETTER-WRITERS.

Jezebel, it seems, was the first—or, at least, we believe the first—that is mentioned in the Bible as a letter-writer: “So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name, and sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters unto the elders and to the nobles that were in his city, dwelling with Naboth.”—1 Kings xxi. 8.