S.W.

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BOOKS AND BOOKWORMS.

(_For the Mirror_.)

Books were anciently made of plates of copper and lead, the bark of
trees, bricks, Stones, and wood. 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 mentions some
pillars, preserved in Crete, on which the ceremonies observed by the
Corybantes in their sacrifices were recorded. The leaves of the
palm-tree were used, and the finest and thinnest part of the bark of
such trees as the lime, the ash, the maple, and the elm; from hence
comes the word _liber_, which signifies the inner bark of the trees;
and as 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. By degrees wax, then
leather, were introduced, especially the skins of goats and sheep, of
which at length parchment was prepared; also linen, then silk, horn,
and lastly paper. The rolls or volumes of the ancients were composed
of several sheets, fastened to each other, rolled upon a stick, and
were sometimes fifty feet in length, and about a yard and a half wide.
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 to the left; in others, as in northern and
western nations, from the left to the right; others, as the Grecians,
followed both directions alternately, going in the one and returning
in the other.

In the Chinese books, the lines run from top to bottom. Again, the
page in some is entire and uniform; in others, divided into columns;
in others, distinguished into text and notes, either marginal or at
the bottom; usually it is furnished with signatures and catch-words,
also with a register to discover whether the book be complete. The
Mahometans place the name of God at the beginning of all their books.
The word _book_ is derived from the Saxon _boc_, which comes from the
northern _buech_, of _buechans_, a beech, or _service-tree_, on the
bark of which our ancestors used to write. A very large estate was
given for one on Cosmography by king Alfred. About the year 1400, they
were sold