ed to express
blotting out. But the Romans forbad the use of this sharp instrument,
from the circumstance of many persons having used them as daggers. A
schoolmaster was killed by the Pugillares or table-books, and the styles
of his own scholars.[9] They substituted a _stylus_ made of the bone of
a bird, or other animal; so that their writings resembled engravings.
When they wrote on softer materials, they employed _reeds_ and _canes_
split like our _pens_ at the points, which the orientalists still use to
lay their colour or ink neater on the paper.

Naude observes, that when he was in Italy, about 1642, he saw some of
those waxen tablets, called Pugillares, so called because they were held
in one hand; and others composed of the barks of trees, which the
ancients employed in lieu of paper.

On these tablets, or table-books Mr. Astle observes, that the Greeks and
Romans continued the use of waxed table-books long after the use of the
papyrus, leaves and skins became common; because they were convenient
for correcting extemporaneous compositions: from these table-books they
transcribed their performances correctly into parchment books, if for
their own private use; but if for sale, or for the library, the
_Librarii_, or Scribes, performed the office. The writing on table-books
is particularly recommended by Quintilian in the third chapter of the
tenth book of his Institutions; because the wax is readily effaced for
any corrections: he confesses weak eyes do not see so well on paper, and
observes that the frequent necessity of dipping the pen in the inkstand
retards the hand, and is but ill-suited to the celerity of the mind.
Some of these table-books are conjectured to have been large, and
perhaps heavy, for in Plautus, a school-boy is represented breaking his
master's head with his table-book. The critics, according to Cicero,
were accustomed in reading their wax manuscripts to notice obscure or
vicious phrases by joining a piece of red wax, as we should underline
such by red ink.

Table-hooks written upon with styles were not entirely laid aside in
Chaucer's time, who describes them in his Sompner's tale:--

His fellow had a staffe tipp'd with horne,
_A paire of tables all of iverie_;
And a _pointell polished_ fetouslie,
And wrote alwaies the names, as he stood,
Of all folke, that gave hem any good.[10]

By the word _pen_ in the translation of the Bible we must understand an
iron _style_. Ta