Forty Centuries of Ink: Or, A chronological narrative concerning ink and its backgrounds, introducing incidental observations and deductions, parallels of time and color phenomena, bibliography, chemistry, poetical effusions, citations, anecdotes and curiosa together with some evidence respecting the evanescent character of most inks of to-day and an epitome of chemico-legal ink.Carvalho, David Nunes
History
Forty Centuries of Ink: Or, A chronological narrative concerning ink and its backgrounds, introducing incidental observations and deductions, parallels of time and color phenomena, bibliography, chemistry, poetical effusions, citations, anecdotes and curiosa together with some evidence respecting the evanescent character of most inks of to-day and an epitome of chemico-legal ink.
Carvalho, David Nunes
Ink
"Being thus urged forward to the production of
more manuscripts, it became necessary that I
should posses; a sufficient quantity of old paper to
enable me to proceed; in consequence of which I
applied to a book-seller named Verey, in Great
May's buildings, St. Martin's Lane, who, for the
sum of five shillings, suffered me to take from all
the folio and quarto volumes in his shop the fly
leaves which they contained. By this means I was
amply stored with that commodity--nor did I fear
any mention of the circumstance by Mr. Verey,
whose quiet, unsuspecting disposition, I was well
convinced, would never lead him to make the transaction
public; in addition to which, he was not
likely even to know anything concerning the supposed
Shakespearean discovery by myself, and even
if he had, I do not imagine that my purchase of
the old paper in question would have excited in
him the smallest degree of suspicion. As I was
fully aware, from the variety of water-marks, which
are in existence at the present day, that they must
have constantly been altered since the period of
Elizabeth and being for some time wholly unacquainted
with the water-marks of that age, I very
carefully produced my first specimens of the
writing on such sheets of old paper as had no
marks whatever. Having heard it frequently stated
that the appearance of such marks on the papers
would have greatly tended to establish their validity,
I listened attentively to every remark which
was made upon the subject, and from thence I at
length gleaned the intelligence that a jug was the
prevalent water-mark of the reign of Elizabeth; in
consequence of which I inspected all the sheets of
old paper then in my possession, and having selected
such as had the jug upon them, I produced the
succeeding manuscripts upon these, being careful,
however, to mingle with them a certain number of
blank leaves, that the production on a sudden of so
many water-marks might not excite suspicion in
the breasts of those persons who were most conversant
with the manuscripts."
Fuller, writing in 1662, characterizes the paper of
his day:
"Paper participates in some sort of the character
of the country which makes it; the Venetian
being neat, subtle, and court-like; the French
light, slight, and slender; and the Dutch thick,
corpulent, and gross, sticking up the ink with the
sponginess thereof. And he complains of the
'vast sums of money expended in our land for
paper out of Italy, France, and Germany, which
might be lessened were it made in our nation.' "
Ulman Strother in 1390 started his paper mill at
Nuremberg in Bavaria which was the first paper
mill known to have been established in Germany, and
is said to have been the only one in Europe then
manufacturing paper from linen rags.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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