The most ancient specimen of Hebrew ink writing extant is alleged to have been written A. D. 489. It is a parchment roll which was found in a Kariat synagogue in the Crimea. Another, brought from Danganstan, if the superscription be genuine, has a date corresponding with A. D. 580. The date of still another of the celebrated Hebrew scriptural codices, about which there is no dispute, is the Hilel codex written at the end of the sixth century. Its name is said to be derived from the fact that it was written at Hila, a town built near the ruins of the ancient Babel; some maintain, however, that it was named after the man who wrote it. One of the earliest specimens of Greek (wax) writing is an inscription on a small wooden tablet now in the British museum. It refers to a money transaction of the thirty-first year of Ptolemy Philadelphus, B. C. 254. In England the custom of using wooden tallies, inscribed as well as notched in the public accounts, lasted down to the nineteenth century. Gold writing was a practice which died out in the thirteenth century. The first discovery of Greek papyri in Egypt took place in the year 1778. It is of the (late of A. D. 191 and outside of Egypt and Herculaneum is the only place in which the Greek papyri has ever been found. Square capital ink writing in Latin of ancient date is found on a few leaves of an MS. of Virgil, which is attributed to the close of the fourth century, and the first rustic MS. to which an approximate date can be given, belongs to the close of the fifth century. The most ancient uncial ink writing extant, belongs to the fourth century, whilst the earliest mixed uncial and miniscule writing pertains to the sixth century. The oldest extant Irish MS. in the round Irish hand is ascribed to the latter part of the seventh century, while the earliest specimen of English writing of any kind extant dates about the beginning of the eighth century. The gold pen won by Peter Bales in his trial of skill with Johnson, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, if really made for use, is probably the first modern example of such pens. Bales was employed by Sir Francis Walsingham, and afterwards kept a writing school at the upper end of the Old Bailey. In 1595, when nearly fifty years old, he had a trial of skill with one Daniel Johnson, by which he was the winner of a golden pen, of a value of L20, which, in the pride of his victory, he set up as his sign. Upon this occasion John Davis made the following epigram in his "Scourge of Folly:"