The most important systems of writing, for many centuries--from a time long previous to the Christian Era and on throughout the Middle Ages--were those which employed the classic Greek and Latin alphabets, and in which the great body of the world's best literature was written. At least this was true within the bounds of Europe. With the declining literary importance of Alexandria came the growing prominence of the region north of the Mediterranean. The Greek alphabet and language held preëminence for centuries, beginning with Alexander's conquest and extending into the early Christian centuries when they were displaced, early in the Middle Ages, under the Latin ascendency. During the increasing domination of the Latin alphabet and literature, national and provincial "hands" were developed and came into active competition in the centuries previous to the invention of printing. The handwriting which was of specifically Roman lineage was gradually modified by environing conditions in the different sections of Europe and resulted in various "hands," as the "Lombardic" hand of Italy, the "Visigothic" hand of Spain, and the "Merovingian" and (later) the "Carolingian" hand of the Frankish Empire. (_6_) _The Anglo-Saxon writing._ The Anglo-Saxon handwriting is an inheritance from the Latin national hand. In this "descent" (or, is it "ascent"?) of our modern English "hand," in the long process of its genealogy, the Latin displaced the earlier Greek, as the Greek had won its way over the still earlier Phœnician and Hebrew. In our modern English literature we employ the Roman alphabet (as other nationalities are coming more and more to do). The Roman characters, being descended immediately from the Latin, though modified more or less by the Norman domination and other factors, constitute what may be called the cosmopolitan alphabet of modern times. The characters used in our Anglo-Saxon writing have come to their present ascendency and increasing supremacy from two reasons in particular: First, because the Latin on which it was based was the language of the educated classes of all nations during the Middle Ages; and second--and probably chiefly--because the Roman characters are better adapted for rapid writing than were the severe though elegant letters of the Greek language. The shape of the Roman characters greatly facilitated the adoption of the "running" hand in the Latin literature.