In the _Vieux-Neuf_ of M. Ed. Fournier (vol. ii., p. 22, note) there is mentioned--according to the documents used in the prosecution of Robert d'Artois, which are in the Archives--'the bronze pen' with which the forgers in the pay of the count wrote the false papers which he required. M. Fournier also quotes from 'Montfaucon' 'the silver reeds' with which the Constantinople patriarchs used to write their letters."--CUTHBERT, _L'Intermediare,_ 1st June, 1864. "METALLIC PENS (XV., 68).-Writing was done in the Middle Ages sometimes with a metal _stylus,_ or perhaps with a metal pen; with the former on wax, and with the pen on parchment or vellum. 'At Trinity College, Cambridge, is a manuscript illustration of Eadwine, a monk of Canterbury, and at the end the writer is represented with a metal pen in his hand.' (See Bibliomania in the Middle Ages, p. 103). I have in my possession a metal pen of Dutch manufacture, dating certainly from the year 1717, mounted on the same pencilholder, with a piece of solid plumbago, in a memorandum book of the same year."--SAM: TIMMINS. "Mr. Le Chauvine Gal, Prior of the collegiate of St. Peter and St. Bars at Aosta, had in his collection of Roman antiquities a bronze pen, slit, found in a tomb, among a number of lamps and lachrymatory vases. M. Aubert has given a drawing and description of it in a work on Aosta. It was subsequently stolen from him by a collector."--- CHAMBERY, Un Savoyard, _L'Intermediare,_ 25th May, 1868. "METALLIC PENS,--In a precious volume (an account of the books of the Decretalia) preserved in the library of Saint Antoine, of Padua, the following notice is to be found at the bottom of the last page: 'This work is fashioned and by diligence finished for the service of God, not with ink of quill nor with brazen reed, but with a certain invention of printing or reproducing by John Fust, citizen of Mayence, and Peter Schoeiffer, of Gernsheim, Dec. 17th, 1465, A.D.' Here, then, we have a document proving the existence of metallic pens in the Middle Ages. But has any such pen come down to us? If so, could a detailed description of it be obtained? On the other hand, I am curious to know if it is possible that platinum was used in the eighteenth century in the manufacture of pens, or whether it is necessary to attribute a peculiar meaning to the 'platinum pen' in the following passage of the system of shorthand by Bertin (edit. of the year iv., p. 93) (1793). 'Those of steel and platinum are most convenient; these latter have the advantage of all others, in that they hold the ink a long time, and run over the paper easily, and are not liable to corrosion by any simple acid.' I am ignorant of what the same author means when he mentions the endless pen, which would certainly be the best. "'--J. CAMUS, _L'Intermediare._