From the alphabet the gradation is natural to compounds of letters and written language, and, though speech is one of the greatest gifts to man, it is writing which distinguishes him from the uncivilized savage.  The practice of writing is of such remote antiquity that neither sacred nor profane authors can satisfactorily trace its origin.  The philosopher may exclaim with the poet: 

“Whence did the wondrous mystic art arise.  Of painting speech and speaking to the eyes?  That we, by tracing magic lines, are taught How both to color and embody thought?”

The earliest writing would probably have been with chalk, charcoal, slate, or perhaps sand, as children from time immemorial have been taught to read and write in India.  The Romans used white walls for writing inscriptions on, in red chalk—­answering the purpose of our posting-bills—­of which several instances were found on the walls of Pompeii.  Plutarch informs us that tradesmen wrote in some such manner over their doors, and that auction bills ran thus: 

“Julius Proculus will this day have an auction of his superfluous goods, to pay his debts.”

Next seems to have followed writing or engraving on stone, wood, ivory, and metals, of which we have many early evidences.  The Decalogue, or the Ten Commandments, given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, was originally, we are told in the Bible, written upon two tables of stone; the pillars of Seth were of brick and stone; the laws of the Greeks were graven on tables of brass, which were called cyrbes.  Herodotus mentions a letter written with a style on stone slabs, which Themistocles, the Athenian general, sent to the Romans about B.C. 500; and we have another evidence of the same period still existing—­the so-called Borgian inscription, which is a passport graven in bronze, entitling the holder to hospitable reception wherever he demanded it.  Upward of three thousand of such engraved tablets, including the famous Roman laws of the Twelve Tables, were consumed in the great fire which destroyed the Capitol in the time of Vespasian.

I could cite a great many other evidences of early writing on stone or brass, but will merely recommend you to see the Rosetta[25] inscription, which is conspicuously placed in the British Museum.  It is this very interesting stone which, being partly Greek and partly Egyptian, has enabled us to decipher so many Egyptian monuments.

Pliny informs us that table-books of wood—­generally made of box or citron wood—­were in use before the time of Homer, that is, nearly three thousand years ago; and in the Bible we read of table-books in the time of Solomon.  These table-books were called by the Romans pugillares, which may be translated “hand-books”; the wood was cut into thin slices, finely planed and polished, and written upon with an iron instrument called a stylus.  At a later period, tables, or slices of wood, were usually covered with a thin layer of hard wax, so that any matter written upon them might be effaced at pleasure, and the tables used again.  Such practice continued as late as A.D. 1395.  In an account roll of Winchester College of that year we find that a table covered with green wax was kept in the chapel for noting down with a style the daily or weekly duties assigned to the officers of the choir.  Ivory also was used in the same way.