MEANIRG OF MANUSCRIPT.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 446, 3 November 1904, Page 3

MEANIRG OF MANUSCRIPT.

Derivation ot the Term Used to Indlcttte Blatter Written by Hand. The singular and plural forma of the abbreviated word "manuscript" (MS. and MSS.) are the initials of the two Latin words manu scriptum. whence our word is . derived. Of coarse, says St. Nicholas, it means. literally, written by hand. After the introduction of printing, certain books were spoken of as codices (or libri impress)), printed books, to d>sthui'.iish them from codices- manu script]'. Most- of the old and important records found in manuscript and preserved in libraries have been copied find reproduced in print, ro that we: need not trouble ourselves to decipher crooked characters or half-faded writing. It is, however, interesting as well as very curious to hold in one's hands the parchment or half-decayed paper on which the hand of some great scholar, long since dead, traced the story of his day,- or. wrote a poem which lives pvrii now. Would you not like to oui!, for instance; the manuscript cf. Yii'giTs Aeneid, or ■ of Dante's "Divine Comedy," written , by their own hands? You would be a very rich young person if you did; but, of course, the real originals of the longago writers are very difficult, in fact impossible, to find. Probably they do not exist, and certainly if they exist, no one knows where they are.