MEANING OF MANUSCRIPT.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 503, 10 January 1906, Page 8

MEANING OF MANUSCRIPT.

Derivation of the Term TJaea to Indicate Matter Written bx HmuO. 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 course, 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 distinguish them from codices manu scripti. Most of the old and important records found in manuscript and preserved in libraries have been eopisd and reproduced In print, so 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 even now. Would J you not like to own, for instance, the manuscript of Virgil's 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, t