Microscopic Writing.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 381, 3 July 1889, Page 5

Microscopic Writing.

Pliny's assertion that; Cicero once saw the ' Iliad ' of Homer in a nutshell has always been regarded with incredulity, but some remarkable and undisputed facts about minute caligraphy favour the possibility of Cicero being correct in his statement. Both ancient and modern writers record the achievement of penmen whose writing was in so small a hand that it was invisible to the naked eye. One wrote a distich in letters of gold which he enclosed in the rind of a grain of wheat. Another wrote a verse ot Homer on a grain of millet. Menage mentions a , pen-and-ink sketch of the Dauphiness undiscernible except by the aid of a microscope, which instrument revealed a tace of the most , pleasing delicacy and correct resemblance. IntheHarleianMMS. we have a narrative of * a rare piece of work brought to pass by Peter Bales, an Englishman and a clerk of the chancery.' It was a copy of rthe whole Bible in an English walnut no bigger than a hen's egg. We are told that the* nut holdeth the book; there are as many, leaves in the little book as in, the great Bible, and he had written as much in one of his tiny leaves as ,a, great leaf of 'the Bible.' The^ writing was, too small to be read by the naked eye. , In the library of St.* John's college, Oxford, is a drawing of the head of Charles 1. wholly composed of minute written characters which at a short, .distance resembles the lines of an • engrayjng. The. lines of, the head and ruff are, said to contain the Book of Psalms, thOiCrecd. nnd the Lord's Prayer. —From ,' (JasseU's > {Saturday Journal for 1 May.' , • , , * . , ,]',-,! I