Naudé observes, that when he was in Italy, about 1642, he saw some of those waxen tablets, called Pugillares, so called because they were held in one hand; and others composed of the barks of trees, which the ancients employed in lieu of paper.
On these tablets, or table-books Mr. Astle observes, that the Greeks and Romans continued the use of waxed table-books long after the use of the papyrus, leaves and skins became common; because they were convenient for correcting extemporaneous compositions: from these table-books they transcribed their performances correctly into parchment books, if for their own private use; but if for sale, or for the library, the _Librarii_, or Scribes, performed the office. The writing on table-books is particularly recommended by Quintilian in the third chapter of the tenth book of his Institutions; because the wax is readily effaced for any corrections: he confesses weak eyes do not see so well on paper, and observes that the frequent necessity of dipping the pen in the inkstand retards the hand, and is but ill-suited to the celerity of the mind. Some of these table-books are conjectured to have been large, and perhaps heavy, for in Plautus, a school-boy is represented breaking his master's head with his table-book. The critics, according to Cicero, were accustomed in reading their wax manuscripts to notice obscure or vicious phrases by joining a piece of red wax, as we should underline such by red ink.
Table-hooks written upon with styles were not entirely laid aside in Chaucer's time, who describes them in his Sompner's tale:--
His fellow had a staffe tipp'd with horne, _A paire of tables all of iverie_; And a _pointell polished_ fetouslie, And wrote alwaies the names, as he stood, Of all folke, that gave hem any good.[10]
By the word _pen_ in the translation of the Bible we must understand an iron _style_. Table-books of ivory are still used for memoranda, written with black-lead pencils. The Romans used ivory to write the edicts of the senate on, with a black colour; and the expression of _libri elephantini_, which some authors imagine alludes to books that for their _size_ were called _elephantine_, were most probably composed of ivory, the tusk of the elephant: among the Romans they were undoubtedly scarce.