>Not only men, but women were thus occupied, to whose insufficiency the defects of many manuscripts are assignable. (P. Sarti de Profess. Bonon.) This authority refers to the female scribes of Bologna. We may, however, believe the practice to have been general; for Engelhardus (anno 1200) reports an accident which happened to a nun in the exercise of her employment: "Cum soror una cui usus erat scribendi membranam, dum ad lineas punctaret subulam incaute trahens, oculum transfigit." Defective transcript is, however, not solely to be attributed to females; for the accurate and elegant Petrarch indignantly exclaims, "Who shall prescribe an effectual remedy for the ignorance and worthlessness of copiers, who spoil and confuse the performances they undertake?---At this time, every one who can redden letters or guide a pen, though void of learning, skill, or ability, assumes the character of a scribe. I should not censure their defects in orthography (for that is a long forgotten art,) if they would faithfully transcribe what is before them. They might betray their insufficiency, but we should have in the copy the substance of the original. They now confound both together, and, by substituting one thing for another, we can scarce identify the author from which they transcribed. If Cicero, Livy, and many other illustrious writers, could return to life, and re-peruse their own compositions, would they understand them, and doubting the whole, would they believe them to be their own, or rather, those of some barbarous people?"