279 JDomestic Manufactures in klassaehusetts.

Boston, March 15. THE exhibition of home manufactured articles in the chambers of

New ~ Iarket House, on luesday and Wednesday, was fully equal "to the anticipations of our citizens. There was a great varieW, and most of the articles were of a superior k i n d . ~ l he broadcloths, cas- simeres~ flannels and sattinets were in great quantities. But there was not so large au amount of superfine broadcloths as in October last. Of cotton goods, sheetings, shirtings and printed calicoes, there was also an extensive assortment. Some of them very line ; and the col ours .and figures of the prints very good. Articles of glass ware ann camnet lurmture were numerous ; and some fine ware in imita- tion of China was o~ered.~There were likewise, great quantities of wed, leather and sheen. The sales, we understand, were generally made at tair priees~and lhe plan, thus thvourablv began, will pro- bably be prosecuted on future occasions, with equal spit:it, and enter- prise.

H;3"it b~g Pens.

ThE ancients were unacquainted with tire fitness of quills for the purposes of writing. They chielty employed tablets covered wiflR wax, on which they engraved the characters with a metal style, and when they wrote with liquids on parchment, or on dm paI~er then manufactured from the Egyptian papyrus, they made ~se of reeds. It has beei~ supposed that quills were made use of for writin~ as early as the fifth century ; but the conjecture rests merely on an~anecdot~ of Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths; who, being so illiterate, that he could not write even ~!~e initials of his name, was provided -wifll a plate of gold~ through ~hich the letters were cut ; and this being placed on the paper, when his signature was required, he traced the letters witl~ a quill. The earliest certain account of the modern writing pens, dates no farther back than 636; and the next occurs towards the latter end of the same century, in a Latin sonnet to a Pen, composed by Adi~elm, a Saxon auflior, and the first of his nation who wrote in that tangua,2.e. After that period~ however, there are nume- rous proofs of their having been very generally known; but they were so far fi-om having at once superseaed the use of reeds, that l~ersons well versed in manuscripts afth'm, that the latter were commonly used in tire 8t.h century. Reeds are still emptoved to write with by many of the eastern nations. We learn, fi'om'the voyages of Chardin ~, Tourneibrt, and others, that they al,e small ha,'d cimcs, about the size of large swan-quills, u hich they cut aml slit in the same manner that we do quills, except that they giye them a much longer nib. IIad the anments been acquainted w,th the art of emplovin~ quills for writing they would probably have dedicated to Minerva, [~o(the owl~ but the, gee'so.