Gold liquids, and also silver, purple, red, green, and blue inks, were eventually used in manuscripts after the fourth century,—red and gold having been employed much earlier. St. Jerome speaks of rich decorations, which must have been executed with colored inks; but, before his time, Ovid alludes not only to the purple charta, made use of for fine books, which were also tinged with an oil drawn from cedar-wood, to preserve them, but, also to titles written in red ink, which were the first kind of illuminations. The passage occurs in his first elegy, "Ad Librum:"
"Nec te purpureo velent vaccinia succo;
Non est conveniens luctibus ille color.
Nec titulus minio, nec cedro charta notetur.
Candida nec nigra cornua fronte geras."
The last line proving, as Casley observes, that Ovid wrote upon a roll.
This author, not having been kind enough to translate Ovid for us, we are compelled to do it for him. This "Elegy" of the poet is addressed "To his Book;" and the following words contain the meaning of the four lines above quoted:
John, XII: "I would write with paper and Ink." 3 John, XIII: "I had many things to write, but I will not with Ink." Ezekiel, IX, 2: "with a writer's ink-horn by his side."
