Geschriften.Noordwijk-Binnen, 1761. Oblong folio (21 x 33 cm). Manuscript calligraphic copybook in brown ink on paper, with a calligraphic title-page followed by sample texts (mostly from the Old and New Testament) in Dutch in a roundhand script with decorative flourishes, and verses by Jacob Cats on the outside of the first and last leaves, the last illustrated with a penwork father, son and a large fish eating a small fish. Side-stitched, with the first leaf and last leaf serving as wrappers.

[31] ll.A manuscript calligraphic copybook by a student learning penmanship, but with a calligraphic title-page giving his name, the title, place and year. Jacobus de Jong is a fairly common name, but Noordwijk-Binnen (now part of Noordwijk in South Holland, on the coast near Leiden) is fairly small and a boy of that name was baptised there (Dutch Reformed) on 27 August 1747, which would make him 14 if he began work on the present copybook at the beginning of the 1761/62 school year. He was the son of Roelof de Jong and his second wife Elizabeth Verkinderen.Nearly all leaves are written on the rectos only, mostly using Bible quotations (Old Testament, New Testament and Psalms) as sample texts, but the first leaf (before the title-page) serves as a front wrapper and has a verse quotation in 4 lines of large script on the front and a couple practise Gs on the verso (trials for the first letter of the title), while the last leaf has a normal sample text on the recto but has verses illustrated with penwork figures on the verso, serving as a back wrapper. The texts on both the front and the back wrapper are verses from Jacob Cats, Spiegel van den ouden ende nieuwen tijdt. All texts are in Dutch and executed in a roundhand (pointed pen) script, the most common style at this date for commercial correspondence. All the writing is fairly large, generally (but not strictly) decreasing from the first to the last pages, with an x-height ranging from 15 to 2 mm. Most samples include pen flourishes.Like nearly all children's school exercise books, this one has suffered with use. The edges of the leaves are tattered, especially the first two and the last one, and there are light stains in many leaves, but most of the sample texts are in good condition. The stitching of the lower half is lost. A rare example of a surviving copybook by an identified 14-year-old student.