[Sidenote: _Relation of the six leaves to the rest of the manuscript_]

One might suppose that the six leaves once formed a complete gathering
of the original book, especially as the first and last pages, folios 48r
and 53v have a darker appearance, as though they had been the outside
leaves of a gathering that had been affected by exposure. But this
darker appearance is sufficiently accounted for by the fact that both
pages are on the hair side of the parchment, and the hair side is always
darker than the flesh side. Quires of six leaves or trinions are not
unknown. Examples of them may be found in our oldest manuscripts. But
they are the exception.[1] The customary quire is a gathering of eight
leaves, forming a quaternion proper. It would be natural, therefore, to
suppose that our fragment did not constitute a complete gathering in
itself but formed part of a quaternion. The supposition is confirmed by
the following considerations:

[Footnote 1: For example, in the fifth-century manuscript of Livy
in Paris (MS. lat. 5730) the forty-third and forty-fifth quires are
composed of six leaves, while the rest are all quires of eight.]

In the first place, if our six leaves were once a part of a quaternion,
the two leaves needed to complete them must have formed the outside
sheet, since our fragment furnishes a continuous text without any lacuna
whatever. Now, in the formation of quires, sheets were so arranged that
hair side faced hair side, and flesh side flesh side. This arrangement
is dictated by a sense of uniformity. As the hair side is usually much
darker than the flesh side the juxtaposition of hair and flesh sides
would offend the eye. So, in the case of our six leaves, folios 48v and