acquainted with the handwritings of five
of our great poets. The first in early life acquired among Scottish
advocates a handwriting which cannot be distinguished from that of his
ordinary brothers; the second, educated in public schools, where writing
is shamefully neglected, composes his sublime or sportive verses in a
school-boy's ragged scrawl, as if he had never finished his tasks with
the writing-master; the third writes his highly-wrought poetry in the
common hand of a merchant's clerk, from early commercial avocations; the
fourth has all that finished neatness which polishes his verses; while
the fifth is a specimen of a full mind, not in the habit of correction
or alteration; so that he appears to be printing down his thoughts,
without a solitary erasure. The handwriting of the _first_ and _third_
poets, not indicative of their character, we have accounted for; the
others are admirable specimens of characteristic autographs.[106]

Oldys, in one of his curious notes, was struck by the distinctness of
character in the handwritings of several of our kings. He observed
nothing further than the mere fact, and did not extend his idea to the
art of judging of the natural character by the writing. Oldys has
described these handwritings with the utmost correctness, as I have
often verified. I shall add a few comments.

"Henry the Eighth wrote a strong hand, but as if he had seldom a good
pen."--The vehemence of his character conveyed itself into his writing;
bold, hasty, and commanding, I have no doubt the assertor of the Pope's
supremacy and its triumphant destroyer split many a good quill.

"Edward the Sixth wrote a fair legible hand."--We have this promising
young prince's diary, written by his own hand; in all respects he was an
assiduous pupil, and he had scarcely learnt to write and to reign when
we lost him.

"Queen Elizabeth writ an upright hand, like the bastard Italian." She
was indeed a most elegant caligrapher, whom Roger Ascham[107] had taught
all the elegancies of the pen. The French editor of the little
autographical work I have noticed has given the autograph of her name,
which she usually wrote in a very large tall character, and painfully
elaborate. He accompanies it with one of the Scottish Mary, who at
times wrote elegantly, though usually in uneven lines; when in haste and
distress of mind, in several letters during her imprisonment which I
have read, much the contrary. The French editor makes th