en from the original autographs. Since this period both France
and Germany have produced many books devoted to the use of the
curious in autographs. In our own country J.T. Smith published a
curious collection of fac-similes of letters, chiefly from literary
characters.

[106] It will be of interest to the reader to note the names of
these poets in the consecutive order they are alluded to. They are
Scott, Byron, Rogers, Moore, and Campbell.

[107] He was also the tutor of Lady Jane Grey, and the author of one
of our earliest and best works on education.

[108] Since this article was written, Nichols has published a
cleverly-executed series of autographs of royal, noble, and
illustrious persons of Great Britain, in which the reader may study
the accuracy of the criticism above given.

THE HISTORY OF WRITING-MASTERS.

There is a very apt letter from James the First to Prince Henry when
very young, on the neatness and fairness of his handwriting. The royal
father suspecting that the prince's tutor, Mr., afterwards Sir Adam,
Newton, had helped out the young prince in the composition, and that in
this specimen of caligraphy he had relied also on the pains of Mr. Peter
Bales, the great writing-master, for touching up his letters, his
majesty shows a laudable anxiety that the prince should be impressed
with the higher importance of the one over the other. James shall
himself speak. "I confess I long to receive a letter from you that may
be wholly yours, as well matter as form; as well formed by your mind as
drawn by your fingers; for ye may remember, that in my book to you I
warn you to beware with (of) that kind of wit that may fly out at the
end of your fingers; not that I commend not a fair handwriting; _sed hoc
facito, illud non omittito_: and the other is _multo magis praecipuum_."
Prince Henry, indeed, wrote with that elegance which he borrowed from
his own mind; and in an age when such minute elegance was not universal
among the crowned heads of Europe. Henry IV., on receiving a letter from
Prince Henry, immediately opened it, a custom not usual with him, and
comparing the writing with the signature, to decide whether it were of
one hand, Sir George Carew, observing the French King's hesitation,
called Mr. Douglas to testify to the fact; on which Henry the Great,
admiring an art in which he had little skill, and looking on the neat
elegance of the writing befor