e him, politely observed, "I see that in
writing fair, as in other things, the elder must yield to the younger."

Had this anecdote of neat writing reached the professors of caligraphy,
who in this country have put forth such painful panegyrics on the art,
these royal names had unquestionably blazoned their pages. Not indeed
that these penmen require any fresh inflation; for never has there been
a race of professors in any art who have exceeded in solemnity and
pretensions the practitioners in this simple and mechanical craft. I
must leave to more ingenious investigators of human nature to reveal the
occult cause which has operated such powerful delusions on these "Vive
la Plume!" men, who have been generally observed to possess least
intellectual ability in proportion to the excellence they have obtained
in their own art. I suspect this maniacal vanity is peculiar to the
writing-masters of England; and I can only attribute the immense
importance which they have conceived of their art to the perfection to
which they have carried the art of short-hand writing; an art which was
always better understood, and more skilfully practised, in England than
in any other country. It will surprise some when they learn that the
artists in verse and colours, poets and painters, have not raised
loftier pretensions to the admiration of mankind. Writing-masters, or
caligraphers, have had their engraved "effigies," with a Fame in
flourishes, a pen in one hand and a trumpet in the other; and fine
verses inscribed, and their very lives written! They have compared

The nimbly-turning of their silver quill

to the beautiful in art and the sublime in invention; nor is this
wonderful, since they discover the art of writing, like the invention of
language, in a divine original; and from the tablets of stone which the
Deity himself delivered, they trace their German broad text, or their
fine running-hand. One, for "the bold striking of those words, _Vive la
Plume_," was so sensible of the reputation that this last piece of
command of hand would give the book which he thus adorned, and which his
biographer acknowledges was the product of about a minute,--(but then
how many years of flourishing had that single minute cost him!)--that he
claims the glory of an artist; observing,--

We seldom find
The _man of business_ with the _artist_ join'd.

Another was flattered that his _writing_ could impart immortality to