ve
been owing to such an ordinary acquisition_!

Massey is an enthusiast, fortunately for his subject. He considers that
there are _schools of writing_, as well as of painting or sculpture; and
expatiates with the eye of fraternal feeling on "a natural genius, a
tender stroke, a grand performance, a bold striking freedom, and a
liveliness in the sprigged letters, and pencilled knots and flourishes;"
while this Vasari of writing-masters relates the controversies and the
libels of many a rival pen-nibber. "George Shelley, one of the most
celebrated worthies who have made a shining figure in the commonwealth
of English caligraphy, born I suppose of obscure parents, because
brought up in Christ's Hospital, yet under the humble blue-coat he laid
the foundation of his caligraphic excellence and lasting fame, for he
was elected writing-master to the hospital." Shelley published his
"Natural Writing;" but, alas! Snell, another blue-coat, transcended the
other. He was a genius who would "bear no brother near the throne."--"I
have been informed that there were jealous heart-burnings, if not
bickerings, between him and Col. Ayres, another of our _great reformers_
in the writing commonweal, both eminent men, yet, _like_ our most
celebrated poets _Pope and Addison_, or, to carry the comparison still
higher, like _Caesar and Pompey_, one could bear no superior, and the
other no equal." Indeed, the great Snell practised a little stratagem
against Mr. Shelley, for which, if writing-masters held courts-martial,
this hero ought to have appeared before his brothers. In one of his
works he procured a number of friends to write letters, in which Massey
confesses "are some satyrical strokes upon Shelley," as if he had
arrogated too much to himself in his book of "Natural Writing." They
find great fault with pencilled knots and sprigged letters. Shelley, who
was an advocate for ornaments in fine penmanship, which Snell utterly
rejected, had parodied a well-known line of Herbert's in favour of his
favourite decorations:--

A _Knot_ may take him who from _letters_ flies,
And turn _delight_ into an _exercise_.

These reflections created ill-blood, and even an open difference amongst
several of the _superior artists in writing_. The commanding genius of
Snell had a more terrific contest when he published his "Standard
Rules," pretending to have _demonstrated_ them as Euclid would. "This
proved a bone of contention, and occasioned a terrifi