s; these solemn trials have often occurred in the history of
writing-masters, which is enlivened by public defiances, proclamations,
and judicial trials by umpires! The prize was usually a golden pen of
some value. One as late as in the reign of Anne took place between Mr.
German and Mr. More. German having courteously insisted that Mr. More
should set the copy, he thus set it, ingeniously quaint!

As more, and MORE, our understanding clears,
So more and more our ignorance appears.

The result of this pen-combat was really lamentable; they displayed such
an equality of excellence that the umpires refused to decide, till one
of them espied that Mr. German had omitted the tittle of an i! But Mr.
More was evidently a man of genius, not only by his couplet, but in his
"Essay on the Invention of Writing," where occurs this noble passage:
"Art with me is of no party. A noble emulation I would cherish, while it
proceeded neither from, nor to malevolence. Bales had his Johnson,
Norman his Mason, Ayres his Matlock and his Shelley; yet Art the while
was no sufferer. The busybody who officiously employs himself in
creating misunderstandings between artists, may be compared to a
turn-stile, which stands in every man's way, yet hinders nobody; and he
is the slanderer who gives ear to the slander."[109]

Among these knights of the "Plume volante," whose chivalric exploits
astounded the beholders, must be distinguished Peter Bales in his joust
with David Johnson. In this tilting-match the guerdon of caligraphy was
won by the greatest of caligraphers; its _arms_ were assumed by the
victor, _azure, a pen or_; while the "golden pen," carried away in
triumph, was painted with a hand over the door of the caligrapher. The
history of this renowned encounter was only traditionally known, till
with my own eyes I pondered on this whole trial of skill in the precious
manuscript of the champion himself; who, like Caesar, not only knew how
to win victories, but also to record them. Peter Bales was a hero of
such transcendent eminence, that his name has entered into our history.
Holinshed chronicles one of his curiosities of microscopic writing at a
time when the taste prevailed for admiring writing which no eye could
read! In the compass of a silver penny this caligrapher put more things
than would fill several of these pages. He presented Queen Elizabeth
with the manuscript set in a ring of gold covered with a crystal; he had
also contrived