3; the easy curves below
the signature are cleverly made, and while they indicate much energy,
they also point to a useful confidence in self, owing to the deliberate
way of accentuating the most personal part of a letter--its signature.

[Illustration: NO. 5.--WRITTEN IN 1832.]

No. 5 is the facsimile of a signature to a letter which was written in
the Library of the British Museum to "My dear Knolle"; the letter ends:
"Believe me (in haste), yours most truly." At this time--1832--Dickens
was a newspaper reporter, and it is curious to notice that in spite of
"haste" he yet managed to execute this complex movement underneath the
signature. Its force and energy are great, but we shall see even more
pronounced developments of this flourish before it takes the moderated
and graceful form of confident and assured power.

[Illustration: NO. 6.--WRITTEN IN 1833 OR 1834.]

There is still more force and "go" about No. 6: it was written on
"Wednesday night, past 12," and also in haste. Dickens was reporting for
the _Morning Chronicle_, and was just starting on a journey, but yet
there are here two separate flourishes; one begins under the _s_ of
_Charles_ and ends under the _C_ of that name; the other starts under
the capital _D_ and finishes below the _n_ of _Dickens_.

[Illustration: AGE 23.
_From a Miniature by Miss R. E. Drummond._]

[Illustration: NO. 7.--WRITTEN IN 1836.]

[Illustration: NO. 8.--WRITTEN OCT. 1, 1836.]

The intricacy of the next facsimile, No. 7, is an ugly but a very active
piece of movement. This group of curves is equal to about a two-feet
length of pen-stroke, a fact which indicates an extraordinary amount of
personal energy. Dickens was then writing his "Sketches by Boz," and
this ungraceful elaboration of his signature was probably accompanied by
a growing sense of his own capacity and power. During the time-interval
between the signatures shown in Nos. 7 and 8, the first number of the
"Pickwick Papers" was published--March, 1836--and Charles Dickens
married Catherine Hogarth on the 2nd of April in that year. The original
of a very different facsimile (No. 9) was written as a receipt in the
account-book of Messrs. Chapman and Hall for an advance of L5.

[Illustration: NO. 9.--WRITTEN IN 1837.]

The six facsimiles numbered 9 to 15 deserve special notice. The
originals were all written in the year 1837, and I have purposely shown
them because their extraordinary variations entirely negative