, 1865-02-17
(Fy0m The Ill., London News, Jan. Z, 1869

1t is late in the day to compliment the
Premier of England upon the sound good
sense which marks all his eXtra-Patlia-
mentary utterances; but it would be un-
gracious not to recognise with thankful
ness the exceedingly wise counsel which
he has Just delivered in a speech at Rom
sey. The subject is one which is inter
esting, not to say important, to every man,
woman, and child in HeraaMaj esty's do
minions. Lord Palmerston has not been
flying, like his great opponent, on CANCELS"
wings, but has addressed himself to the
question how to use the single pen
feather which makes us, if we use it
properly, to do the "angelic" work Of
conveying "messages"-in these classic
days Of course we need not remind any
body of the meaning Of the Greek word.
It has remained to Lord PalmerSton to
establish o connection between the two
examples in Lindley Murray which used
to be considered the perfection Of dlssi-
milarity. Con angels wlngs-the grocers'
company" He has shown that a grocer
may write angelicalIy.
"Writing," says Lord Palmerston,
"should answer the purpose of being
GUSlIY LCduS anu IlICI uCECl IIIlIlu WAlCIIlCI
it looks beautiful or not" We can under
stand some of the experiences which
must have drawn this energetic and ad-
mirable dogma from him. 1t is under
stood that he has no time to read print,
What acres of manuscript must his eyes
have ~traversed, and what impatient ex-
CARNATIONS must have broken from him
when the mental process of following out
an important argument has been hindered
by the physical difficulty of d%eciphering
some elegant scrawl. Many of our read
ers may know the Premier's own hand
writing, large, round, and easier to read
than print itself. His Instructions to the
people at Romsey are exactly literally
would be the filter world carried out in
his own MS. "Write a large hand, and
form each letter WELL" If men, women,
and children only knew how many chan
ces in life they throw away by the neglect
of this advice, q Palmerston copy book
would be the most successful speculation
of the day. We can tell them something
about it !; especially can we tell those Of
what Mr.. Carlyle calls the "writlng sort"
something. We can inform them that
thousands Of literary compositions, many
of them doubtless valuable, have never
been read through by those who were
asked to procure publicity for them.
Writers who would be ashamed of the
ill-breeding of delivering a clumsy mes
sage, or speaking in o low, unaccented,
careless manner, have the impudence to
expect editors and other officials to go
through an hours grapple with an abo-
minable scribble in order to oblige the
author by testing his abilities. A man
must know whether he can write de-
cent hand, or cannot, and If he be so un-
fortunate as not to be able to do so, it is
his business to learn, or to employ a copy
ist. It may as we'll be known, especially
by the ambitious and sanguine young
gentlemen who have ''just dashed Off
an article and beg you to excuse hurry,
that it is now almost a rule with those
who sit in judgment never to read a badly
written paper. No doubt many gems
may be lost to the world by this, but
much valuable eyesight and many anna
BILE tempers are preserved, and, on the
whole, the practice is a wholesome one.
The most distinguished poet of the age