Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1890-08-13
AN INTERESTING STUDY.
- There Reasonable Rotation Jsotweon
.4& Calligraphy and Character.

y There Reasonable Relation Eotwesn
Cs'taer"pl'y and Character. X
NOBODY contrasting the signatures OF
Charles !. and Oliver Cromw we'll could
doubt which OF the two mon had the
stronger will. Charles II. wrote much
more pleasing hand when Prince of
Wales than after his accession to the
throne, but 1t is certainly true that
handwriting undergoes many transfer.
nations and reflects in many unexpect-
ed ways the changes of mood of the
writer. Nobody need hesitate to recog-
nlze the temper in which letter is
written, and nothing Is more absurd
than the incoherent haste with which
any one in passion expresses himself.
Nothing, too, Is mo:e pathetic than the
trembling characters formed by old
age or ill-health. There is a sigma.
ture OF the first Earl of Skates.
bury, the author OF the "Char-
acteristics," in the British Mu.
scum, which Is eloquent of the
inflrmities from which lie was suffer.
ing. 1t is far cry from William III.
to George Washington, but one seems
to have parallel in the oalligraphy Of
the two famous captains, which is, per-
haps, also to be drawn between their
characters as mon OF action. Men Of
letters are VIGOROUSLY the worst wri ters
OF their time, and we look, perhaps in
vain, for indications of character In the
hurried scrawls which do duty for their
autographs. There are, of course, here
again, exceptions numerous enough to
rank as examples of the converse rule.
Addison, for instance, wrote beauti.
fully clear, If somewhat correct, hand.
Dean Swift wrote legible but stiff
hand, nearly upright, sufficient indi-
cation Of his independence of character.
Richard b. Sheridan wrote an execrable
hand, while poor Shenstone might have
been writing-master to judge by his
educated If characteristic superscrip-
ton. DR.. johnson, again, wrote a
very grabbed hand, but no fault could
be found with it on the score of
illegibility. for nearly every letter was
we'll formed, and one can believe that
he had the horror of corrections" be-
fore his mind. Voltaire wrote small
but legible hand, which seems to indi.
cate that he must havo been distin-
guished by method and precision OF
character. There was certainly no in.
dication of genius in the handwriting Of
Edmund Burke, which is rather effom-
mate looking; but nobody could doubt
the individuality of Francis Bacon.
Congreve wrote q clear. If somewhat
school-boyish hand, and Thomas Camp
bell, too, was fine and free writer.
There is curious family likeness be-
tween the handwriting of Wordsworth,
Southey and Coleridge, which tempts
one to think that they copied one an.
other; but if so, they certainly did not
succeed in producing very remarkable
hand. Lord Byron was a much more
untidy writer, and If we compare his
handwriting with Southey's, we can
see at glance what gulf divided the
two poets. Robert Burns had an auto
graph worthy of royalty. Dryden wrote
a scholarly hand; but one can detect,
one fancies, a lack of decision in his
tremulous curve and thin down strokes.
The Italian school must have been in
fashion when Maria Edgeworth was
taught to write, for her hand represents
primness personified, not unworthy Of
her tales. In the same way, too, few
people would, we imagine, have been
led far astray by the handwriting OF
Oliver Goldsmith, which, with all its
beauties, is wholly lacking in decision,
and seems to curiously reflect his re-
fined but hayward temperament But
it would be interesting to know what
these modern soothsayers would make
of some historical handwritings. 1t
would be safe to predict that they would
mako a rare hash of such characters
as Wellington or Napoleon. London
Standard.