The Portland daily press., 1894-01-24
Handwriting of Famous Men.

l have said that I know of one Other
sample of handwriting as SO shockingly
illegible as that of Lord Brogham +. II
was the writing of the late Mr.. Beresford
Hope. Up and down, in and out, and
round the corner, some of the letters
standing on their heads, others "stand
ing prostrate," as Lord CastIereagh put
it-others apparently engaged in morta
com bat with their next neig b bors-the
ultimate result chaos. That was the
caligraphy, or tie photography, OF
worthy, clever Mr. beresford Hope.
The late Walter Thornbury, traveller
and histriographer, in conjunction with
MI. E. Walford, of "Old and New London
also wrote a disastrously bad hand. The
prevailing impression in our mind was
that not ink, but succession of small
bomb shells flowed from poor Walters
pen, and these petards had exploded
on the paper. On the whole, were
called upon 60 come into any, court and
make affidavits as to the handwriting of
my literary friends, I should say that the
finest calligrapher of all was Thackeray.
He had two distinct handwritings; a
cursive and slanting one, and vertical
or upright hand, in which every letter
was distinctly formed. Both hands
were, to my mind, inimitably beautiful
Douglas Jerrold, as letter-wTiter, wrote
bold, decisive hand; but his "copy,
was in almost microscopically small
characters. l have seen the hound man
uscript of his strange novel. "a Man
Made of Money, and ! doubt whether
even reader with powerful eyes could
decipher that Ms. without the aid of a
magnifying glass.
find in the book of scraps to which l
have alluded several very kind letters
NJ a,
Friends in Council" He wrote typ1-
caily official hand, large, clear, decisive
and not devoid of symmetry. One COM
munication written IN 1874 had reference
to those very cruel devices, not yet, I
am sorry to say, abandoned, for the
torture of horses-the bearing-rein and
the gag-bit He wanted me to write
something denouncing that which most
people think to be barbarous and
useless practice; but l told him, in
reply. that an anti bearing-rein move
nent must, to have any chance of sue
cess. be initiated by the very highest
classes in society, and in his letter in
answer ne wrote, 9 am afraid YOU are
right; we must begin with the Ouch
esses. have already had the audacity to
try what | can do with the il, and I must
persevere. Next to Arthur find an in
vitation to dinner from dear old Charles
Reade A big, fighting. "hitting better
the eyes" hand-a sprawl, but giants
sprawl. He dlsdained to fold the pages
of his letters, and went right across the
sheet. Then do I chance on note ad-
dressed to me in April, 1875, from the
Royal italian Opera in a neat, delicate,
almost feminine Italian hand, signed
Fred Gye" / had sent him from Ven
ice note" expressing the enthusiastic
admiration felt for "a young prima donna.
by the name of AIbani, whom l had
heard of at the Venice Theatre on the
occasion of gala performance held in
honor of the visit of the Emperor Francis
Joseph of Austria to Victor Emanuel,
King of Italy. Il am delighted, writes
Mr.. Gye, "to see that "you as well as the
Venetians k"ow how to appreciate the
charming talent of Mademoiselle Albaui,
who, he adds, was" about to sing In the
'Sonnambula,' at Covent Garden. Fol-
lowing Mr.. Gye's is letter of eight pag-
es from MIR. Charles Godfrey Leland,
otherwise F." Hans Br1etmann," very con-
slant correspondent of mine in days of
yore. A fine, flowing, leigible mascu-
line hand, setting down sensible and
sagacious things. AS, i'll London
telegraph.