The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1905-12-13
FEATs OF PENMANSHiP.
Mems Skill in Writing Much in Small
Space.

Space.
The feat of writing the Lords Pfz5,
er upon a space which q sixpena
would cover is so familiar as to cease
TO be wonderful; but one cannot re-
sits a tribute of genuine astonishment
to man who can write the whole OF
our national anthem along the thin
edge OF an ordinary visiting card, and
who has actually penned biographies
OF King Edward and several members
of his family upon tiny grain OF
wheat. Such a microscopic cali
graphist" is NJ. ]. Sofer, a French
gentleman who. we should say, could
safely challenge the whole world to
rivalry in his own field of penmanship.
Perhaps more wonderful still are
the portraits of celebrities which NJ,
Sofer produces out of their biograph-
les. His presentment of the Car, for
instance, is not only a clever likeness,
but every stroke in it is part of the
continuous life of the Russian emperor
in letters so minute that to the un'
aided eye they seem part of an or
binary penline, while the artist is at
present engaged on Il similar picture
of King Edward, to be made up of his
biography, containing $4,000 letters.
There has probably never been a
time when this art of minute penman'
ship has not exercised its fascinations.
In Cicero's time, about 20O0 years ago,
the whole Of Homers "lliad" was
copied so microscopically that it was
placed in 4 nutshell and few CEN
turies later an artist wrote a short
poem and inclosed it in followed
grain of corn, while still another pen
man in these long gone days actually
wrote a verse of Homer on a grain OF
millet.
Pedottl a fourteenth century ltal-
IAN. performed the most astounding
feats with his pen. He wrote poem
of over one hundred lines in a little
space on larger than his finger nail,
made an elaborate landscape sketch, in
Guiding a shepherd and drove ofsheep,
which a grain of corn completely Gov
cred, and penned a long treatise on
poetry in such minute letters that the
manuscript had the appearance Of a
close series of perfectly straight lines,
while he dedicated to Urban VI. his
tory OF the papacy, which took the
form OF an excellent likeness of the
pope in whose honor it was written.
Urban was incredulous when he was
assured by the artist that 1t was com
posed of more than 1900 words in
the form OF a consecutive history, and
exclaimed, as well he might, why,
this is nothing less than a miracle
But Italy has no monopoly of these
minute caligraphists. Many centuries
ago Peter Bales, an English Chancery
clerk, we learn from the Harleian
manuscripts, transcribed the whole OF
the Bible in such small compass that
he was able to inclose it in a walnut,
"The nut holdeth the book we are
told, there are as many leaves in his
little book as the great Bible, and he
had written as much in one Of his
little leaves as great leaf OF the
Bible" And not to be outdone by
Peter Bales, another Englishman OF
the 18th century, one Henry Mason,
copied the whole Of paradise Lost
and enclosed his manuscript in a
hens egg.
As we have seen, NJ. Sofer is by no
means the first pen artist who has
made a portrait the medium of long
narrative. At the British Museum
there is to be seen an excellent like
ness of Queen Anne, little larger than
half a sheet of notepaper, every deli
cate line of which is made up Of words
and sentences, the entire narrative be,
ing sufficient to fill a small volume;
and at st. Johns college, Oxford, there
is a head of the martyred King
Charles l., which, although to all ap'
pearanco delicate engraving, is SINH
larly composed. With the help OF a
microscope you can read in the lines
of the face and the ruff the whole OF
the Psalms, the Lords Prayer and the
Creed-Tit-Bi