The art of judging of the characters of persons by their handwriting can
only have any reality when the pen, acting without restraint, becomes an
instrument guided by, and indicative of, the natural dispositions. But
regulated as the pen is now too often by a mechanical process, which the
present race of writing-masters seem to have contrived for their own
convenience, a whole school exhibits a similar handwriting; the pupils
are forced in their automatic motions, as if acted on by the pressure of
a steam-engine; a bevy of beauties will now write such fac-similes of
each other, that in a heap of letters presented to the most
sharp-sighted lover to select that of his mistress--though, like
Bassanio among the caskets, his happiness should be risked on the
choice--he would despair of fixing on the right one, all appearing to
have come from the same rolling-press. Even brothers of different
tempers have been taught by the same master to give the same form to
their letters, the same regularity to their line, and have made our
handwritings as monotonous as are our characters in the present habits
of society. The true physiognomy of writing will be lost among our
rising generation: it is no longer a face that we are looking on, but a
beautiful mask of a single pattern; and the fashionable handwriting of
our young ladies is like the former tight-lacing of their mothers'
youthful days, when every one alike had what was supposed to be a fine
shape!
Assuredly nature would prompt every individual to have a distinct sort
of writing, as she has given a peculiar countenance--a voice--and a
manner. The flexibility of the muscles differs with every individual,
and the hand will follow the direction of the thoughts and the emotions
and the habits of the writers. The phlegmatic will portray his words,
while the playful haste of the volatile will scarcely sketch them; the
slovenly will blot and efface and scrawl, while the neat and
orderly-minded will view themselves in the paper before their eyes. The
merchant's clerk will not write like the lawyer or the poet. Even
nations are distinguished by their writing; the vivacity and
variableness of the Frenchman, and the delicacy and suppleness of the
Italian, are perceptibly distinct from the slowness and strength of pen
discoverable in the phlegmatic German, Dane, and Swede. When we are in
grief, we do not write as we should in joy. The elegant and correct
mind, which has acquired the fortunate habit of a fixity of attention,
will write with scarcely an erasure on the page, as Fenelon, and Gray,
and Gibbon; while we find in Pope's manuscripts the perpetual struggles
of correction, and the eager and rapid interlineations struck off in
heat. Lavater's notion of handwriting is by no means chimerical; nor was
General Paoli fanciful, when he told Mr. Northcote that he had decided
on the character and dispositions of a man from his letters, and the
handwriting.
Long before the days of Lavater, Shenstone in one of his letters said,
"I want to see Mrs. Jago's handwriting, that I may judge of her temper."
One great truth must however be conceded to the opponents of _the
physiognomy of writing_; general rules only can be laid down. Yet the
vital principle must be true that the handwriting bears an analogy to
the character of the writer, as all voluntary actions are characteristic
of the individual. But many causes operate to counteract or obstruct
this result. I am intimately acquainted with the handwritings of five
of our great poets. The first in early life acquired among Scottish
advocates a handwriting which cannot be distinguished from that of his
ordinary brothers; the second, educated in public schools, where writing
is shamefully neglected, composes his sublime or sportive verses in a
school-boy's ragged scrawl, as if he had never finished his tasks with
the writing-master; the third writes his highly-wrought poetry in the
common hand of a merchant's clerk, from early commercial avocations; the
fourth has all that finished neatness which polishes his verses; while
the fifth is a specimen of a full mind, not in the habit of correction
or alteration; so that he appears to be printing down his thoughts,
without a solitary erasure. The handwriting of the _first_ and _third_
poets, not indicative of their character, we have accounted for; the
others are admirable specimens of characteristic autographs.[106]
Oldys, in one of his curious notes, was struck by the distinctness of
character in the handwritings of several of our kings. He observed
nothing further than the mere fact, and did not extend his idea to the
art of judging of the natural character by the writing. Oldys has
described these handwritings with the utmost correctness, as I have
often verified. I shall add a few comments.
"Henry the Eighth wrote a strong hand, but as if he had seldom a good
pen."--The vehemence of his character conveyed itself into his writing;
bold, hasty, and commanding, I have no doubt the assertor of the Pope's
supremacy and its triumphant destroyer split many a good quill.
"Edward the Sixth wrote a fair legible hand."--We have this promising
young prince's diary, written by his own hand; in all respects he was an
assiduous pupil, and he had scarcely learnt to write and to reign when
we lost him.
"Queen Elizabeth writ an upright hand, like the bastard Italian." She
was indeed a most elegant caligrapher, whom Roger Ascham[107] had taught
all the elegancies of the pen. The French editor of the little
autographical work I have noticed has given the autograph of her name,
which she usually wrote in a very large tall character, and painfully
elaborate. He accompanies it with one of the Scottish Mary, who at
times wrote elegantly, though usually in uneven lines; when in haste and
distress of mind, in several letters during her imprisonment which I
have read, much the contrary. The French editor makes this observation:
"Who could believe that these writings are of the same epoch? The first
denotes asperity and ostentation; the second indicates simplicity,
softness, and nobleness. The one is that of Elizabeth, queen of England;
the other that of her cousin, Mary Stuart. The difference of these two
handwritings answers most evidently to that of their characters."
"James the First writ a poor ungainly character, all awry, and not in a
straight line." James certainly wrote a slovenly scrawl, strongly
indicative of that personal negligence which he carried into all the
little things of life; and Buchanan, who had made him an excellent
scholar, may receive the disgrace of his pupil's ugly scribble, which
sprawls about his careless and inelegant letters.
"Charles the First wrote a fair open Italian hand, and more correctly
perhaps than any prince we ever had." Charles was the first of our
monarchs who intended to have domiciliated taste in the kingdom, and it
might have been conjectured from this unfortunate prince, who so finely
discriminated the manners of the different painters, which are in fact
their handwritings, that he would not have been insensible to the
elegancies of the pen.
"Charles the Second wrote a little fair running hand, as if wrote in
haste, or uneasy till he had done." Such was the writing to have been
expected from this illustrious vagabond, who had much to write, often in
odd situations, and could never get rid of his natural restlessness and
vivacity.
"James the Second writ a large fair hand." It is characterised by his
phlegmatic temper, as an exact detailer of occurrences, and the
matter-of-business genius of the writer.
"Queen Anne wrote a fair round hand;" that is the writing she had been
taught by her master, probably without any alteration of manner
naturally suggested by herself; the copying hand of a common
character.[108]
The subject of autographs associates itself with what has been
dignified by its professors as caligraphy, or the art of beautiful
writing. As I have something curious to communicate on that subject
considered professionally, it shall form our following article.