Chapter VIII: Part 8

All these mock offices and festivals among the ancients I consider as organs of the suppressed opinions and feelings of the populace, who were allowed no other, and had not the means of the printing ages to leave any permanent records. At a later period, before the discovery of the art which multiplies with such facility libels or panegyrics, when the people could not speak freely against those rapacious clergy who sheared the fleece and cared not for the sheep, many a secret of popular indignation was confided not to books (for they could not read), but to pictures and sculptures, which are books which the people can always read. The sculptors and illuminators of those times no doubt shared in common the popular feelings, and boldly trusted to the paintings or the carvings which met the eyes of their luxurious and indolent masters their satirical inventions. As far back as in 1300, we find in Wolfius[90] the description of a picture of this kind, in a MS. of AEsop's Fables found in the Abbey of Fulda, among other emblems of the corrupt lives of the churchmen. The present was a wolf, large as life, wearing a monkish cowl, with a shaven crown, preaching to a flock of sheep, with these words of the apostle in a label from his mouth--"God is my witness how I long for you all in my bowels!" And underneath was inscribed--"This hooded wolf is the hypocrite of whom is said in the Gospel, 'Beware of false prophets!'" Such exhibitions were often introduced into articles of furniture. A cushion was found in an old abbey, in which was worked a fox preaching to geese, each goose holding in his bill his praying beads! In the stone wall, and on the columns of the great church at Strasburg, was once viewed a number of wolves, bears, foxes, and other mischievous animals, carrying holy water, crucifixes, and tapers; and others more indelicate. These, probably as old as the year 1300, were engraven in 1617 by a protestant; and were not destroyed till 1685, by the pious rage of the catholics, who seemed at length to have rightly construed these silent lampoons; and in their turn broke to pieces the protestant images, as the others had done the papistical dolls. The carved seats and stalls in our own cathedrals exhibit subjects not only strange and satirical, but even indecent.[91] At the time they built churches they satirised the ministers; a curious instance how the feelings of the people struggle to find a vent. It is conjectured that rival orders satirised each other, and that some of the carvings are caricatures of certain monks. The margins of illuminated manuscripts frequently contain ingenious caricatures, or satirical allegories. In a magnificent chronicle of Froissart I observed several. A wolf, as usual, in a monk's frock and cowl, stretching his paw to bless a cock, bending its head submissively to the wolf: or a fox with a crosier, dropping beads, which a cock is picking up; to satirise the blind devotion of the bigots; perhaps the figure of the cock alluded to our Gallic neighbours. A cat in the habit of a nun, holding a platter in its paws to a mouse approaching to lick it; alluding to the allurements of the abbesses to draw young women into their convents; while sometimes I have seen a sow in an abbess's veil, mounted on stilts: the sex marked by the sow's dugs. A pope sometimes appears to be thrust by devils into a cauldron; and cardinals are seen roasting on spits! These _ornaments_ must have been generally executed by the monks themselves; but these more ingenious members of the ecclesiastical order appear to have sympathised with the people, like the curates in our church, and envied the pampered abbot and the purple bishop. Churchmen were the usual objects of the suppressed indignation of the people in those days; but the knights and feudal lords have not always escaped from the "curses not loud, but deep," of their satirical pencils.

As the Reformation, or rather the Revolution, was hastening, this custom became so general, that in one of the dialogues of Erasmus, where two Franciscans are entertained by their host, it appears that such satirical exhibitions were hung up as common furniture in the apartments of inns. The facetious genius of Erasmus either invents or describes one which he had seen of an ape in the habit of a Franciscan sitting by a sick man's bed, dispensing ghostly counsel, holding up a crucifix in one hand, while with the other he is filching a purse out of the sick man's pocket. Such are "the straws" by which we may always observe from what corner the wind rises! Mr. Dibdin has recently informed us, that Geyler, whom he calls "the herald of the Reformation," preceding Luther by twelve years, had a stone chair or pulpit in the cathedral at Strasburg, from which he delivered his lectures, or rather rolled the thunders of his anathemas against the monks. This stone pulpit was constructed under his own superintendence, and is covered with very indecent figures of monks and nuns, expressly designed by him to expose their profligate manners. We see Geyler doing what for centuries had been done!

In the curious folios of Sauval, the Stowe of France, there is a copious chapter, entitled "_Heretiques, leurs attentats_." In this enumeration of their attempts to give vent to their suppressed indignation, it is very remarkable that, _preceding the time of Luther_, the minds of many were perfectly _Lutheran_ respecting the idolatrous worship of the Roman Church; and what I now notice would have rightly entered into that significant _Historia Reformationis ante Reformationem_, which was formerly projected by continental writers.

Luther did not consign the pope's decretals to the flames till 1520--this was the first open act of reformation and insurrection, for hitherto he had submitted to the court of Rome. Yet in 1490, thirty years preceding this great event, I find a priest burnt for having snatched the host in derision from the hands of another celebrating mass. Twelve years afterwards, 1502, a student repeated the same deed, trampling on it; and in 1523, the resolute death of Anne de Bourg, a counsellor in the parliament of Paris, to use the expression of Sauval, "corrupted the world." It is evident that the Huguenots were fast on the increase. From that period I find continued accounts which prove that the Huguenots of France, like the Puritans of England, were most resolute iconoclasts. They struck off the heads of Virgins and little Jesuses, or blunted their daggers by chipping the wooden saints, which were then fixed at the corners of streets. Every morning discovered the scandalous treatment they had undergone in the night. Then their images were painted on the walls, but these were heretically scratched and disfigured: and, since the saints could not defend themselves, a royal edict was published in their favour, commanding that all holy paintings in the streets should not be allowed short of ten feet from the ground! They entered churches at night, tearing up or breaking down the _prians_, the _benitoires_, the crucifixes, the colossal _ecce-homos_, which they did not always succeed in dislodging for want of time or tools. Amidst these battles with wooden adversaries, we may smile at the frequent solemn processions instituted to ward off the vengeance of the parish saint; the wooden was expiated by a silver image, secured by iron bars and attended by the king and the nobility, carrying the new saint, with prayers that he would protect himself from the heretics!

In an early period of the Reformation, an instance occurs of the art of concealing what we wish only the few should comprehend, at the same time that we are addressing the public. Curious collectors are acquainted with "The Olivetan Bible;" this was the first translation published by the protestants, and there seems no doubt that Calvin was the chief, if not the only translator; but at that moment not choosing to become responsible for this new version, he made use of the name of an obscure relative, Robert Pierre Olivetan. Calvin, however, prefixed a Latin preface, remarkable for delivering positions very opposite to those tremendous doctrines of absolute predestination which, in his theological despotism, he afterwards assumed. De Bure describes this first protestant Bible not only as rare, but, when found, as usually imperfect, much soiled and dog-eared, as the well-read first edition of Shakspeare, by the perpetual use of the multitude. But a curious fact has escaped the detection both of De Bure and Beloe; at the end of the volume are found _ten verses_, which, in a concealed manner, authenticate the translation; and which no one, unless initiated into the secret, could possibly suspect. The verses are not poetical, but I give the first sentence:--

Lecteur entends, si verite adresse
Viens donc ouyr instament sa promesse
Et vif parler----&c.

_The first letters of every word_ of these _ten verses_ form a perfect distich, containing information important to those to whom the Olivetan Bible was addressed.

Les Vaudois, peuple evangelique,
Ont mis ce thresor en publique.

An anagram would have been too inartificial a contrivance to have answered the purpose of concealing from the world at large this secret. There is an adroitness in the invention of the initial letters of all the words through these ten verses. They contained a communication necessary to authenticate the version, but which, at the same time, could not be suspected by any person not intrusted with the secret.

When the art of medal-engraving was revived in Europe, the spirit we are now noticing took possession of those less perishable and more circulating vehicles. Satiric medals were almost unknown to the ancient mint, notwithstanding those of the Saturnalia, and a few which bear miserable puns on the unlucky names of some consuls. Medals illustrate history, and history reflects light on medals; but we should not place such unreserved confidence on medals as their advocates, who are warm in their favourite study. It has been asserted that medals are more authentic memorials than history itself; but a medal is not less susceptible of the bad passions than a pamphlet or an epigram. Ambition has its vanity, and engraves a dubious victory; and Flattery will practise its art, and deceive us in gold! A calumny or a fiction on metal may be more durable than on a fugitive page; and a libel has a better chance of being preserved when the artist is skilful, than simple truths when miserably executed. Medals of this class are numerous, and were the precursors of those political satires exhibited in caricature prints.[92] There is a large collection of wooden cuts about the time of Calvin, where the Romish religion is represented by the most grotesque forms which the ridicule of the early Reformers could invent. More than a thousand figures attest the exuberant satire of the designers. This work is equally rare and costly.[93]

Satires of this species commenced in the freedom of the Reformation; for we find a medal of Luther in a monk's habit, satirically bearing for its reverse Catherine de Bora, the nun whom this monk married; the first step of his personal reformation! Nor can we be certain that Catherine was not more concerned in that great revolution than appears in the voluminous Lives we have of the great reformer. However, the reformers were as great sticklers for medals as the "papelins." Of Pope John VIII., an effeminate voluptuary, we have a medal with his portrait, inscribed _Pope Joan!_ and another of Innocent X., dressed as a woman holding a spindle; the reverse, his famous mistress, Donna Olympia, dressed as a Pope, with the tiara on her head, and the keys of St. Peter in her hands![94]

When, in the reign of Mary, England was groaning under Spanish influence, and no remonstrance could reach the throne, the queen's person and government were made ridiculous to the people's eyes by prints or pictures "representing her majesty naked, meagre, withered, and wrinkled, with every aggravated circumstance of deformity that could disgrace a female figure, seated in a regal chair; a crown on her head, surrounded with M. R. and A. in capitals, accompanied by small letters; _Maria Regina Angliae!_ a number of Spaniards were sucking her to skin and bone, and a specification was added of the money, rings, jewels, and other presents with which she had secretly gratified her husband Philip."[95] It is said that the queen suspected some of her own council of this invention, who alone were privy to these transactions. It is, however, in this manner that the voice which is suppressed by authority comes at length in another shape to the eye.

The age of Elizabeth, when the Roman pontiff and all his adherents were odious to the people, produced a remarkable caricature, and ingenious invention--a gorgon's head! A church bell forms the helmet; the ornaments, instead of the feathers, are a wolf's head in a mitre devouring a lamb, an ass's head with spectacles reading, a goose holding a rosary: the face is made out with a fish for the nose, a chalice and water for the eye, and other priestly ornaments for the shoulder and breast, on which rolls of parchment pardons hang.[96]

A famous bishop of Munster, Bernard de Galen, who, in his charitable violence for converting protestants, got himself into such celebrity that he appears to have served as an excellent _sign-post_ to the inns in Germany, was the true church militant: and his figure was exhibited according to the popular fancy. His head was half mitre and half helmet; a crosier in one hand and a sabre in the other; half a rochet and half a cuirass: he was made performing mass as a dragoon on horseback, and giving out the charge when he ought the _Ite, missa est!_ He was called the _converter!_ and the "Bishop of Munster" became popular as a sign-post in German towns; for the people like fighting men, though they should even fight against themselves.

It is rather curious to observe of this new species of satire, so easily distributed among the people, and so directly addressed to their understandings, that it was made the vehicle of national feeling. Ministers of state condescended to invent the devices. Lord Orford says that _caricatures on cards_ were the invention of George Townshend in the affair of Byng, which was soon followed by a pack. I am informed of an ancient pack of cards which has caricatures of all the Parliamentarian Generals, which might be not unusefully shuffled by a writer of secret history.[97] We may be surprised to find the grave Sully practising this artifice on several occasions. In the civil wars of France the Duke of Savoy had taken by surprise Saluces, and struck a medal; on the reverse a centaur appears shooting with a bow and arrow, with the legend _Opportune!_ But when Henry the Fourth had reconquered the town, he published another, on which Hercules appears killing the centaur, with the word _Opportunius_. The great minister was the author of this retort![98] A medal of the Dutch ambassador at the court of France, Van Beuninghen, whom the French represent as a haughty burgomaster, but who had the vivacity of a Frenchman and the haughtiness of a Spaniard, as Voltaire characterises him, is said to have been the occasion of the Dutch war in 1672; but wars will be hardly made for an idle medal. Medals may, however, indicate a preparatory war. Louis the Fourteenth was so often compared to the sun at its meridian, that some of his creatures may have imagined that, like the sun, he could dart into any part of Europe as he willed, and be as cheerfully received.[99] The Dutch minister, whose Christian name was _Joshua_, however, had a medal struck of Joshua stopping the sun in his course, inferring that this miracle was operated by his little republic. The medal itself is engraven in Van Loon's voluminous _Histoire Medallique du Pays Bas_, and in Marchand's _Dictionnaire Historique_, who labours to prove against twenty authors that the Dutch ambassador was not the inventor; it was not, however, unworthy of him, and it conveyed to the world the high feeling of her power which Holland had then assumed. Two years after the noise about this medal the republic paid dear for the device; but thirty years afterwards this very burgomaster concluded a glorious peace, and France and Spain were compelled to receive the mediation of the Dutch Joshua with the French Sun.[100] In these vehicles of national satire, it is odd that the phlegmatic Dutch, more than any other nation, and from the earliest period of their republic, should have indulged freely, if not licentiously. It was a republican humour. Their taste was usually gross. We owe to them, even in the reign of Elizabeth, a severe medal on Leicester, who, having retired in disgust from the government of their provinces, struck a medal with his bust, reverse a dog and sheep,

_Non gregem, sed ingratos invitus desero_;

on which the angry juvenile states struck another, representing an ape and young ones; reverse, Leicester near a fire,

_Fugiens fumum, incidit in ignem._

Another medal, with an excellent portrait of Cromwell, was struck by the Dutch. The Protector, crowned with laurels, is on his knees, laying his head in the lap of the commonwealth, but loosely exhibiting himself to the French and Spanish ambassadors with gross indecency: the Frenchman, covered with _fleur de lis_, is pushing aside the grave Don, and disputes with him the precedence--_Retire-toy; l'honneur appartient au roy mon maitre, Louis le Grand_. Van Loon is very right in denouncing this same medal, so grossly flattering to the English, as most detestable and indelicate! But why does Van Loon envy us this lumpish invention? why does the Dutchman quarrel with his own cheese? The honour of the medal we claim, but the invention belongs to his country. The Dutch went on commenting in this manner on English affairs from reign to reign. Charles the Second declared war against them in 1672 for a malicious medal, though the States-General offered to break the die, by purchasing it of the workman for one thousand ducats; but it served for a pretext for a Dutch war, which Charles cared more about than the _mala bestia_ of his exergue. Charles also complained of a scandalous picture which the brothers de Witt had in their house, representing a naval battle with the English. Charles the Second seems to have been more sensible to this sort of national satire than we might have expected in a professed wit; a race, however, who are not the most patient in having their own sauce returned to their lips. The king employed Evelyn to write a history of the Dutch war, and "enjoined him _to make it a little keen_, for the Hollanders had very unhandsomely abused him in their pictures, books, and libels." The Dutch continued their career of conveying their national feeling on English affairs more triumphantly when their Stadtholder ascended an English throne. The birth of the Pretender is represented by the chest which Minerva gave to the daughters of Cecrops to keep, and which, opened, discovered an infant with a serpent's tail: _Infantemque vident apporrectumque draconem_; the chest perhaps alluding to the removes of the warming-pan; and, in another, James and a Jesuit flying in terror, the king throwing away a crown and sceptre, and the Jesuit carrying a child; _Ite missa est_, the words applied from the mass.[101] But in these contests of national feeling, while the grandeur of Louis the Fourteenth did not allow of these ludicrous and satirical exhibitions, and while the political idolatry which his forty Academicians paid to him exhausted itself in the splendid fictions of a series of famous medals, amounting to nearly four hundred, it appears that we were not without our reprisals; for I find Prosper Marchand, who writes as a Hollander, censuring his own country for having at length adulated the grand monarque by a complimentary medal. He says--"The English cannot be reproached with a similar _debonairete_." After the famous victories of Marlborough, they indeed inserted in a medal the head of the French monarch and the English queen, with this inscription, _Ludovicus Magnus, Anna Major_. Long ere this one of our queens had been exhibited by ourselves with considerable energy. On the defeat of the Armada, Elizabeth, Pinkerton tells us, struck a medal representing the English and Spanish fleets, _Hesperidum regem devicit virgo_. Philip had medals dispersed in England of the same impression, with this addition, _Negatur. Est meretrix vulgi._ These the queen suppressed, but published another medal, with this legend:--

Hesperidum regem devicit virgo; negatur,
Est meretrix vulgi; res eo deterior.

An age fertile in satirical prints was the eventful aera of Charles the First: they were showered from all parties, and a large collection of them would admit of a critical historical commentary, which might become a vehicle of the most curious secret history. Most of them are in a bad style, for they are allegorical; yet that these satirical exhibitions influenced the eyes and minds of the people is evident from an extraordinary circumstance. Two grave collections of historical documents adopted them. We are surprised to find prefixed to Rushworth's and Nalson's historical collections two such political prints! Nalson's was an act of retributive justice; but he seems to have been aware that satire in the shape of pictures is a language very attractive to the multitude, for he has introduced a caricature print in the solemn folio of the Trial of Charles the First.[102] Of the happiest of these political prints is one by Taylor the Water-poet, not included in his folio, but prefixed to his "Mad Fashions, Odd Fashions, or the Emblems of these Distracted Times." It is the figure of a man whose eyes have left their sockets, and whose legs have usurped the place of his arms; a horse on his hind legs is drawing a cart; a church is inverted; fish fly in the air; a candle burns with the flame downwards; and the mouse and rabbit are pursuing the cat and the fox!

The animosities of national hatred have been a fertile source of these vehicles of popular feeling--which discover themselves in severe or grotesque caricatures. The French and the Spaniards mutually exhibit one another under the most extravagant figures. The political caricatures of the French in the seventeenth century are numerous. The _badauds_ of Paris amused themselves for their losses by giving an emetic to a Spaniard, to make him render up all the towns his victories had obtained: seven or eight Spaniards are seen seated around a large turnip, with their frizzled mustachios, their hats _en pot-a-beurre_; their long rapiers, with their pummels down to their feet, and their points up to their shoulders; their ruffs stiffened by many rows, and pieces of garlick stuck in their girdles. The Dutch were exhibited in as great variety as the uniformity of frogs would allow. We have largely participated in the vindictive spirit which these grotesque emblems keep up among the people; they mark the secret feelings of national pride. The Greeks despised foreigners, and considered them only as fit to be slaves;[103] the ancient Jews, inflated with a false idea of their small territory, would be masters of the world: the Italians placed a line of demarcation for genius and taste, and marked it by their mountains. The Spaniards once imagined that the conferences of God with Moses on Mount Sinai were in the Spanish language. If a Japanese become the friend of a foreigner, he is considered as committing treason to his emperor, and rejected as a false brother in a country which, we are told, is figuratively called _Tenka_, or the Kingdom under the Heavens. John Bullism is not peculiar to Englishmen; and patriotism is a noble virtue when it secures our independence without depriving us of our humanity.

The civil wars of the League in France, and those in England under Charles the First, bear the most striking resemblance; and in examining the revolutionary scenes exhibited by the graver in the famous _Satire Menippee_, we discover the foreign artist revelling in the _caricature_ of his ludicrous and severe exhibition; and in that other revolutionary period of _La Fronde_, there was a mania for _political songs_; the curious have formed them into collections; and we not only have "the Rump Songs" of Charles the First's times, but have repeated this kind of evidence of the public feeling at many subsequent periods.[104] _Caricatures_ and _political songs_ might with us furnish a new sort of history; and perhaps would preserve some truths, and describe some particular events not to be found in more grave authorities.

FOOTNOTES:

[89] Baudelot de Dairval, _de l'Utilite des Voyages_, ii. 645. There
is a work, by Ficoroni, on these lead _coins_ or _tickets_. They are
found in the cabinets of the curious medallist. Pinkerton, in
referring to this entertaining work, regrets that "such curious
remains have almost escaped the notice of medallists, and have not
yet been arranged in one class, or named. A special work on them
would be highly acceptable." The time has perhaps arrived when
antiquaries may begin to be philosophers, and philosophers
antiquaries! The unhappy separation of erudition from philosophy,
and of philosophy from erudition, has hitherto thrown impediments in
the progress of the human mind and the history of man.

[90] Lect. Mem. i. ad. an. 1300.

[91] Many specimens may be seen in Carter's curious volumes on
"Ancient Architecture and Painting."

[92] The series published during the wars in the Low Countries are
the most remarkable, and may be seen in the volumes by Van Loon.

[93] Mr. Douce possessed a portion of this very curious collection:
for a complete one De Bure asked about twenty pounds.

[94] The Roman satirists also invented a tale to ridicule what they
dared not openly condemn, in which it was asserted that a play
called _The Marriage of the Pope_ was enacted before Cromwell, in
which the Donna having obtained the key of Paradise from Innocent,
insists on that of Purgatory also, that she may not be sent there
when he is wearied of her. "The wedding" is then kept by a ball of
monks and nuns, delighted to think they may one day marry also. Such
was the means the Romans took to notify their sense of the
degradation of the pope.

[95] Warton's "Life of Sir Thomas Pope," p. 58.

[96] This ancient caricature, so descriptive of the popular feelings,
is tolerably given in Malcolm's history of "Caricaturing," plate ii.
fig. 1.

[97] This pack was probably executed in Holland in the time of
Charles the Second. There are other sets of political cards of the
same reign, particularly one connected with the so-called "popish
plots," and the murder of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey. The South-Sea
Bubble was made the subject of a similar pack, after it had
exploded.

[98] The royal house of Navarre was fancifully derived by the old
heraldic writers from Hispalus, the son of Hercules; and the pageant
provided by the citizens of Avignon to greet his entrance there in
1600, was entirely composed in reference thereto, and Henry
indicated in its title, _L'Hercule Gaulois Triumphant_.

[99] He took for a device and motto on his shield on the occasion of
tilting-matches and court festivities, a representation of the sun
in splendour, and the words, _Nec Pluribus Impar_.

[100] The history of this medal is useful in more than one respect;
and may be found in Prosper Marchand.

[101] Another represents the young prince holding the symbol of the
Romish faith in his right hand, and crowning himself with the left;
Truth opens a door below and discovers Father Petre, as the guiding
influence of all.

[102] It represents Cromwell as an armed monster, carrying the three
kingdoms captive at his feet in a triumphal car driven by the devil
over the body of liberty, and the decapitated Charles I. The state
of the people is emblematized by a bird flying from its cage to be
devoured by a hawk; and sheep breaking from the fold to be set on by
ravening wolves.

[103] A passage may be found in Aristotle's Politics, vol. i. c.
3-7; where Aristotle advises Alexander to govern the Greeks like his
_subjects_, and the barbarians like _slaves_; for that the one he
was to consider as companions, and the other as creatures of an
inferior race.

[104] The following may be mentioned as the most important of these
collections:--

"Rome rhymed to Death." 1683.

"A Collection of the newest and most ingenious Poems, Songs,
Catches, &c, against Popery." 1689.

"Poems on Affairs of State." 1703-7.

"Whig and Tory; or, Wit on both sides." 1712.

"Political Merriment; or, Truths told to some Tune." 1714.

AUTOGRAPHS.[105]

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.

FOOTNOTES:

[105] A small volume which I met with at Paris, entitled "L'Art de
juger du Caractere des Hommes sur leurs Ecritures," is curious for
its illustrations, consisting of _twenty-four plates, exhibiting
fac-similes of the writing of eminent and other persons_, correctly
taken from the original autographs. Since this period both France
and Germany have produced many books devoted to the use of the
curious in autographs. In our own country J.T. Smith published a
curious collection of fac-similes of letters, chiefly from literary
characters.

[106] It will be of interest to the reader to note the names of
these poets in the consecutive order they are alluded to. They are
Scott, Byron, Rogers, Moore, and Campbell.

[107] He was also the tutor of Lady Jane Grey, and the author of one
of our earliest and best works on education.

[108] Since this article was written, Nichols has published a
cleverly-executed series of autographs of royal, noble, and
illustrious persons of Great Britain, in which the reader may study
the accuracy of the criticism above given.

THE HISTORY OF WRITING-MASTERS.

There is a very apt letter from James the First to Prince Henry when very young, on the neatness and fairness of his handwriting. The royal father suspecting that the prince's tutor, Mr., afterwards Sir Adam, Newton, had helped out the young prince in the composition, and that in this specimen of caligraphy he had relied also on the pains of Mr. Peter Bales, the great writing-master, for touching up his letters, his majesty shows a laudable anxiety that the prince should be impressed with the higher importance of the one over the other. James shall himself speak. "I confess I long to receive a letter from you that may be wholly yours, as well matter as form; as well formed by your mind as drawn by your fingers; for ye may remember, that in my book to you I warn you to beware with (of) that kind of wit that may fly out at the end of your fingers; not that I commend not a fair handwriting; _sed hoc facito, illud non omittito_: and the other is _multo magis praecipuum_." Prince Henry, indeed, wrote with that elegance which he borrowed from his own mind; and in an age when such minute elegance was not universal among the crowned heads of Europe. Henry IV., on receiving a letter from Prince Henry, immediately opened it, a custom not usual with him, and comparing the writing with the signature, to decide whether it were of one hand, Sir George Carew, observing the French King's hesitation, called Mr. Douglas to testify to the fact; on which Henry the Great, admiring an art in which he had little skill, and looking on the neat elegance of the writing before him, politely observed, "I see that in writing fair, as in other things, the elder must yield to the younger."

Had this anecdote of neat writing reached the professors of caligraphy, who in this country have put forth such painful panegyrics on the art, these royal names had unquestionably blazoned their pages. Not indeed that these penmen require any fresh inflation; for never has there been a race of professors in any art who have exceeded in solemnity and pretensions the practitioners in this simple and mechanical craft. I must leave to more ingenious investigators of human nature to reveal the occult cause which has operated such powerful delusions on these "Vive la Plume!" men, who have been generally observed to possess least intellectual ability in proportion to the excellence they have obtained in their own art. I suspect this maniacal vanity is peculiar to the writing-masters of England; and I can only attribute the immense importance which they have conceived of their art to the perfection to which they have carried the art of short-hand writing; an art which was always better understood, and more skilfully practised, in England than in any other country. It will surprise some when they learn that the artists in verse and colours, poets and painters, have not raised loftier pretensions to the admiration of mankind. Writing-masters, or caligraphers, have had their engraved "effigies," with a Fame in flourishes, a pen in one hand and a trumpet in the other; and fine verses inscribed, and their very lives written! They have compared

The nimbly-turning of their silver quill

to the beautiful in art and the sublime in invention; nor is this wonderful, since they discover the art of writing, like the invention of language, in a divine original; and from the tablets of stone which the Deity himself delivered, they trace their German broad text, or their fine running-hand. One, for "the bold striking of those words, _Vive la Plume_," was so sensible of the reputation that this last piece of command of hand would give the book which he thus adorned, and which his biographer acknowledges was the product of about a minute,--(but then how many years of flourishing had that single minute cost him!)--that he claims the glory of an artist; observing,--

We seldom find
The _man of business_ with the _artist_ join'd.

Another was flattered that his _writing_ could impart immortality to the most wretched compositions!--

And any lines prove pleasing, when you write.

Sometimes the caligrapher is a sort of hero:--

To you, you rare commander of the quill,
Whose wit and worth, deep learning, and high skill,
Speak you the honour of Great Tower Hill!

The last line became traditionally adopted by those who were so lucky as to live in the neighbourhood of this Parnassus. But the reader must form some notion of that charm of caligraphy which has so bewitched its professors, when,

Soft, bold, and free, your manuscripts still please.

How justly bold in SNELL'S improving hand
The pen at once joins freedom with command!
With softness strong, with ornaments not vain,
Loose with proportion, and with neatness plain;
Not swell'd, not full, complete in every part,
And artful most, when not affecting art.

And these describe those pencilled knots and flourishes, "the angels, the men, the birds, and the beasts," which, as one of them observed, he could

Command
Even by the _gentle motion of his hand_,

all the _speciosa miracula_ of caligraphy;

Thy _tender strokes_, inimitably fine,
Crown with perfection every _flowing line_;
And to each _grand performance_ add a grace,
As _curling hair_ adorns a beauteous face:
In every page _new fancies_ give delight,
And _sporting round the margin_ charm the sight.

One Massey, a writing-master, published in 1763, "The Origin and Progress of Letters." The great singularity of this volume is "a new species of biography never attempted before in English." This consists of the lives of "English Penmen," otherwise writing-masters! If some have foolishly enough imagined that the sedentary lives of authors are void of interest from deficient incident and interesting catastrophe, what must they think of the barren labours of those who, in the degree they become eminent, to use their own style, in the art of "dish, dash, long-tail fly," the less they become interesting to the public; for what can the most skilful writing-master do but wear away his life in leaning over his pupil's copy, or sometimes snatch a pen to decorate the margin, though he cannot compose the page? Montaigne has a very original notion on writing-masters: he says that some of those caligraphers who had obtained promotion by their excellence in the art, afterwards _affected to write carelessly, lest their promotion should be suspected to have been owing to such an ordinary acquisition_!

Massey is an enthusiast, fortunately for his subject. He considers that there are _schools of writing_, as well as of painting or sculpture; and expatiates with the eye of fraternal feeling on "a natural genius, a tender stroke, a grand performance, a bold striking freedom, and a liveliness in the sprigged letters, and pencilled knots and flourishes;" while this Vasari of writing-masters relates the controversies and the libels of many a rival pen-nibber. "George Shelley, one of the most celebrated worthies who have made a shining figure in the commonwealth of English caligraphy, born I suppose of obscure parents, because brought up in Christ's Hospital, yet under the humble blue-coat he laid the foundation of his caligraphic excellence and lasting fame, for he was elected writing-master to the hospital." Shelley published his "Natural Writing;" but, alas! Snell, another blue-coat, transcended the other. He was a genius who would "bear no brother near the throne."--"I have been informed that there were jealous heart-burnings, if not bickerings, between him and Col. Ayres, another of our _great reformers_ in the writing commonweal, both eminent men, yet, _like_ our most celebrated poets _Pope and Addison_, or, to carry the comparison still higher, like _Caesar and Pompey_, one could bear no superior, and the other no equal." Indeed, the great Snell practised a little stratagem against Mr. Shelley, for which, if writing-masters held courts-martial, this hero ought to have appeared before his brothers. In one of his works he procured a number of friends to write letters, in which Massey confesses "are some satyrical strokes upon Shelley," as if he had arrogated too much to himself in his book of "Natural Writing." They find great fault with pencilled knots and sprigged letters. Shelley, who was an advocate for ornaments in fine penmanship, which Snell utterly rejected, had parodied a well-known line of Herbert's in favour of his favourite decorations:--

A _Knot_ may take him who from _letters_ flies,
And turn _delight_ into an _exercise_.

These reflections created ill-blood, and even an open difference amongst several of the _superior artists in writing_. The commanding genius of Snell had a more terrific contest when he published his "Standard Rules," pretending to have _demonstrated_ them as Euclid would. "This proved a bone of contention, and occasioned a terrific quarrel between Mr. Snell and Mr. Clark. This quarrel about 'Standard Rules' ran so high between them, that they could scarce forbear _scurrilous language_ therein, and a treatment of each other unbecoming _gentlemen_! Both sides in this dispute had their abettors; and to say which had the most truth and reason, _non nostrum est tantas componere lites_; perhaps _both parties might be too fond of their own schemes_. They should have left them to people to choose which they liked best." A candid politician is our Massey, and a philosophical historian too; for he winds up the whole story of this civil war by describing its result, which happened as all such great controversies have ever closed. "Who now-a-days takes those _Standard Rules_, either one or the other, for their _guide_ in writing?" This is the finest lesson ever offered to the furious heads of parties, and to all their men; let them meditate on the nothingness of their "Standard Rules," by the fate of Mr. Snell.

It was to be expected, when once these writing-masters imagined that they were artists, that they would be infected with those plague-spots of genius--envy, detraction, and all the _jalousie du metier_. And such to this hour we find them! An extraordinary scene of this nature has long been exhibited in my neighbourhood, where two doughty champions of the quill have been posting up libels in their windows respecting the inventor of _a new art of writing_, the Carstairian, or the Lewisian? When the great German philosopher asserted that he had discovered the method of fluxions before Sir Isaac, and when the dispute grew so violent that even the calm Newton sent a formal defiance in set terms, and got even George the Second to try to arbitrate (who would rather have undertaken a campaign), the method of fluxions was no more cleared up than the present affair between our two heroes of the quill.

A recent instance of one of these egregious caligraphers may be told of the late Tomkins. This vainest of writing-masters dreamed through life that penmanship was one of the fine arts, and that a writing-master should be seated with his peers in the Academy! He bequeathed to the British Museum his _opus magnum_--a copy of Macklin's Bible, profusely embellished with the most beautiful and varied decorations of his pen; and as he conceived that both the workman and the work would alike be darling objects with posterity, he left something immortal with the legacy, his fine bust, by Chantrey, unaccompanied by which they were not to receive the unparalleled gift! When Tomkins applied to have his bust, our great sculptor abated the usual price, and, courteously kind to the feelings of the man, said that he considered Tomkins as an artist! It was the proudest day of the life of our writing-master!

But an eminent artist and wit now living, once looking on this fine bust of Tomkins, declared, that "this man had died for want of a dinner!"--a fate, however, not so lamentable as it appeared! Our penman had long felt that he stood degraded in the scale of genius by not being received at the Academy, at least among the class of _engravers_; the next approach to academic honour he conceived would be that of appearing as a _guest_ at their annual dinner. These invitations are as limited as they are select, and all the Academy persisted in considering Tomkins _as a writing-master_! Many a year passed, every intrigue was practised, every remonstrance was urged, every stratagem of courtesy was tried; but never ceasing to deplore the failure of his hopes, it preyed on his spirits, and the luckless caligrapher went down to his grave--without dining at the Academy! This authentic anecdote has been considered as "satire improperly directed"--by some friend of Mr. Tomkins--but the criticism is much too grave! The foible of Mr. Tomkins as a writing-master presents a striking illustration of the class of men here delineated. I am a mere historian--and am only responsible for the veracity of this fact. That "Mr. Tomkins lived in familiar intercourse with the Royal Academicians of his day, and was a frequent guest at their private tables," and moreover was a most worthy man, I believe--but is it less true that he was ridiculously mortified by being never invited to the Academic dinner, on account of his caligraphy? He had some reason to consider that his art was of the exalted class to which he aspired to raise it, when this friend concludes his eulogy of this writing-master thus--"Mr. Tomkins, as an artist, stood foremost in his own profession, and his name will be handed down to posterity with the _Heroes_ and _Statesmen_, whose excellences his _penmanship_ has contributed to illustrate and to commemorate." I always give the _Pour_ and the _Contre_!

Such men about such things have produced public contests, _combats a l'outrance_, where much ink was spilled by the knights in a joust of goose-quills; these solemn trials have often occurred in the history of writing-masters, which is enlivened by public defiances, proclamations, and judicial trials by umpires! The prize was usually a golden pen of some value. One as late as in the reign of Anne took place between Mr. German and Mr. More. German having courteously insisted that Mr. More should set the copy, he thus set it, ingeniously quaint!

As more, and MORE, our understanding clears,
So more and more our ignorance appears.

The result of this pen-combat was really lamentable; they displayed such an equality of excellence that the umpires refused to decide, till one of them espied that Mr. German had omitted the tittle of an i! But Mr. More was evidently a man of genius, not only by his couplet, but in his "Essay on the Invention of Writing," where occurs this noble passage: "Art with me is of no party. A noble emulation I would cherish, while it proceeded neither from, nor to malevolence. Bales had his Johnson, Norman his Mason, Ayres his Matlock and his Shelley; yet Art the while was no sufferer. The busybody who officiously employs himself in creating misunderstandings between artists, may be compared to a turn-stile, which stands in every man's way, yet hinders nobody; and he is the slanderer who gives ear to the slander."[109]