Next to the sex, the age of a writer may be guessed at with most certainty, from the chirograph. If the gods had made me poetical, I would paraphrase the seven ages of Shakspeare, (omitting, of course, the infant in his nurse's arms,) with reference to this theme. But I must leave it to some fitter minstrel.' There are, however, more exceptions to this, than to the former proposition. Some people write a puerile hand all their lives: and the gravest maxims, the profoundest thoughts, the most abstruse reasonings, have sometimes been originally embodied in signs as fantastical, as the scrawl made in sport by a child. On the other hand, men of regular temperament, and methodical habits of business, will acquire a formed and deliberate character, in their hand-writing, which is often not impaired until extreme age.

The nation, profession, and other accidental properties of a person, may also, perhaps, be discovered in a majority of instances, from his chirograph. But it is obvious that there is no mystery in this, which philosophy need be invoked to elucidate. Mr. Owen's doctrine of circumstances will explain it very satisfactorily. I am only disposed to deny that the bent of natural inclination, or the predominance or deficiency of any intellectual quality can be ascertained by this

test. I have never met with any one who possessed the art of divination in this way; nor, as the theory cannot be proved by any process of reasoning from first principles, can it be supported by a fair examination of any miscellaneous collection of autographs. Imagination may carry

us a great way, and suggest resemblances of its own creation, between the characters of men known in history and fac-similes of their autographs. But, divesting ourselves of its influence, let us look at the signatures to the death-warrant of Charles I., or the declaration of American independence;-which instruments I do not bring into juxtaposition irreverently, but because every one has seen them. I believe it will be impossible, without the aid of fancy, from recorded facts in the lives of those who subscribed these documents, compared with the peculiarities of their signs manual, to found an honest induction in support of this hypothesis.

Some conceited people try to write as badly as they can, because they have heard and believe, that it is a proof of genius. While all will admit that this notion is very absurd, it is still generally believed that men of genius do write in a very obscure, infirm, or eccentric character: and we are told of a thousand familiar instances; such as Byron, and Chalmers, and Jeffrey, and Buona

parte, etc. A goodly assortment in the same lot! One thing is very certain, that those who write a great deal for the press will soon write very badly; without its being necessary to ascribe that circumstance to intellectual organization. Buonaparte had no time, when dictating to six clerks at once, or signing treaties on horseback, to cultivate a clear running hand. Distinguished as he was above other men, in his fame and in his fortunes, I believe we may also concede to him the honour of having written the worst possible hand, decipherable by human ingenuity. And when we find, from the fac-similes of some of his early despatches, how abominably he spelt, as well as wrote, we are led to infer, that a defective education, and an eagle-eyed ambition which soon began to gaze too steadily at the sun to regard the motes in the atmosphere, will sufficiently account for a matter of such small importance to so great a man, without resorting to 'metaphysical aid,' to account for his bad writing.

The hand-writing of an individual is not as much connected with the machinery of his mind, as is the effect of any other personal habit. Neat people do not always write neatly; and some very slovenly persons, whom I have known, were distinguished for a remarkably elegant formation of their letters. Affectation, on the contrary, being

out of nature, will always betray itself in this particular, as in every other.

I am disposed also to treat, as a fond chimera, a notion I have often heard expressed, that there is a natural gentility appertaining to the chirographs of nature's aristocracy; supposing such a phrase to be proper. Every thing else about a gentleman's letter will furnish better hints as to his breeding and quality, than the character of his hand-writing. Set a well taught boot-black and a gentleman down to copy the same sentence, on pieces of paper of like shape and texture, and few of your conjurors in autographs will be able to guess, from the specimens, which is the gentleman and which is the boot-black.

But to leave this drouthy and prosing disquisition, I am minded to illustrate both the evils and the advantages of bad or illegible writing, by incidents which have occurred, or are easily supposable, in real life. My poor old master, against whose memory I cherish no malice, notwithstanding his frequent fustigation of my youthful knuckles, when he despaired of my profiting either by the unction of his precepts or the sore application of his ruler, endeavoured to frighten me into amendment by examples. He composed for my use a digested chronicle of casualties, which had befallen those who perpe

trated unseemly scrawls; and, after the manner of Swift, entitled his tract, "God's revenge against Cacography." I have long since lost the precious gift; but I have not forgotten all the legends it contained.

The tale is old of the English gentleman, who had procured for his friend a situation in the service of the East India Company, and was put to unprofitable expense by misreading an epistle, in which the latter endeavoured to express his gratitude. 66 Having," said the absentee, “been thus placed in a post, where I am sure of a regular salary, and have it in my power, while I enjoy health, to lay up something every year to provide for the future, I am not unmindful of my benefactor, and mean soon to send you an equivalent." Such a rascally hand did this grateful Indian write, that the gentleman thought he meant soon to send him an elephant. He erected a large outhouse for the unwieldy pet; but never got any thing to put in it, except a little pot of sweetmeats, and an additional bundle of compliments.

Few who read the newspapers have not seen an anecdote of an amateur of queer animals, who sent an order to Africa for two monkeys. The word two, as he wrote it, so much resembled the figures 100, that his literal and single-minded agent was somewhat perplexed in executing this

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