66

versed with Lord Wellesley and others with have to live?' When the physician hesitatunabated vigour on subjects of public inter- ed, and muttered something, that it was est. But the excitement was too much, and certain he was much indisposed, but that he fainted away. From that day, the 14th many had recovered who had been as ill, of January, he kept the house. The physi- and he might yet perhaps be restored to cians at first buoyed themselves with hopes health, Pitt fixed his penetrating eye on that their skill might save him. But on the him, and quietly asked him to leave the 19th a typhoid fever set in, and all hope dis- room. He then turned himself to the side appeared. We borrow what remains of the on which the bishop was standing, and looked story from the narrative given by the Bishop steadily at him. The bishop renewed his of Lincoln at the time to the Dean of Carl- offer to read a prayer suited to so solemn an isle. The bishop had often pressed the occasion. Pitt replied, I have lived so physicians to allow him to inform' Mr. Pitt much in the habitual neglect of prayer, that of his danger; but he had been constantly I think it almost unbecoming, and, I fear, refused by them. At length, on Wednes- unavailing to pray now.' The bishop day, January 22nd (Pitt died on the 23rd), answered this remark, and read some of the his physicians told the bishop that it was prayers of our Liturgy. There was then a nearly over, and that he might say what he long and deep silence; and after this Pitt pleased. On this the bishop desired admit- said, I am sure I have had great infirmities, tance into Mr. Pitt's room, and he and one and done many things that I wish I had not of the physicians entered it together. Mr. done; but I have tried to follow God's will, Pitt,' the physician said, 'the Bishop of and,' clasping his hands with great energy, Lincoln is here.' Pitt opening his eyes, I cast myself on the mercies of God, said, 'Well?' in a tone that expressed, through the merits of Jesus Christ."" 'What is there in that?' The bishop then said, 'Mr. Pitt, I am sorry to find you so poorly this morning: I should much wish to read a prayer to you.' In an instant Pitt turned to the other side of the bed, and said to his physician, 'How long do you think I

*The bishop toned down this narrative in his biography, and Lord Stanhope has naturally adopted his account; but ours comes from contemporary sources remarkable for their accuracy, and there is no doubt that the scene occurred as here described.

On the following day Pitt died; and it is said that a servant, sent the same day from Wimbledon to inquire after his health, finding no one to answer his inquiries, wandered into the house, went from room to room, till, in the bedroom upstairs which looks with its bow-window to the west over the heath, he found the body of him, who a few hours before had filled England with hope and France with fear, stretched in that deep stillness which gives to death its awful power.

From the Spectator.

AUTOGRAPHS.*

him either a decided man or a decided gentleman, he is allowed to pass for a very gentlemanlike man. Again, some scholars and THE love of collecting autographs, if gentlemen are always hurried, and cannot it has sometimes been pursued without afford time to write legibly. We see hands much taste or meaning, has never sunk to the rank of a mere mania, like the tulip going through a gradual change under increased pressure, and the beautiful coppermania of the seventeenth and the postage-plate of youth becoming the reckless scribstamp mania of the nineteenth century. ble of manhood. Charles Knight describes There is always a pleasure in contemplating the undignified rush of Lord Chancellor the handwriting of persons whom you respect or admire, and the mind is led on in- Brougham from his robing room to the woolsack, with grave officials puffing scandalized sensibly to associate certain characteristics after him. The characteristics of Broughwith handwriting from reading those same am's handwriting, as we see it here, are just characteristics in lives or faces. We do not the same; it is a hasty, dashing scrawl; the speak of the art of cheiromancy, which, words have been thrown at the paper, inthough practised with apparent success by stead of being written upon it, and have individuals, seems to us rather random and stuck there as they best could without asuncertain. Like phrenology, it presents some sistance. Compare with this the ladylike good facts and some basis to go upon, but it hand of Croker, the Quarterly with the Edis too much exploité by people who are ig-inburgh. And yet Croker was hardly ladynorant of its first rules, and only care to like, except in the qualities of spite and petmake it agreeable to their customers. But tishness, which are always assigned to woleaving this out of the question, and treating a man's handwriting as something be- man by her enemies. In cases like these the official hand explains much, as does the longing to him, and therefore some index to business hand in the case of Rogers. Often his character, it is impossible not to be struck there is a family hand, and sons write like by its peculiarities. The most careless read- their fathers, however unlike they may be er, in turning over the lithographed leaves of this handsome volume, would see the dif- in character. It is difficult to avoid conference between a hand like Thackeray's structing a theory of character and handand one like the late Duke of Cleveland's. writing from a comparison of the letters of Chatham and William Pitt; we seem to A comparison between the neat hand of read at once their likeness and their differRogers and the scraggy sprawling hand of ence. But when we enlarge the field of Byron, has much the same effect as reading Lara and Jacqueline together must have had comparison, and take in several nationaliwhen they were first published in one vol- ties, as we must in examining this volume, That "joint concern summut like we find another qualifying influence. There is a distinct nationality in handwriting, as Sternhold and Hopkins," as it was described distinct as in speech and manners. Of course by a passenger in the Brighton coach, would no doubt have looked still more unnatural the Germans, who use a character of their in autograph. Rogers' hand is as calm, la- own, write differently from all other European nations, but the French, the Italians, boured, and regular as his poetry, Byron's the Spaniards, the English, have their peas uneven, dashing and unlovely as his life. culiar ways of forming the same character. In many cases, however, this sort of par- We do not pretend to any knowledge of the allel does not hold good. There are many East, but a volume of prayers in twentykinds of handwriting which do not accord four languages, which we bought at the with what we know of their authors. We Armenian Convent at Venice, seemed to must allow for so many influences, in some men for so many moods. One man is the convey an instructive comment on the ways of the various Eastern nations. slave of his pen, ink, and paper, writing a beautiful hand with his own, an abominable the Chinese writing, every word or every hand with any one else's. There is a hand-letter like a picture, or rather a puzzle, writing which looks actually artistic, while single squares painfully elaborated. it is really nothing but the product of Chaldæan is black and bold, and seems the ample leisure and the best materials. And type of manly vigour, upright and courathis may be described as a very gentlemanly hand, just as when a man has no character or intellect of his own, not enough to make

ume.

* The Autographic Mirror. Vol. II. London.

1805.

There is

The

geous, representing to our (perhaps prejudiced) minds the perfection of English handwriting. The Hebrew is a more limited character, more precision, less show of sternness and energy, still order and dignity. The Siriac is small and twisted, and to us

represents French handwriting of the lower order. The Arabian, the Turkish, the Persian are very similar in their characteristics, except that each seems more flowing, more graceful, more effeminate than the other. Perhaps the Persian is best entitled to this character. There is something more rugged in the Arabian, something blacker in the Turkish; the Persian flows like a woman's letter, like the poetry of Moore.

tion, differing at once from the ladies of Mary and those of Victoria- -a hand that runs yet cannot be read, so fluent and so illegible. If we glance distantly at the late Duke of Cleveland's letter, we take it for the production of a Cavalier during the interregnum. But by degrees we miss the old incision and deliberateness, we see how the lines crowd each other, and we know that "schoolboy hand" of Thackeray, a hand which is to be seen grown up on so many When we come to examine more deeply sheets of club paper. One of the best hands into national handwriting, we find of course we have in this volume is Southey's, and this that it is much qualified by individual char- curiously enough preserves the old characacter. Take the French autographs we have teristics. It is not modern English writing, in this volume. The best of the purely but a modernization of old English writing. French is perhaps that of Murat, a fine Several of these contemporaries are placed manly hand, without any ostentation. Per- near each other, but there is little to be signy's hand is also of the pure type, neat gained by comparing them. Moore, who and tripping. Napoleon III.'s is a lower comes next to Rogers, is not much inferior sample of the same type, has a mean look, in neatness, but seems to write with the and is entirely devoid of elevation. Thiers is point of a fine pen, and sometimes he falls inquite illegible, though some kind slave who to the fault of thinness. Scott's handwriting has devoted himself to the work of unravelling has a cramped look, which seems unnatural the web of black strokes says that it contains from the pen of such a ready writer. Anoththe following allusion to Guizot's reception er sort of comparison may be made between of Lacordaire at the Academy:-"A monk Mrs. Hemans and Miss Mitford; no one received by a Protestant is a spectacle would take the first for a woman of talent, which is turning the brain of Paris." Louis the second for a woman at all. Equally Blanc writes a splendid hand, extremely strange is the contrast between Bright and clear and orderly, with just a tinge of French formation to stamp its nationality. Of passed generations, Madame Récamier's letter to Miss Edgeworth bears witness to a hand of anything but "incomparable beauty." There is nothing remarkable in Voltaire's handwriting. Rousseau's is small and perfectly legible, as if it was engraved on a copper plate. Corneille's hand is good, and bears a certain resemblance to Milton's, if we allow for the difference of nation. But just as there is a national hand, so there is a contemporary hand. People of the same, or nearly the same, period write more alike than people of the same character. The resemblance between the hands of Milton and Charles I. is the most striking instance that we can adduce, but the Duchess of Marlborough is not altogether unlike Milton. There is a certain affinity between Shelley and Byron, yet what two men could be less alike? A good proof of the way handwritings run in generations is furnished in this volume by the juxtaposition of Lady Jane Grey and the late Duchess of Gloucester. Look at the close blackness of the first, the compression of every kind, the lines so near together, and the words scarcely separate, and yet such labour expended on every letter, and then turn to the lady's hand of the last genera

Cobden. Mr. Bright writes a small, neat, and orderly hand. Cobden's hand is that of the Northern man of business, on which is based the genuine American hand, as we see it here in Stonewall Jackson. Neither Washington nor Franklin possess it.

We frankly confess that to us the German hand is an abomination. There is a long letter in it here from Heine to Dr. Simrock, and an epigram on Schleswig-Holstein in 1847 and 1865 by Arnold Rüge, which ought to call a blush to the face of Dr. Simrock. But viewing these writings from the orthographic, and not the autographic, point of view, we find little to remark in them. Niebuhr's hand is perhaps the best of German hands. Rückert seems to write with a pin and a German pin into the bargain. Best of all is Wilhelm Grimm, who has the grace to write in Roman characters, and whose elegant precision, void as it is of all affectation of caligraphy, is not to be surpassed. The finest Italian hand is that of Ariosto, which may be compared to the Chaldæan. It is difficult to say under what nationality we are to class the writing of Napoleon. France has certainly no claim to it. But there is a very curious letter of his from Egypt to his brother Jerome, the more curious that it fell into the hands of Nelson, and is endorsed by him," Found on the per

;

From the Spectator.

TESQUIEU." *

son of the courier." Nelson's endorsement you cut sticks, they skedaddled." But on is in his left-hand writing; Napoleon's let- asking for a repetition of it the German ter is scratchy and impetuous, with uneven found that it varied every time, and he had lines and black patches, and most careless at last to give it up in despair as a grammatin spelling. "Tu vaira dans les papiers pub- ical Proteus. lics," he begins, and adds in a later place, "je suis annuié de la nature humaine." He commissions Joseph to buy him "une campagne, soit prés de Paris, ou en Bourgogne je compte y passer l'hiver et m'y enterrer. MAURICE JOLY'S "MACHIAVEL ET MONJ'ai besoin de solitude et d'isolement; la grandeur m'annuie; le sentiment est desseché; la glorie est fâde, à 29 ans j'ai tout epuissé, il ne me reste plus qu'à devenir bien vraiment Egoiste." But he soon found that this laudable object could be accomplished in a better way than by becoming a hermit. As a rule there are not very many characteristic passages or bits to quote in this volume. Some of the longer letters, take them for all in all, confirm our old impressions of their writers, without giving us any sudden insight into their characters. Among curiosities, independent of handwriting, we may place the reproduction of a manuscript page of Armadale, which must, we think, have given trouble to the printers. Erasures are numerous, and are effected with a jealous completeness, as if Mr. Wilkie Collins

was loth to let others see what his first

thoughts had been. Another curiosity is Douglas Jerrold's receipt for 10l. for the perpetual copyright of the Rent Day. The handwriting of this differs materially from the later specimens of the same author, which have what we may call a "twang" in them. Another is the original MS. of Thackeray's Little Billy, showing many departures from the text at present received. As we hear it sung now, and as we believe Thackeray sang it himself at the horseshoe dinner given him when he left for America in 1855, the ship is not loaded. but "wittled," "Little Billy" has just got to the end of the twelfth commandment when he catches sight of land, and the commander of the British fleet is " Admiral Lord Nelson, K.C. B.," whom we have seen quoted in that guise in the leading articles of the Daily Telegraph. The future literary historian will have to compare this first version with the later one, and trace the successive additions inspired by various convivialities. We hope that he will not find the same difficulties as the German in search of the one English irregular verb. The story is that an American was teaching English to a German, and on being asked if there were no irregular verbs in English, replied by giving one solitary example. It was, "I go, thou wentest, he departed, we made tracks,

M. MAURICE JOLY is a writer who has succeeded so well in hiding the merits of his work, that they have scarcely been discovered by any but its legal accusers and suppressors. It needs a robust reader to travel through the first third of his Dialogue, and yet it is impossible to close the volume without feeling that it contains by far the most searching analysis of the policy of the Second Empire which has yet appeared. The author's misfortune has been that he has chosen a dramatic form, which he was quite incapable of working out in a manner which should be even tolerable for the general public. If he did so in the hope of escaping the Argus glance of the French literary police, he was wofully mistaken, since he has been condemned without mercy for an almost unread book. Whereas, had he adopted the ordinary form of a disquisition, like that of De Tocqueville on American democracy, the incisive and penetrating vigour of his criticism would have been certain to fasten public attention, at no higher cost

to himself.

a

ble des Matières," or "Contents." This, The real sting of the work lies in its " Tawhich in ordinary cases is a mere reproduction of chapter-headings by the printer, becomes in M. Joly's hands a real treatise of some fourteen pages, four-fifths of which might be transcribed almost literally as and the reader who wishes to understand summary of the Napoleonic policy, the book should be careful to consult this in the first instance, so as to be able to take up the thread of the writer's argument at the point at which he may feel it to become really interesting, the dulness of the opening matter being in very truth almost little before the first dialogue on the Conunsurpassable. Beginning in this way a stitution, and skipping judiciously from time to time the clumsy compliments of the two illustrious shades to each other, or the weak objections of Montesquieu (as the