PENMANSHIP—THE ELK ING OF FRANCE.
Tuts is a large tart for us small-hand writers to engross the attention of our readers withal : but a whole-length portrait of CHARLES the Tenth in his robes, forming a specimen of penmanship, 10 feet high by 5 wide, demands our attention for the persevering ingenuity and loyalty of the penman, M. DARAGON of Cherbourg. This unique piece of caligraphy is a curious specimen of perverted industry ; and on so fragile a medium as writing-paper, will not, we fear, inform very distant ages of the pre- cise tura when the King and the writer flourished. The King's head is washed in with Indian ink ; but his hair, his cravat, robes, and sceptre, the throne, footstool, canopy, floor, as well as the legs and feet, are all made up of flourishes. Many pens have been busy on CHARLES'S cha- racter, but the pen of M. DARAGON is the only one that has attempted a delineation of his person. The features of the imbecile Monarch ought to have been formed out of the word "Legitimacy," and then the picture would have been complete. A Mr. Ileum, of Nottingham, sends us a book of very imposing. looking specimens of his penmanship ; which he prefaces in a style of pedantic self-complacency, apologizing for some of the imperfections—we beg pardon, for the absence of perfection—by observing that our
"Minute observances must terminate in disappointed expectations ;"
which reminds us of the Johnsonian phrase, "Parturient mountains are often succeeded by muscipular abortions." Some one bitterly observed that "a writing-master can have no soul ;" but he must have made a wrong estimate. A penman was heard to exclaim, as he struck a flourish to his mind, "If my pen had been made from a quill of the wing of the angel Gabriel, I could not have done better." After that, let who will deny the possession of soul to the pen- men. An amusing proof of their constitutional enthusiasm for their art, and admiration of the most successful in it (generally themselves), will be found in the following ADVERTISEMENT or A WRITING-MASTER.
From the Evening Post, 22nd January 1717. "Whereas a certain pretender to penmanship has in an illiterate manner fell upon my late performance, let him know I look down upon him, and yet thus give him his answer. If I did keep monsters for my diversion, that does not affect me in my art ; and it is well known that I have not a deformed creature now in mg house ; which is more than he can say when he is within doors. I pass by the un- worthy reflection upon my N and 0; which I could return upon his a and r; but his own ink will blacken him enough, while it appears in his own irregular scrawls."
The allusion to monsters, we suppose alludes to those " gorgons, hy- dras, and chimeras dire," with which the caligraphic fancies of penmen teem.
But to give an opinion of Mr. HEMM'S specimens. They are more showy than tasteful, nor do they equal those of Minws. Mr. Hesnu. writes a bold and fine text hand, but we do not admire the shapes of his capitals, and we have hardly a line of small or running-hand of which to form an opinion. Penmen never equal engravers in their print letters ; the squareness requisite in forming them well being incompatible with the fluency and sloping character of writing hand. Mr. HEMM'S or- namental and fanciful flourishes, devices of birds, &c., are not compar- able with those of Mr. Mules ; for he has made up his fancies of sepa- rate flourishes, and not, as is the case in Minies, made the figures to consist of an uninterrupted line, forming an endless variety of fantastic combinations to produce the form required, and which constitutes the chief merit in these sports of skill in penmanship. Mr. Hems' asserts that the engravings are " fao similes of forms and figures produced by the rapid flourishing dash of the pen." If so, they may deserve more
praise than we have bestowed.
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