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 métier. 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]
Among these knights of the “Plume volante,” whose chivalric exploits astounded the beholders, must be distinguished Peter Bales in his joust with David Johnson. In this tilting-match the guerdon of caligraphy was won by the greatest of caligraphers; its arms were assumed by the victor, azure, a pen or; while the “golden pen,” carried away in triumph, was painted with a hand over the door of the caligrapher. The history of this renowned encounter was only traditionally known, till with my own eyes I pondered on this whole trial of skill in the precious manuscript of the champion himself; who, like Cæsar, not only knew how to win victories, but also to record them. Peter Bales was a hero of such transcendent eminence, that his name has entered into our history. Holinshed chronicles one of his curiosities of microscopic writing at a time when the taste prevailed for admiring writing which no eye could read! In the compass of a silver penny this caligrapher put more things than would fill several of these pages. He presented Queen Elizabeth with the manuscript set in a ring of gold covered with a crystal; he had also contrived a magnifying glass of such power, that, to her delight and wonder, her majesty read the whole volume, which she held on her thumb-nail, and “commended the same to the lords of the council and the ambassadors;” and frequently, as Peter often heard, did her majesty vouchsafe to wear this caligraphic ring.[110]
“Some will think I labour on a cobweb”—modestly exclaimed Bales in his narrative, and his present historian much fears for himself! The reader’s gratitude will not be proportioned to my pains, in condensing such copious pages into the size of a “silver penny,” but without its worth!
For a whole year had David Johnson affixed a challenge “To any one who should take exceptions to this my writing and teaching.” He was a young friend of Bales, daring and longing for an encounter; yet Bales was magnanimously silent, till he discovered that he was “doing much less in writing and teaching” since this public challenge was proclaimed! He then set up his counter-challenge, and in one hour afterwards Johnson arrogantly accepted it, “in a most despiteful and disgraceful manner.” Bales’s challenge was delivered “in good terms.” “To all Englishmen and strangers.” It was to write for a gold pen of twenty pounds value in all kinds of hands, “best, straightest, and fastest,” and most kind of ways; “a full, a mean, a small, with line, and without line; in a slow set hand, a mean facile hand, and a fast running hand;” and further, “to write truest and speediest, most secretary and clerk-like, from a man’s mouth, reading or pronouncing, either English or Latin.”
Young Johnson had the hardihood now of turning the tables on his great antagonist, accusing the veteran Bales of arrogance. Such an absolute challenge, says he, was never witnessed by man, “without exception of any in the world!” And a few days after meeting Bales, “of set purpose to affront and disgrace him what he could, showed Bales a piece of writing of secretary’s hand, which he had very much laboured in fine abortive parchment,”[111] uttering to the challenger these words: “Mr. Bales, give me one shilling out of your purse, and if within six months you better, or equal this piece of writing, I will give you forty pounds for it.” This legal deposit of the shilling was made, and the challenger, or appellant, was thereby bound by law to the performance.