Mrs. Hale is well known for her masculine style of thought. This is clearly expressed in her chirography, which is far larger, heavier, and altogether bolder than that of her sex generally. It resembles in a great degree that of Professor Lieber, and is not easily deciphered.
Mr. Everett’s MS. is a noble one. It has about it an air of deliberate precision emblematic of the statesman, and a mingled grace and solidity betokening the scholar. Nothing can be more legible, and nothing need be more uniform. The man who writes thus will never grossly err in judgment, or otherwise; but we may also venture to say that he will never attain the loftiest pinnacle of renown. The letters before us have a seal of red wax, with an oval device bearing the initials E. E. and surrounded with a scroll, inscribed with some Latin words which are illegible.
Dr. Bird is well known as the author of “The Gladiator,” “Calavar,” “The Infidel,” “Nick of the Woods,” and some other works—Calavar being, we think, by far the best of them, and beyond doubt one of the best of American novels.
His chirography resembles that of Mr. Benjamin very closely; the chief difference being in a curl of the final letters in Dr. B.’s. The characters, too, have the air of not being able to keep pace with the thought, and an uneasy want of finish seems to have been the consequence. A vivid imagination might easily be deduced from such a MS.
Mr. John Neal’s MS. is exceedingly illegible and careless. Many of his epistles are perfect enigmas, and we doubt whether he could read them himself in half an hour after they are penned. Sometimes four or five words are run together. Any one, from Mr. Neal’s penmanship, might suppose his mind to be what it really is—excessively flighty and irregular, but active and energetic.
