Mr. Smith’s MS. is clear, graceful and legible, and would generally be called a fine hand, but is somewhat too clerky for our taste.
Dr. Oliver Wendel Holmes, of Boston, late Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Dartmouth College, has written many productions of merit, and has been pronounced, by a very high authority, the best of the humorous poets of the day.
His chirography is remarkably fine, and a quick fancy might easily detect, in its graceful yet picturesque quaintness, an analogy with the vivid drollery of his style. The signature is a fair specimen of the general MS.
Bishop Doane, of New Jersey, is somewhat more extensively known in his clerical than in a literary capacity, but has accomplished much more than sufficient in the world of books to entitle him to a place among the most noted of our living men of letters. The compositions by which he is best known were published, we believe, during his professorship of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in Washington College, Hartford.
His MS. has some resemblance to that of Mr. Greely of “The Tribune.” The signature is far bolder and altogether better than the general hand.