See how this applies to the handwriting of
Jeffrey and of Wilson. The style of both signatures implies a quick and
careless motion of the hand, as if the writer was working against time,
and was much more anxious to get his ideas sent to the printer, than to
cover his paper with elegant penmanship. There is an evident similarity
in the fashion of the two hands--only Mr. Jeffrey, being much inferior
to the Professor in point of physical size and strength, naturally
enough delights in a pen with a finer point, and writes therefore a
lighter and more scratchy hand than the author of 'Lights and Shadows.'
It will add to the interest of Mr. Jeffrey's autograph to know that,
as his hand is not at all altered, we have preferred, as a matter of
curiosity, to engrave a signature of his which is twenty-three years
old, being taken from a letter bearing date 1806."
W. WORDSWORTH: "a good hand, more worthy of the author of the best
parts of 'The Excursion,' than of the puerilities of many of the Lyrical
Ballads."
DUGALD STEWART: "a hand worthy of a moral philosopher--large, distinct,
and dignified."
W. JERDAN: Editor of the _Literary Gazette_; free and facile as
his vein of criticism, and one of the finest signatures in the page.
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