OLD WORLD LEADERS AND THEIR PENMANSHIP

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18805, 6 July 1929, Page 27 (Supplement)

OLD WORLD LEADERS AND THEIR PENMANSHIP

REMARKABLE EXAMPLES WHICH PROVE NOTHING. While British scholars and captains of Industry are singing the virtues of good liandwriting to the youth of England, a •tudy of historical relics of penmanship {conclusively proves —nothing! The great museums of London dor come reason do not display the ancient bills of lading of mighty traders in centuries past. But they do contain many |pen products of* eminent leaders in politics, warfare, literature and the jehurdh. And these manuscripts relate a Various story. j Richard 11. and Henry VIII., gifted ■Kmarcits of the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, are good examples on opposite sides of the question. Richard’s (script is fine, clean and beautiful, easily (legible despite its smallness and its jangles, and his lines flow as level as a river. Henry’s Writing Childish. The fickle Henry was a much better band for pretty women than he was jfcr pretty writing. His pen sat uujsasy In his royal hand, spilling out phikiish, sprawling words which few children could read. great Lord Chatham was ample adth his paper. His big words, adorned here and thera with long curlicues as rvidence of his love of display, luxuriated insolently in a vast white space Which alone made them reasonably jteible. The same charncteristies marked Ee ‘•han.l” ci his famous son, William Rtt. Gladstone covert his manuscript thriftly with stouflv rormed words of, simple and businesslike uspect; his easy legibility was marred by lack of distinction between the “u and the “n.” ou>re liberal with his space than

with his Liberal opponent. The di'stinguifilied Prinw Minister’s writing was [a carelegs >(rrawl. lr-isnrely and incom.pleiely formed in leiters, but. nnt 100 ’ hard to read. ‘ "\Vc rln not 590 k a yard of German soil." said David Lloyd George in his ringing “Victory speech"- of Nm‘cmlier 9, Mini—at lmist those are the word: rm his pent-illod notes. The war Prime Minister‘s script is, that of a Hem-handed schoolboy. And—symbolic of his recent struggle to regain national leadership—his lines jn~t won’t stay down; they vlimb up and up as they move to the right. Baldwin’s Lines are Sturdy. The children of Stanley Baldwin’s ink) pen are as sturdy as the ex-l’rime .\‘lin‘ ister’s own “John Bull" figure. But his ‘letlers wobble about. within the word like raw recruits in an awkward squad. His lines are not beautiful, but they anoary to read. Among \varld-faniwl military stair-s----mvu, f'm: nuinusorip‘. of Georg- '\\'n=lling V-vn is perhaps tlir finest mosh] for Hr imitatian of youthful “'i‘llclin In the first Amerivan‘s hand‘NZ’llllli'. uni-(1s. singlp riiarnr‘ters and lines are rs-gular and unhurrio-l. mic-rmrrltn'l and mmdcvrned. They are smm in a. letter to the Earl of Burhan, “hick says:— “I believe it is the sincere Wish of ‘L'nited America to have nothing to do with the political intrigue or the squabbles of European nations.” ' Writing of Writers. Thackeray’s letters Were written In a delightful. ladylike. vivid hnnrl. (Tm-lyn-mi; laborious, but suu'dily legible. \Vordswonh was ragged and carolr‘ss with hi 4. pom. Burns’ script ‘was typi~ tally bold, generous and demucx-utic. easy to road. “Ye. fmrurlyng of mouasial'y3 al'guyrl purgatory to be, so ye pullying of them down argu‘yeth if. math to be"—so yrrofe Hugh Latimer, the heroic martyr of the English Reformation. But his power was in his speech, not in his writing. His script was formed, it seems, by a nervous, heavy, unskilled hand, better used for pointing at sinners. ___-.___...