t
his caligraphic productions that once seen and noted should never be
forgotten. Specimens are easily available. The catalogues of dealers are
constantly presenting them, and most public libraries possess examples,
either in the original holograph or in some form of reproduction.

Probably no writer preserved his style with such little change as
Dickens. His signature in later years varied somewhat from that of his
literary youth, but the body of his handscript retained throughout the
same characteristics. It was always a free, fluent, graceful hand,
legible as that of Thackeray when its leading peculiarities have been
mastered, but less formal and studied than his. It was always remarkably
free from corrections or interlineations. He wrote with the easy freedom
of the stenographer; indeed it is easy to recognise in the delicate
gracefully formed letters the effect of years of training in the most
difficult and exacting form of handscript.

Perhaps the leading peculiarities in the Dickens holograph are these:--

The date of the month is never expressed in figures, but always written
in full; in fact, abbreviation in any form he never countenanced.

The letter _y_, both as a capital and a small letter is a figure 7
except in the affix "ly," when the two letters become an _f_ or long
stroke _s_.

The letter _t_ is crossed by the firm downward bar, which the character
readers claim as a sign of great resolution.

Letter _g_ is invariable in form.

Capital _E_ consists of a downstroke with a bar in the centre.

The hook of many final letters has a tendency to turn backwards.

New paragraphs are marked by beginning the line about an inch from the
left-hand margin.

A very marked peculiarity noticeable in many letters is that the
left-hand margin gradually grows wider as the lines approach the bottom
of the page. The narrowing is wondrously regular, a line drawn from the
first letter on the first line to the corresponding position on the last
will touch nearly every other line. This peculiarity appears to have
escaped every forger whose work we have examined.

If the signs relied upon by the readers of character in handwriting are
to be accepted, self-esteem was a pronounced characteristic of the great
novelist. His writing abounds with those subtle symptoms of the
prevalence of that weakness.

His signature is perhaps the best known of any with which the British
public are familiar. It is remarkably uniform, a