op and right hand, with a good space before the 'My Dear Sir,'
uniform margins on the left side of the paper of a quarter of an inch,
but on the right side no margin at all, the writing being carried close
to the edge. The folding is done with the precision of a man of
business, forming the space for the address into a nice oblong almost in
the centre of the sheet, and the first line of the address is written
nearly in the centre of the space with the remainder below.

"The watermarks found on the paper are one of the following:
Valleyfield, 1809; C. Wilmott, 1815; J. Dickinson and Co., 1813; J.
Dickinson, 1816; J. Dickinson (without date); J. Whatman, 1814; J.
Whatman (without date); Turkey Mill, 1819; Turkey Mill (without date);
G. C. & Co., 1828."

The paper used by Burns for his correspondence was always large in size,
rough in surface, never glossy, and all four edges had the rough edge
that is the peculiarity of a Bank of England note.

It is worthy of remark that in the case of the A. H. Smith Burns
forgeries, suspicion was first excited by a simple but significant
matter. The paper contained several worm holes. These had been carefully
avoided by the writer, he knowing that if his pen touched them the
result would be a spluttering and spreading of the ink.

Now it is safe to assume that these worm holes, being the effect of age,
did not exist at the time the letter--if genuine--was written; as the
worm did its work long afterwards, it must be regarded as a fortunate
circumstance that in perforating the paper it refrained from destroying
the writing, carefully selecting the wider spaces that the poet had,
with commendable foresight, left for the insect's depredations.

The letters of Thackeray are in two styles of handwriting, the earlier
sloping slightly, the latter vertical, round, neat and print-like, the
capital _I_ being invariably a simple vertical stroke. His is the most
neat and uniformly readable hand of all the great literary characters.
It is somewhat unfortunate that he was not anything like so uniform in
his choice of paper. Letters are in existence on an extraordinary
variety of material, from a quarto sheet to a scrap torn from half a
sheet of note paper. On many of these letters is neither address nor
date, but when once the characteristics of the charming handscript have
been mastered, they are never forgotten, and are recognisable amid the
closest imitations.

There are extant a number of