s, of Robert de Monte, and of Sigebert of
Gembloux are in existence; and among the Cottonian MSS. there are
undoubtedly autograph writings of Matthew of Paris, the English chronicler
of Henry III.'s reign. There are certain documents in the British Museum in
the hand of William of Wykeham; and among French archives there are
autograph writings of the historian Joinville. These are a few instances.
When we come to such a collection as the famous Paston Letters, the
correspondence of the Norfolk family of Paston of the 15th century, we find
therein numerous autographs of historical personages of the time.

From the 16th century onward, we enter the period of modern history, and
autograph documents of all kinds become plentiful. And yet in the midst of
this plenty, by a perverse fate, there is in certain instances a remarkable
dearth. The instance of Shakespeare is the most famous. But for three
signatures to the three sheets of his will, and two signatures to the
conveyances of property in Blackfriars, we should be without a vestige of
his handwriting. For certain other signatures, professing to be his,
inscribed in books, may be dismissed as imitations. Such forgeries come up
from time to time, as might be expected, and are placed upon the market.
The Shakespearean forgeries, however, of W. H. Ireland were perpetrated
rather with a literary intent than as an autographic venture.

Had autograph collecting been the fashion in Shakespeare's days, we should
not have had to deplore the loss of his and of other great writers'
autographs. But the taste had not then come into vogue, at least not in
England. The series of autograph documents which were gathered in such a
library as that of Sir Robert Cotton, now in the British Museum, found
their way thither on account of their literary or historic interest, and
not merely as specimens of the handwriting of distinguished men. Such a
series also as that formed by Philippe de Bethune, Comte de Selles et
Charost, and his son, in the reign of Louis XIV., consisting for the most
part of original letters and papers, now in the Bibliotheque Nationale,
might have been regarded as the result of autograph collecting did we not
know that it was brought together for historical purposes. It was in
Germany and the Low Countries that the practice appears to have originated,
chiefly among students and other members of the universities, of collecting
autograph inscriptions and signatures of one's