the defendant's word, allowed the golden pen to be carried to the sick wife; and Bales immediately pawned it, and afterwards, to make sure work, sold it at a great loss, so that when the judges met for their definite sentence, nor pen nor pennyworth was to be had! The judges being ashamed of their own conduct, were compelled to give such a verdict as suited the occasion. Bales rejoins: he publishes to the universe the day and the hour when the judges brought the golden pen to his house, and while he checks the insolence of this Bobadil, to show himself no recreant, assumes the golden pen for his sign. Such is the shortest history I could contrive of this chivalry of the pen; something mysteriously clouds over the fate of the defendant; Bales's history, like Caesar's, is but an _ex-parte_ evidence. Who can tell whether he has not slurred over his defeats, and only dwelt on his victories? There is a strange phrase connected with the art of the caligrapher, which I think may be found in most, if not in all modern languages, _to write like an angel_! Ladies have been frequently compared with angels; they are _beautiful_ as angels, and _sing_ and _dance_ like angels; but, however intelligible these are, we do not so easily connect penmanship with the other celestial accomplishments. This fanciful phrase, however, has a very human origin. Among those learned Greeks who emigrated to Italy, and afterwards into France, in the reign of Francis I., was one Angelo _Vergecio_, whose beautiful caligraphy excited the admiration of the learned. The French monarch had a Greek fount cast, modelled by his writing. The learned Henry Stephens, who, like our Porson for correctness and delicacy, was one of the most elegant writers of Greek, had learnt the practice from our _Angelo_. His name became synonymous for beautiful writing, and gave birth to the vulgar proverb or familiar phrase _to write like an angel_! FOOTNOTES: [109] I have not met with More's book, and am obliged to transcribe this from the Biog. Brit. [110] Howes, in his Chronicle under date 1576, has thus narrated the story:--"A strange piece of work, and almost incredible, was brought to pass by an Englishman from within the city of London, and a clerk of the Chancery, named Peter Bales, who by his industry and practice of his pen contrived and writ, within the compass of a penny, the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, the Ten Commandments, a prayer to God, a prayer for the queen, his posy, his name, the day of the month, the year of our Lord, and the reign of the queen: and at Hampton Court he presented the same to the queen's majesty." [111] This was written in the reign of Elizabeth. Holyoke notices "virgin-perchment made of an _abortive skin; membrana virgo_." Peacham, on "Drawing," calls parchment simply _an abortive_. THE ITALIAN HISTORIANS.