for his seal; and we dwell longer over the torn-off conclusion of a note
from Mr. Calhoun, whose words are strangely dashed off without letters,
and whose name, were it less illustrious, would be unrecognizable in his
own autograph. But of all hands that can still grasp a pen, we know not
the one, belonging to a soldier or a statesman, which could interest us
more than the hand that wrote the following:

"Sir, your note of the 6th inst. is received. I hasten to answer that
there was no man 'in the station of colonel, by the name of J. T.
Smith,' under my command, at the battle of New Orleans; and am,
respectfully,

"Yours, ANDREW JACKSON.
"OCT. 19th, 1833."


The old general, we suspect, has been insnared by a pardonable little
stratagem on the part of the autograph collector. The battle of New
Orleans would hardly have been won, without better aid than this
problematical Colonel J. T. Smith.

Intermixed with and appended to these historical autographs, there are a
few literary ones. Timothy Dwight--the "old Timotheus" who sang the
Conquest of Cancan, instead of choosing a more popular subject, in the
British Conquest of Canada--is of eldest date. Colonel Trumbull, whose
hand, at various epochs of his life, was familiar with sword, pen, and
pencil, contributes two letters, which lack the picturesqueness of
execution that should distinguish the chirography of an artist. The
value of Trumbull's pictures is of the same nature with that of
daguerreotypes, depending not upon the ideal but the actual. The