AUTOGRAPHS. 
75 
I made several efforts while in Mexico, to procure a portrait of General 
Santa Anna for the purpose of presenting it to you ; but I could find no 
engraving or lithograph, and the oil pictures were most wretchedly exe- 
cuted, without doing justice to his very characteristic face. In this age of 
autographs, however, when all persons collect, and some few even under- 
take to read a man's mind in his signature ; I have thought that those of 
the President and of the late Emperor Iturbide, might not be uninteresting, 
and I therefore subjoin them. That of Santa Anna is a firm, clear, and 
distinct one ; while Iturbide's, though strong and decided enough in its 
lines, has still a straggling manner, which indicates perhaps too much 
the weakness of manj parts of that hero's character. 
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