The Hands discoursing Gestures, ever rife,
Though not so much observ’d in common life,
(Notes wherein Historie delights to place
The circumstantiall beauties of her grace)
Thy Hand hath, like a cunning Mostist, found
In all the Senses, wherein they abound:
Which in one Bundle with thy Language ty’de,
Ore-tops the poring Book-wormes highest pride.
At the first sight we learne to read; and then
By Natures rules to perce and construe Men:
So commenting upon their Gesture finde
In them the truest copie of the Minde.
The Tongue and Heart th’intention oft divide:
The Hand and Meaning ever are ally’de.
All that are deafe and dumbe may here recrute
Their language, and then blesse Thee for the mute
Enlargement of Thy Alphabets, whose briefe
Expresses gave their Mindes so free reliefe.
And of this silent speech, They Hand doth shew
More to the World then ere it look’d to know.
Reference
John Bulwer, Chirologia, or, The naturall language of the hand composed of the speaking motions, and discoursing gestures thereof: whereunto is added Chironomia, or, The art of manuall rhetoricke, consisting of the naturall expressions, digested by art in the hand, as the chiefest instrument of eeloquence, by historicall manifesto’s exemplified out of the authentique registers of common life and civill conversation: with types of chyrograms, a long wish’d for illustration of this argument, 1644
Image
Chirogram, Chirologia, 1644