PETER, a famous master in the art of penmanship, or fair writing; and one of the first inventors of short-hand writing. He was born in 1547, and is styled by Anthony Wood "a most dexterous person in his profession, to the great wonder of scholars and others; who adds, that 'he spent several years in sciences among Oxonians, particularly as it seems in Gloucester-hall: but that study, which he used for a diversion only, proved at length an employment of profit.' He is recorded for his skill in micrography, or miniature-writing, in Hollingshed's Chronicle, and 1575; and Mr Evelyn also has celebrated his wonderful skill in this delicate operation of the hand. 'Hadrian Junius, speaking as a miracle of somebody, who wrote the Apostles Creed, and the beginning of St John's Gospel, within the compass of a farthing: what would he have said,' says Mr Evelyn, 'of our famous Peter Bales; who, in the year 1575, wrote the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, Decalogue, with two short prayers in Latin, his own name, motto, day of the month, year of the Lord, and reign of the Queen, to whom he presented it at Hampton Court, all of it written within the circle of a single penny, incased in a ring and borders of gold; and covered with a crystal so accurately wrought, as to be very plainly-legible, to the great admiration of her Majesty, the whole Privy-Council, and several ambassadors then at Court?' He was farther very dexterous in imitating hand-writing, and about 1586, was employed by Secretary Walsingham in certain political manoeuvres. We find him at the head of a school, near the Old Bailey, London, in 1590; in which year he published his 'Writing Schoolmaster, in three parts: the first teaching swift writing; the second, true writing; the third, fair writing.' In 1595, he had a great trial of skill in the Black-friars with one Daniel Johnson, for a golden pen of 20l. value, and won it; and a cotemporary author farther relates, that he had also the arms of Calligraphy given him, which are Azure, a Pen, Or, as a prize, at a trial of skill in this art among the best penmen in London. In 1597, he republished his 'Writing Schoolmaster;' which was in such high reputation, that no less than eighteen copies of commendatory verses composed by learned and ingenious men of that time, were printed before it. Wood says, that he was engaged in Essex's treasons in 1600; but Wood was mistaken: he was only engaged, and very innocently so, in serving the treacherous purposes of one of that earl's mercenary dependants. We know little more of this curious person, but that he seems to have died about the year 1610.