Increase Mather has remarkably neat handwriting

from his manuscript "Concerning Apparitions"

click to see the manuscript on my flickr account

his father, Richard Mather, not so much

 

I won't bother with a flickr link for this one since his writing is truly illegible.  When you work in libraries and archives, this is more of what you're used to.  Researchers often become familiar with a given person's hand, but the cramped script of the good old days is often beyond me, which is why I was so struck my Increase Mather's neat printed hand.  Remember, they were most likely writing with a goose quill pen!