The size of the slips is approx. 210mm (8.2 in.) x 74mm (2.91 in.) each.
I noticed no looped ascenders except the F. it's very nice. Goes along with this posting
http://theflourishforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=1012.msg10985#msg10985
No looped ascenders because it's a text hand which was meant to be written by lifting the pen after most strokes.
Generally speaking, there were/are two ways of writing Roundhand : text and running hand. Text writing is the one which would be most familiar to people today because it involves lifting the pen after most strokes. Text usually didn't usually have loops on ascenders except for f, however from the 1850s onwards (as far as I've seen) some authors did start writing text hands where all ascenders had loops.
Running hand usually (but not always) had looped ascenders because it was meant to be written without lifting the pen in a word (and sometimes even joining words together), loops meaning that you didn't have to retrace ascenders.
I think it's also worth noting that people distinguished between text hands written at different sizes by giving the different sizes different names. Although not everyone agreed on the sizes, one set of definitions I saw (Cassel's popular educator) was :
Large Text 1/2 inch tall
Text Hand 1/3 inch
Round Hand 1/4 inch
Small Hand 1/8 inch
That would have been the body or x height of the lower case. Now, these are text copies so they should be about 1/3 inch tall (8.4mm) going by that, and measuring them with a ruler they are 9mm tall, so just about.
On plate 210 of the Universal Penman there are 'Round Text' and 'Round Hand' alphabets. The two different names would indicate two different sizes of text writing (one of them confusingly with text in its name) and indeed the two alphabets are different sizes.
Plate 163 of the Universal Penman is 'Specimens of the Running Hand...' and it is the running hand which was what we might understand today as the handwriting because it was written with no or as few pen lifts as possible. In order to make it join, looped ascenders are nesc. as well as things like the x (third line down on plate 163) which looks like a mirrored e. When doing running hand, because of the need to move the pen across longer horizontal distances without lifting it off the page and the smaller size of the writing requiring greater precision and control over pressure more exacting demands are made re. pen hold, posture and how far over to the left the hand is as compared to text writing.
The reason why text hand existed was to teach people the basic skills of writing: form, spacing, how to hold a pen et al and the running hand built on those skills. However, by the early 19th century some people were teaching running hand alone (without starting with text writing). Spencerian is a running hand, which is probably one of the reasons why some people find it harder than Roundhand (when the Roundhand is written as text, a running hand would present many of the same difficulties as Spencerian).
