them well, a powerful recommendation. By epiftolary correfpondence preferment and promotion are fought and obtained, and the moft important business, commercial, political, and private, eafily, pleafantly, and successfully tranfacted. Who is there, who at fome period of his life finds it not of confequence to him to draw up a petition with propriety, to defcribe a character faithfully, or to write pleafing addreffes of compliment, condolence, or congratulation? Many natives of this country spend their youth in foreign climes. How greatly does it contribute to raise their characters at home, when they are able to write good letters to their relations, their friends, their patrons, and their employers? A clear, a judicious, and an elegant letter, cftablishes their character in their native country, while their perfons are at the diftance of the antipodes, raifes. esteem among all who read it, and often lays a firm foundation for their future eminence. It goes before them, like a harbinger, and fimooths the road and levels the hill that leads up to honour and to fortune.

Add to thefe confiderations, that, as an eafy exercife to improve the ftyle, and prepare for that compofition, which feveral of the profeffions require, nothing is more advantageous than the practice of letter-writing at an early age.

In

every view of the fubject, letter-writing appeared to the Editor fo ufeful and important, that he thought he could not render a more acceptable fervice to young students, than to prefent them with a great variety of epiftolary MODELS, collected, for their more convenient ufe, into one capacious volume. Models in art are certainly more inftructive than rules; as examples in life are more efficacious than precepts. Rules indeed for letterwriting, of which there is a great abundance, appear to be little more than the idle effufions of pedantry; the fuperfluous inventions of ingenuity mifemployed. The letters, which the writers of rules have given as examples for imitation, are often nothing more than mere centos in the expreffion, and fervile copies in the fentiments and matter. They have nothing in them of the healthy hue and lively vigour of nature. They refemble puny plants raised in a clime ungenial, by the gardener's inceffant labour, yet poffeffing, after all, neither beauty, flavour, nor flamina for duration.

The few rules neceflary in the ART, as it is called, of Letter-writing, are fuch as will always be preferibed to itself, by a competent fhare of commor. fenfe, duly informed by a common education. A regard muft always be fhewn to time, place, and perfon. He who has good fenfe will of courfe obferve these things; and he who has it not, will not learn to obferve

them by the rules of rhetoricians. But to affift invention and promote order, it may be fometimes expedient to make, in the mind, a divifion of a Letter into three parts, the Ariftotelian beginning, middle, and end; or in other words, into the exordium or introduction, the propofition or narrative, and the conclufion.

The exordium or introduction fhould be employed, not indeed with the formality of rhetoric, but with all the ease of natural politenefs and benevolence, in conciliating efteem, favour, and attention; the propofition or narrative, in ftating the business with clearness and precision; the conclufion, in confirming what has been premised, in making apologies, in extenuating offence, and in cordial expreffions of respect and affection: but is there anything in these precepts not already obvious to common sense?

As to the epiftolary ftyle, of which fo much has been faid, thofe who wish to confine it to the easy and familiar have formed too narrow ideas of epistolary compofition. The Epiftle admits every subject; and every fubject has its appropriate ftyle. Eafe is not to be confounded with negligence. In the most familiar Letter on the commonest subject, an Attic neatness is required. Ease in writing, like ease in drefs, notwithstanding all its charms, is but too apt to degenerate to the carelefinefs of the floven. In the daily attire of a gentleman, gold lace may not be requifite; but rags are ftill lefs to be borne. In the face, paint is not to be approved; but cleanliness cannot be neglected, without occafioning ftill greater difguft than rouge and cerufe,

That epistolary style is clearly the best, whether easy or elaborate, fimple or adorned, which is beft adapted to the fubject, to time, to place, and to perfon; which, upon grave and momentous topics, is folemn and dignified; on common themes, terfe, eafy, and only not careless; on little and trifling matters, gay, airy, lively, and facetious; on jocular subjects, sparkling and humorous; in formal and complimentary addreffes, embellished with rhetorical figures, and finished with polished periods; in persuasion, bland, infinuating, and ardent; in exhortation, serious and fententious; on profperous affairs, open and joyous; on adverfe, penfive and tender. A different ftyle is often neceffary on the fame topics, to old people and to young; to men and to women; to rich and to poor; to great perfonages and to little people; to scholars and to the illiterate; to strangers and to familiar companions. And thus indeed might one proceed to great extent with all the parade of precept; but though this, and much more that might be repeated, may be certainly true, yet it is all fufficiently obvious to that

A 4

COMMON

COMMON SENSE, whofe claims ought at all times to be afferted against the encroachments of pedantic tyranny *.

A good understanding, as it has been already obferved, improved by reading the best writers, by accurate obfervation of men and manners, and above all, by ufe and practice, will be fufficient to form an accomplished Letter-writer, without reftraining the vigour of his genius, and the flights of his fancy, with a rigid obfervance of the line and rule. The best Letters, and indeed the best compofitions of every kind, were produced before the boafted rules to teach how to write them were written or invented. The rules prefcribed by critics are fo minute and particular, as to remind one of the recipes in Hannah Glaffe's Cookery. They pretend to teach how to exprefs thoughts on paper with a mechanical process, fimilar to that in which the culinary authorefs inftructs her difciples in the compofition of a minced-pye.

The writers on the epiftolary art divide Epifles into various kinds, according to the following table:

But thefe diftinctions difplay more of oftentation than they furnish of utility. Every man of fenfe must know the tendency of his Letter, from which it takes its technical name, though he may not have heard the rhetoricians' appellation of it. To perfons, however, who read with a critical eye, it may not be unpleasant to clafs the letters under fome of the titles in the above table, which it would be eafy to enlarge.

I refer the reader, who is curious to learn what critics have written on the art of writing letters, to Erafmus's very ingenious treatife," De confcribendis Epiftolis," where he will find much to entertain him. His genius diffufes a funfhine over the dreary fields of didactic information.

!

It is indeed a remark, confirmed by long experience, that merchants, men of business, and particularly the ladies, who have never read, or even heard of the rules of an Erafmus, a Vives, a Melchior Junius, or a Lipfius, write letters with admirable ease, perfpicuity, propriety, and elegance; far better, in every refpect, than fome of the most celebrated dictators of rules to teach that epiftolary correfpondence, which themselves could never fuccessfully practife. The learned Manutius, who had studied every rule, ufed to employ a month in writing a Letter of moderate length, which many an English lady could surpass in an hour.

It may not be improper in this place to mention, for the honour of the ladies, that, according to learned authors, the very firft Letter that was ever written, was written by a lady. Clemens Alexandrinus and Tatian also, who copies from Hellanicus the hiftorian*, exprefsly affirm, that the first Epistle ever compofed was the production of Atoffa, a Persian Empress. The learned Dodwell, as well as others, controverts the fact; and many fuppofe that the Letter which Homer's Prætus gave to Bellerophon, as well as that which David fent to accomplish the death of Uriah, preceded the Letter of Atoffa. Without entering into a chronological difcuffion, one may affert the probability, that a lady was the first writer of Letters; as ladies have, in modern times, difplayed peculiar grace and spirit in epiftolary correfpondence. Dodwell's opinion is at the fame time reasonable, when he supposes that Epistles were written in fome form or other, as foon as the art of marking thoughts by written figns was discovered and divulged.

But instead of dwelling on topics, either obvious of themfelves, or rather curious than useful, it is more expedient to inform the Reader, what he is to expect in the subsequent volume.

The First Book in the collection is formed from the Letters of Cicero and Pliny. To attempt to raise their characters by praises at this period, after the world has agreed in the admiration of them, near two thousand years, would be no less fuperfluous, than to pronounce an eulogium on the fun, or to describe the beauties of the rainbow. From them the most entertaining Letters, and fuch as have a reference to familiar life, have been principally felected; and there is little doubt, but that an attentive ftudent, not deficient in ability, may catch from the perufal of what is here inferted, much of their politeness both of sentiment and expreffion. If he poffeffes tafte, he must be entertained by them. It is but justice to add, that great praise is

Επιτολας συντάσσειν ἐξευρεν ἡ Περσων ποτε ηγησαμένη γυνή, καθαπερ φησιν Ελλας Νίκος, Ατισσα δε ονομα αυτη ήν.. TATIAN. Orat. contra Græcos.

due

due to the tranflator, whose polished understanding feems to have affimilated the grace of his celebrated originals. The First Book, conftituting a very important part of the collection, and furnishing the finest epiftolary models in the world, has been rendered for the benefit of the ftudent abundantly copious, though confined to the Letters of Cicero and Pliny.

The next Book confifts of Letters from many great and diftinguished perfons of our own nation, written at an early period of English literature.

The correspondence of the Sydney family forms one part of it. To the generality of readers this will be new and curious, as it was never published but in expenfive folios. The Sydney family appears to have been, in their time, the moft enlightened, polifhed, and virtuous, which the nation could boaft. Many of their Letters are written in a ftrong, a nervous, and, in many refpects, an excellent ftyle for the age; and all that are here felected may be confidered as curiofities, furnishing matter for fpeculation on the language and cuftoms of perfons in high rank, at the period in which they were compofed. It is a recommendation. of them, that they are genuine family letters, not studiously laboured, like thofe of profeffed Wits and Letter-writers, but written in perfect confidence, and without the leaft idea of their future publication. But as old language. is certainly not a model for young students in the prefent day, it must be remembered that this compilation profeffes in its title-page, to be defigned for GENERAL ENTERTAINMENT, as well as for the perufal and improvement of those who are in the courfe of their education.

The Letters of the celebrated Howel, which form another confiderable portion of the Second Book, cannot fail of affording, in addition to the

The following is the opinion of Morhof, a learned critic, concerning the Letters of Howel, which were firft published in 1645:

Non debent hic quoque omitti JACOBI HOWEL, Equitis Angli, et Secretarii Regii, Epiftola familiares....Mixta hic funt negotiis civilibus literaria, magnaque illa rariffimarum rerum varietas mirificè legentem delectat. Agitur hic de rebus Angli cis, Gallicis, Italicis, Germanicis, Hifpanis, Belgicis, Danicis, Suecicis, undè multa ad hiftoriam corum temporum obfervari possunt. Infperguntur nonnunquam poetici fales et facetie. Phyfica et medica non omittuntur. De rebus literariis difquiritur. Hiftoriæ rariores narrantur. Characteres et lineamenta virorum illuftrium et doctorum, tam in Anglia, quam in aliis locis, ab illo proponuntur. Elucet denique ex ftylo varia et elegans eruditio.... Infinita propemodum hic occurrunt obfervatione digniffima. Quare operæ pretium faceret, qui has Epiftolas in linguam vel Latinam vel Germanicam converteret.

POLYHIST. LIT. lib. ii. cap. 24. inftruction