unfortunately undeniable that the bulk
of this department of Greek literature is spurious to begin with, and
uninteresting, even if spuriousness be permitted to pass. The Letters of
Phalaris--once famous in themselves, again so as furnishing one of the
chief battle-grounds in the "Ancient and Modern" quarrel, and never to
be forgotten because of their connection with Swift's _Battle of the
Books_--are as dull as ditchwater in matter, and utterly destitute of
literary distinction in style.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: ROMAN LETTER-WRITING]

It is a rule, general and almost universal, that every branch of Latin
literature is founded on, and more or less directly imitative of Greek.
Even the Satire, which the Romans relied upon to prove that they could
originate, is more apparently than really an invention. Also, though
this may be more disputable, because much more a matter of personal
taste, there were very few such branches in which the pupils equalled,
much fewer in which they surpassed, their masters. But in both respects
letter-writing may be said to be an exception. Unless we have been
singularly unlucky in losing better Greek letters than we have, and
extraordinarily fortunate in Fate's selection of the Latin letters that
have come down to us, the Romans, though they were eager students of
Rhetoric, and almost outwent their teachers in composing the empty
things called Declamations, seem to have allowed this very practice to
drain off mere verbosity, and to have written letters about matters
which were worth pen, ink, paper and (as we should say) postage. We have
in Greek absolutely no such letters from the flourishing time of the
literature as those of Cicero, of Pliny[3] and even of Seneca--while as
we approach the "Dark" Ages Julian and Synesius in the older language
cannot touch Sidonius Apollinaris or perhaps Cassiodorus[4] in the
younger. Of course all these are beyond reasonable doubt genuine, while
the Greek letters attributed to Plato, Socrates and other great men are
almost without doubt and without exception spurious. But there is very
little likelihood that the Greeks of the great times wrote many
"matter-ful" letters at all. They lived in small communities, where they
saw each other daily and almost hourly; they took little interest in the
affairs of other communities unless they were at war with them, and
when they did travel there were very few means of international
commu