iticism
that the time for perfect letter-writing was not quite yet, in this day
of so much that was perfect, that the style was not quite the right
style, the knack not yet quite achieved. And if the present writer--who
swore fealty to Elizabethan literature a full third of a century ago
after informal allegiance for nearly as long a time earlier--admits some
truth in this, there probably is some. The letters included in it
attract us more for the matter they contain than for the manner in which
they contain it: and when this is the case no branch of literature has
perfected itself in art.

[Sidenote: THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY]

The position of the seventeenth century in England with regard to
letter-writing has been the subject of rather different opinions. The
bulk of its contributions is of course very considerable: and some of
the groups are of prominent importance, the most singular, if not the
most excellent, being Cromwell's, again to be mentioned. As in other
cases and departments this century offers a curious "split" between its
earlier part which declines--not in goodness but like human life in
vitality--from, but still preserves the character of, the pure
Elizabethan, and its later, which grows up again--not in goodness but
simply in the same vitality--towards the Augustan. This relationship is
sufficiently illustrated in the actual letters. The great political
importance of the Civil War of course reflects itself in them. Indeed it
may almost be said that for some time letters are wholly concerned with
such things, though of course there are partial exceptions, such as
those of Dorothy Osborne--"mild Dorothea" as she afterwards became,
though there is no mere mildness of the contemptuous meaning in her
correspondence. In most remarkable contrast to these stand the somewhat
earlier letters of James Howell--our first examples perhaps of letters
"written for publication" in the fullest sense, very agreeably varied in
subject and great favourites with a good many people, notably
Thackeray--but only in part (if at all) genuine private correspondence.

Not a few men otherwise distinguished in literature wrote
letters--sometimes in curious contrast with other productions of theirs.
The most remarkable instance of this, but an instance easily
comprehensible, is that of Samuel Pepys. Only a part of Pepys' immense
correspondence has ever been printed, but there is no reason to expect
from the remainder--whether actua