solute
non-pareility in almost every kind of genuine letter (as apart from
letters that are really pamphlets or speeches or sermons) except pure
love-letters, of which we have none from her. As for _Litterature
Epistolaire_, it is a collection of some two dozen reviews of various
modern reprints of letters by distinguished writers--mostly but not all
French. The author has throughout used the letters he is considering
almost wholly as tell-tales of character, not as examples of art: and
therefore he does not, except in possible glances, require further
attention, though the book is full of interesting things. Its judgment
of one of our greatest, and one of the greatest of all,
letter-writers--Horace Walpole--is too severe, but not, like Macaulay's,
superficially insistent on superficial defects, and ought not to be
neglected by anyone who studies the subject.

If, however, there was no need to rely on any of these books, they did
nothing to hinder in the peculiar way in which I had feared some
hindrance. For it is a nuisance to find that somebody else has done
something in the precise way in which you have planned doing it. I have
not yet encountered that nuisance here. Dr. Jessopp's general plan is
most like mine--indeed some similarity was unavoidable: but the two are
not identical, and I had planned mine before I knew anything about his.

So with this prelude let us go to business, only premising further that
the object, unlike that of the anonymous Augustan, is not to "give rules
and instructions for writing good letters," except in the way (which far
excels all rules and instructions) of showing how good letters have been
written. Let us also modestly trust that the collection may deal with
some "interesting occasions of life" and contain "thoughts on a [fair]
multiplicity of subjects." Having been, as above observed, unable during
the composition of this book to visit London or Oxford, I have had to
rely occasionally on friendly assistance. I owe particular thanks (as
indeed I have owed them at almost any time these forty years) to the
Rev. William Hunt, D.Litt., Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford:
and I am also indebted to Miss Elsie Hitchcock for some kind aid at the
Museum given me through the intermediation of Professor Ker.

Besides the thanks given to Mr. Lloyd Osbourne, Mr. Kipling and Dr.
Williamson in the text in reference to certain new or almost new
letters, we owe very sincere gratitude for p