t; and
that of a kind that does not stale itself.

The fact would seem to be that the art of letter-writing is a sort of
mosaic or macedoine of nearly all departments of the general Art of
Literature. You want constant touches of the art narrative, and not very
seldom some of the art dramatic. Always you want that of
conversation--subtly differentiated. Occasionally, though in the
ordinary letter not very often, you want argument: much oftener
description. Pathos, tenderness, etc., are more exceptionally required:
and it is, in modern times at least, generally accepted that in the
letter consolatory, that almost greatest of Shakespearian magic phrases,
"the rest is silence" should never be forgotten and very quickly
applied. Wit is welcome, if it be well managed: but that is a pretty
constant proviso in regard to the particular element. Perhaps the
greatest negative caution of all is that the letter should not be
_obviously_ "written for publication."

Now the curious thing about Walpole is that his letters were, pretty
certainly in some cases (those to Mann) and not improbably in nearly
all, written with some view to publication if only of a limited sort,
and yet that the intention is rarely prominent to an offensive degree.
Even if we did not know the curious and disgusting tricks that Pope
played with his, we should be certain that he was always thinking of the
possibility of somebody else than the reader to whom they were
addressed reading them. With nearly an equal presumption as to the fact
in the case of Horace (though to do him justice he did not indulge in
any ignoble tricks with them) this fact rarely occurs and never offends.
An unkind critic with a turn for rather obvious epigram might say that
the man's nature was so artificial that his artifice seems natural. If
so, all the more credit to him as an artificer. And another feather in
his cap is that, although you can hardly ever mistake the writer, his
letters take a slight but sufficient colour of difference according to
the personality of the recipient. He does not write to Montagu exactly
as he writes to Mann; to Gray as to Mason; to Lady Upper-Ossory as to
earlier she-correspondents. So once more, though there are large and
important possible subjects for letters on which "Horry" does not write
at all, it is questionable whether, everything being counted in that he
has, and no unfair offsets allowed for what he does not attempt, we have
in English any