during the transaction of great affairs; which, though they afford
precedents to the minister, and memorials to the historian, are of no
use as examples of the familiar style, or models of private
correspondence.

If it be inquired by foreigners, how this deficiency has happened in the
literature of a country, where all indulge themselves with so little
danger in speaking and writing, may we not without either bigotry or
arrogance inform them, that it must be imputed to our contempt of
trifles, and our due sense of the dignity of the publick? We do not
think it reasonable to fill the world with volumes from which nothing
can be learned, nor expect that the employments of the busy, or the
amusements of the gay, should give way to narratives of our private
affairs, complaints of absence, expressions of fondness, or declarations
of fidelity.

A slight perusal of the innumerable letters by which the wits of France
have signalized their names, will prove that other nations need not be
discouraged from the like attempts by the consciousness of inability;
for surely it is not very difficult to aggravate trifling misfortunes,
to magnify familiar incidents, repeat adulatory professions, accumulate
servile hyperboles, and produce all that can be found in the despicable
remains of Voiture and Scarron.

Yet, as much of life must be passed in affairs considerable only by
their frequent occurrence, and much of the pleasure which our condition
allows, must be produced by giving elegance to trifles, it is necessary
to learn how to become little without becoming mean, to maintain the
necessary intercourse of civility, and fill up the vacuities of actions
by agreeable appearances. It had therefore been of advantage, if such of
our writers as have excelled in the art of decorating insignificance,
had supplied us with a few sallies of innocent gaiety, effusions of
honest tenderness, or exclamations of unimportant hurry.

Precept has generally been posterior to performance. The art of
composing works of genius has never been taught but by the example of
those who performed it by natural vigour of imagination, and rectitude
of judgment. As we have few letters, we have likewise few criticisms
upon the epistolary style. The observations with which Walsh has
introduced his pages of inanity, are such as give him little claim to
the rank assigned him by Dryden among the criticks. _Letters_, says he,
_are intended as resemblances of conversati