eeable negligence in letters is more graceful than elaborate
ornaments. Laboured? Nothing can be more proper, since we send epistles
to our friends as a kind of presents. If they display too nice an
arrangement, the Halicarnassian shall vindicate me. If there is none;
Artemon says there should be none.

Now as a good and pure Latinity has its peculiar taste, its manners,
and, to express myself thus, its Atticisms; if in this sense a letter
shall be found not sufficiently Attic, so much the better; for what was
Herod the sophist censured? but that having been born an Athenian, he
affected too much to appear one in his language. Should a letter seem
too Attical; still better, since it was by discovering Theophrastus, who
was no Athenian, that a good old woman of Athens laid hold of a word,
and shamed him.

Shall one letter be found not sufficiently serious? I love to jest. Or
is it too grave? I am pleased with gravity. Is another full of figures?
Letters being the images of discourse, figures have the effect of
graceful action in conversation. Are they deficient in figures? This is
just what characterises a letter, this want of figure! Does it discover
the genius of the writer? This frankness is recommended. Does it conceal
it? The writer did not think proper to paint himself; and it is one
requisite in a letter, that it should be void of ostentation. You
express yourself, some one will observe, in common terms on common
topics, and in new terms on new topics. The style is thus adapted to the
subject. No, no, he will answer; it is in common terms you express new
ideas, and in new terms common ideas. Very well! It is because I have
not forgotten an ancient Greek precept which expressly recommends this.

It is thus by attempting to be ambidextrous, I try to ward off attacks.
My critics, however, will criticise me as they please. It will be
sufficient for me, my Lord, to be assured of having satisfied you, by my
letters, if they are good; or by my obedience, if they are not so.

Florence, 1494.

ORIGINAL LETTER OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.

In the Cottonian Library, Vespasian, F. III. is preserved a letter
written by Queen Elizabeth, then Princess. Her brother, Edward the
Sixth, had desired to have her picture; and in gratifying the wishes of
his majesty, Elizabeth accompanies the present with an elaborate letter.
It bears no date of the _year_ in which it was written; but her place of
residence was at Hatfield. The