elongs to it by all but her childhood; as does
Chesterfield, whom some not bad judges would put not far if at all below
the three men just mentioned. The rise of the novel in this century is
hardly more remarkable than the way in which that novel almost wedded
itself--certainly joined itself in the most frequent friendship--to the
letter-form. But perhaps the excellence of the choicer examples in this
time is not really more important than the abundance, variety, and
popularity of its letters, whether good, indifferent, or bad. To use one
of the informal superlatives sanctioned by familiar custom it was the
'letter-writingest' of ages from almost every point of view. In its
least as in its most dignified moods it even overflowed into verse if
not into poetry as a medium. Serious epistles had--of course on
classical models--been written in verse for a long time. But now in
England more modern patterns, and especially Anstey's _New Bath Guide_,
started the fashion of actual correspondence in doggerel verse with no
thought of print--a practice in which persons as different as Madame
d'Arblay's good-natured but rather foolish father, and a poet and
historian like Southey indulged; and which did not become obsolete till
Victorian times, if then."

There is a wide distinction between a letter and an epistle. The letter
is a substitute for a spoken conversation. It is spontaneous, private,
and personal. It is non-literary and is not written for the eyes of the
general public. The epistle is in the way of being a public speech--an
audience is in mind. It is written with a view to permanence. The
relation between an epistle and a letter has been compared to that
between a Platonic dialogue and a talk between two friends. A great
man's letters, on account of their value in setting forth the views of a
school or a person, may, if produced after his death, become epistles.
Some of these, genuine or forgeries, under some eminent name, have come
down to us from the days of the early Roman Empire. Cicero, Plato,
Aristotle, Demosthenes, are the principal names to which these epistles,
genuine and pseudonymous, are attached.

Some of the letters of Cicero are rather epistles, as they were intended
for the general reader.

The ancient world--Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, Rome, and Greece--figures
in our inheritance of letters. In Egypt have been discovered genuine
letters. The papyrus discoveries contain letters of unknowns who had no
th