It was to gratify the two great passions of asking and answering that epistolary correspondence was first invented.  Letters (for by this usurped title epistles are now commonly known) are of several kinds.  First, there are those which are not letters at all—­as letters-patent, letters dismissory, letters enclosing bills, letters of administration, Pliny’s letters, letters of diplomacy, of Cato, of Mentor, of Lords Lyttelton, Chesterfield, and Orrery, of Jacob Behmen, Seneca (whom St. Jerome includes in his list of sacred writers), letters from abroad, from sons in college to their fathers, letters of marque, and letters generally, which are in no wise letters of mark.  Second, are real letters, such as those of Gray, Cowper, Walpole, Howell, Lamb, D.Y., the first letters from children (printed in staggering capitals), Letters from New York, letters of credit, and others, interesting for the sake of the writer or the thing written.  I have read also letters from Europe by a gentleman named Pinto, containing some curious gossip, and which I hope to see collected for the benefit of the curious.  There are, besides, letters addressed to posterity,—­as epitaphs, for example, written for their own monuments by monarchs, whereby we have lately become possessed of the names of several great conquerors and kings of kings, hitherto unheard of and still unpronounceable, but valuable to the student of the entirely dark ages.  The letter of our Saviour to King Abgarus, that which St. Peter sent to King Pepin in the year of grace 755, that of the Virgin to the magistrates of Messina, that of the Sanhedrim of Toledo to Annas and Caiaphas, A.D. 35, that of Galeazzo Sforza’s spirit to his brother Lodovico, that of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus to the D——­l, and that of this last-mentioned active police-magistrate to a nun of Girgenti, I would place in a class by themselves, as also the letters of candidates, concerning which I shall dilate more fully in a note at the end of the following poem.  At present sat prata biberunt.  Only, concerning the shape of letters, they are all either square or oblong, to which general figures circular letters and round-robins also conform themselves.—­H.W.]

Deer Sir its gut to be the fashun now to rite letters to the candid 8s and i wus chose at a publick Meetin in Jaalam to du wut wus nessary fur that town. i writ to 271 ginerals and gut ansers to 209. tha air called candid 8s but I don’t see nothin candid about ’em. this here 1 wich I send wus thought satty’s factory.  I dunno as it’s ushle to print Poscrips, but as all the ansers I got hed the saim, I sposed it wus best. times has gretly changed.  Formaly to knock a man into a cocked hat wus to use him up, but now it ony gives him a chance fur the cheef madgustracy.—­H.B.

Dear Sir,—­You wish to know my notions
  On sartin pints thet rile the land;
There’s nothin’ thet my natur so shuns
  Ez bein’ mum or underhand;
I’m a straight-spoken kind o’ creetur
  Thet blurts right out wut’s in his head. 
An’ ef I’ve one pecooler feetur,
  It is a nose thet wunt be led.