Page:Familiar Letters between the Principal Characters in David Simple.pdf/13

iv Occaions. Thee have been always eteemed as the mot valuable Parts of Hitory, as they are not only the mot authentic Memorials of Facts, but as they erve greatly to illutrate the true Character of the Writer, and do in a manner introduce the Peron himelf to our Acquaintance.

Kind owe their Merit not to Truth, but to Invention; uch are the Letters which contain ingenious Novels, or horter Tales, either pathetic or humorous; thee bear the ame Relation to the former, as Romance doth to true Hitory; and, as the former may be called hort Hitories, o may thee be tyled hort Romances.

the next Branch may be ranked thoe Letters, which have pat between Men of Eminence in the Republic of Literature. Many of thee are in high Etimation in the learned World, in which they are conidered as having equal Authority to that, which the political World allows to thoe of the firt Clas.

thee three Kinds of Letters, which have all their everal Merits, there are two more, with which the Moderns have