Page:Familiar Letters between the Principal Characters in David Simple.pdf/15

vi hort, abrupt, unconnected Periods; a Style o eay, that any Man may write it, and which, one would imagine, it mut be very difficult to procure any Peron to read.

uch Critics therefore I would recommend Ovid, who was perhaps the ablet Writer of les Lettres Galantes, that ever lived. In his Arte amandi they will find the following Rule.

viz. that thee Letters hould preerve the Style of Converation; and in his Epitles they will ee this excellently illutrated by Example. But if we are to form our Idea of the Converation of ome modern Writers from their Letters, we hall have, I am afraid, a very indifferent Opinion of both.

in reality, this Style of Converation is only proper, at leat only necesary to thee, which I have called Letters of Converation; and is not at all requiite either to Letters of Buines, which in After-ages make a Part of Hitory, or to thoe on the Subject of Literature and Criticim.