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* LETTERS IN LITERATURE. 163 LETTIC LANGUAGE. has something worth saying. Best known out- side of Germany are the letters of Luther to his friends and family, the correspondence between 1 Goethe and Schiller, and the letters of Bismarck to his wife. Xo letters equal those between Goethe and Schiller for letting one into the secrets of great authorship. Each informs the other of what he is doing and, so far as he can, describes the method of procedure. Schiller's letters to Kijrner treat in part the same theme. -Among other Germans who have left valuable letters are Lessing, Herder. Winckelmann, the brothers Humboldt, Ricliter. the Schlegels, Jleine, the Grimms, and Richard Wagner. Consult: Roberts, History of Letter-writing from the Earliest Period to the Fifth Century (London, 1843) ; Knight, Half-hours irith the Best Lettcr-Vi'riters (London, 18G7); Holeombe, Literature in Letters (New York, 1866) ; and Scoones. Four Centuries of English Letters (Lon- don. 1880). LETTERS OF MARQUE. See Mabque, Letters of. LETTERS PATENT. An open letter under the seal of the Government granting some proper- ty, right, privilege, or title. It is literally an open letter addressed to the public, and intended to be evidence of the rights of its grantee. The term is usually now applied to: (a) An instru- ment issued from the Patent Office in the name of the Government, granting and confirming to an inventor the exclusive right and privilege to his invention; (b) less specifically, an instrument by which lands are granted by the government I to individuals. See Patent and Patent Law. LETTERS ROGATORY. A written instru- ment addressed by one court to another in a for- eign jurisdiction, requesting the latter to cause to be examined, upon written interrogatories an- nexed, a witness, who is within the jurisdiction I of the latter court. Letters rogatory are de-' ' signed to accomplish the same purpose as a com- mission to take depositions. Letters rogatory are sent to foreign countries, as there is no 'comity of States' to rely on in such eases, and are quite common, especially in Admiralty pro- ceedings. See Deposition.s. LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS. A series of critical essays by Andrew Lang (1886). The graceful, humorous epistolary form covers a just and discriminating criticism of ancient and modern authors, ranging from Theocritus to Dumas. LETTERWOOD, or Snakewood. The heart- wood of a rather rare British Guiana tree, Brossimum Aubletti, of the order Artocarpaceie. the breadfruit family. It grows from 60 to 70 feet high, and acquires a diameter of from 2 to 3 feet. The sap-wood is white and hard: the harder and heavier heart-wood, which rarely exceeds 7 inches in thickness, is a rich brown, beautifully mottled with deeper shades of brown, almo^it black, spots, arranged with much greater regularity than is usually the case in the mark- ings of wood and bearing a slight resemblance to the thick letters of some old black-letter print- ing. In Guiana it is used for small articles of cabinet-work, and elsewhere only for fine veneer and inlaying work. LETTIC LANGUAGE AND LITERA- TURE. The language and literature of the Letts (q.v.) living in the Russian governments of Cour- land, Livonia, Vitebsk, Kovno, and Pskov, and in East Prussia. With Lithuanian (q.v.) and Old Prussian (q.v.), Lettic forms the Baltic subdivi- sion of the indo-Gtennanic languages (q.v.). The mutual relation between Lettic and Lithuanian is approximately the same as between Old High German and Gothic. Only in a few points is Lettic the more archaic. It ha.s preserved un- changed Indo-Germanic s and e where Lithuanian has modified them into sz ish) and z, and it retains the original short vowels where Lithua- nian shows long vowels of later development. The imperative is identical with the second per- son indicative, while Lithuanian has developed a new form with fc as the characteristic sign. On the other hand, Lettic has lost the pure o sound, and has lost the nasal ii (as, Lithuanian ranka. Old Church Slavic rqka, Lettic r9ka, Russian ruka, 'hand;' Lithuanian linkli, Lettic likt, 'to bend"). Usually the vowels in final syllables are dropped, as Lettic rukus, Lithuanian ruii- kosu, locative plural of ranka, 'hand ;' Lettic likt, Lithuanian Unkti, 'to bend.' Jlorphologi- eally, Lettic, like the Romance languages, pos- sesses only two genders, the neuter ( in pronouns and adjectives) being replaced by the masculine. The dual has disappeared entirely, except in (liui, two, and abbi, both. Of the eight Indo- Germanic cases, the ablative is lost, and the nominative generally performs the functions of the vocative, while the instrumental is usually identical with the accusative in the singular and ■with the dative in the plural. The verb, which is divided into twelve classes, has only three simple tenses (present, preterite, and future), and three simple moods, indicative, conditional, and imperative, beside an infinitive stem and a supine in tu. It has an active and a refiexive, formed by adding -s=:seiri, 'self.' as well as a passive voice, and six participles, four active (two present, one preterite, and one future), and two passive (present and preterite). The num- ber of periphrastic forms is extremely large. As in Czech, the accent came to be fixed invariably on the first syllable. In its vocabulary, Lettic exhibits the influence of German, Russian, Esthonian, Livonian. Finnish, and Scandinavian, and three groups of dialects are distinguished: High Lettic, in the Kast: Low Lettic, or Tah- mian. in Xorthwesteni Courland ; and Jliddle Lettic, on which the literary language is based. The earliest literary monuments in I,ettic are a translation of Luther's Catechism (printed in Kiinigsberg, 1586), Undeutsche Psalmen. and Gesiinge (ib., 1587), a Lettic version of psalms and hymns. Xearlv all the works up to the time of G. F. Stender (1714-96) were of a religious character. Stender compiled an ex- haustive dictionary and wrote a grammar which nu^rked an epoch in the history of Lettic. He also composed stories and tales, and a Book of ^yisdom Concerning the Unirerse and Xature (1776), eontaining'elements of astronomy, geog- raphv. and history. as well as odes and songs. The 'period 17.50-1820 is marked by the birth of national consciousness. To promote it fur- ther, periodicals were started, of which the Ma- qnzin, the organ of the T,ettic Literary Associa- tion of ilitau since 1827. has been the most important. The decades 1860S0 were the cul- minating vears of this nationalism in literature, with Woldemar at the head of the 'Young Lettic' group, mostly educated in Russian universities.