noted of the ancient letter writers was
Pliny the younger. And now we are brought down to the days of the
Apostles and their Epistles. With a simple reverential allusion to the
letters of St. Paul and the other immediate followers of our Lord,
letters that teach men the way of salvation--we pass to a more modern
consideration of our topic.

Letters can hardly be classified. They are of various sorts. Most of
them, as schoolboys say, end in t-i-o-n, _tion_. There are Letters of
Introduction; Letters of Congratulation; Letters of Consolation; Letters
of Invitation; Letters of Recommendation; Letters of Administration.
There are, moreover, letters of friendship, business letters, letters of
diplomacy, letters of credit, letters patent, letters of marque (apt
also to be letters of mark), and love letters--the last being by no
means least.

Let not the gentle reader imagine from this enumeration than we are
going to be so tedious as to divide the remainder of this article into
heads, and to treat of each one of these kinds of letters in its turn.
No; our object is, by indicating thus the number of sorts, to elucidate
the importance of letters, and to prove that, if their writing be not,
like that of poetry, ranked among the fine arts, it well deserves to be.
For what more admirable accomplishment can there be--what is of more
importance often than the proper composing of letters? Many a reputation
is made or marred by a single epistle. Great consequences follow in the
train of a single epistle. The pen is mightier than the sword. How well
may our readers remember one brief letter of Henry Clay (_clarum et
venerabile nomen!_), who, when a candidate for the Presidency, wrote
many excellent letters, and too many--so many, indeed, that his
adversaries indulged in pointless ridicule, and called him 'The Complete
Letter Writer.' We allude, of course, to that brief letter to certain
importunate individuals in Alabama, which lost for him the decisive and
final vote of New York, and made Mr. Polk President--its consequences
being the war with Mexico, the acquisition and annexation of California,
the discovery of the gold mines--working an utter change in the
political and commercial fortunes of the world, which would probably
never have taken place, or, at least, not in our century, but for that
one brief Alabama letter! It is, we believe, fully conceded that the
safest rule for becoming Chief Magistrate of our country is never to