Q. What should it be?

A. A natural and spirited representation of real conversation; exhibiting the character and manners of the several speakers, and suiting to each that peculiarity of thought and expression which distinguishes him from another.

Q. Are the greatest part of modern dialogues of this sort ?

A. They are far from it; are very puerile. Q. Who among the ancients are eminent for the beauty of their dialogues?

A. Plato, Cicero, and Lucian.

Q. What is the character of Plato's dialogues?

A. They are eminent for beauty. The characters of the sophists are well drawn. We are introduced into a real conversation, supported with life and spirit.

Q. How do Cicero's dialogues compare with Plato's ?

A. They are not so spirited and characteristical, but are agreeable and well supported. Q. What was Lucian's object in his dialogues of the dead?

A. To expose the follies of superstition and the pedantry of philosophy. Q. How did he effect it?

A. By wit and humour.

Q. Who have excelled among the moderns? A. Fontenelle, More, and Bishop Berkley. Q. What do Berkley's dialogues, concerning the existence of matter, furnish?

A. An instance of a very abstract subject

Epistolary Writing-Fictitious History. 95 made clear and intelligible by means of conversation.

EPISTOLARY WRITING-FICTITIOUS

HISTORY.

Q. What place does Epistolary Writing hold?

A. A kind of middle place between the serious and amusing species of composition.

Q. Do philosophical or political treatises in the form of letters come under the head of epistolary writing?

A. No. Nothing but what is of the easy, familiar style ;-conversation carried on between two friends at a distance.

Q. On what does its merit and agreeableness depend?

A. On its introducing us to some acquaintance with the writer. There we look for the

man, not the author.

Q. What is its first and fundamental requisite?

A. Simplicity; not excluding, however, sprightliness and wit.

Q. What should be its style?

A. Not too highly polished, but neat and

correct.

Q. What attention should be paid to decorum ?

A. All which our own character and that of others demand.

Q. Who have left us the most celebrated collections of letters among the ancients ? A. Pliny and Cicero.

Q. What is the character of Pliny's letters ? A. They are elegant and polite, and exhibit a very amiable view of the Author; but they seem too much to be designed for the public. Q. What of Cicero's ?

A. They are the most valuable extant in any language.

Q. What collection is most distinguished in the English language?

A. That of Mr. Pope, Dean Swift, and their friends.

Q. What is the character of this collection? A. It is entertaining, contains much wit and ingenuity; but shows too much study and refinement.

Q. Who are most esteemed among the French letter writers?

A. Voiture and Madame de Sevignes. Q. What English lady has much excelled in epistolary writing?

A. Lady Mary Wortley Montague.

Q. What is the use of fictitious histories? A. They furnish one of the best channels for conveying instruction, for painting human life and manners, and for exhibiting the beauty of virtue and odiousness of vice.

Q. Of what did Lord Bacon consider our taste for fictitious history a proof?

A. Of the greatness and dignity of the hu man mind; for it shows that common objects

do not give it entire satisfaction. We seek for a more heroic and splendid order of things. Q. What has brought it so much into contempt ?

A. The faulty manner of its execution, rather than its nature.

Q. When did fictitious history first commence ?

A. In the earliest periods. The genius of the eastern nations in particular, was, from the earliest times, much turned towards invention and the love of fiction.

Q. What fictitious histories were fashionable in the dark ages?

A. The romances of knight errantry; in which were displayed a new and wonderful sort of world, knights, and heroines, magicians, dragons, giants, invulnerable men, winged horses, enchanted armour, and enchanted castles, adventures absolutely incredible yet they were writings of the highly moral and heroic kind.

Q. Why were these called Romances ?

A. Because they were first written in France, in the Roman or Romance language. Q. What furnished new matter and increased the spirit for such writings?

A. The crusades of the Christians against the Saracens ; which, from the 11th to the 16th century, bewitched all Europe.

Q. Who exploded the taste for this sort of writing?

A. Cervantes, by his history of Don Quix

ote.

Q. What succeeded?

A. The magnificent heroic romance, which soon dwindled to the familiar novel.

the

age

Q. What was the character of novels during of Louis XIV. and Charles II. ? A. They were of a trifling nature, without the appearance of moral tendency, or useful instruction.

Q. Has their character since been improved?

A. Some; but they oftener tend to dissipation and idleness, than to any good purpose. Q. Who excel in this kind of writing, the English or the French?

A. The French. The English neither relate so agreeably, nor draw characters with so much delicacy.

Q. What productions of the French have merit?

A. Gil Blas, by Le Sage; the Marianne of Marivaux; and the Nouvelle Heloise of Rous

seau.

Q. What fiction in the English language is supported unusually well?

A. The adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Q. For what are Fielding's novels distinguished?

A. For their humour; his characters are lively and natural, and his stories are favourable to humanity.

Q. Who is the most moral of the English novel writers ?