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Thirty Letters on Various Subjects, Vol. 1 (of 2)

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About This Book

A series of thirty epistolary essays offers compact reflections on customs, aesthetics, language, and moral psychology. Topics range from the force of habit, wealth, card-playing and duelling, to languages, painting, musical expression, punctuation, reading practices, and the English tongue; other letters examine Homeric heroism, Shakespeare, handwriting, the analogy among arts, and errors of association. Each letter combines philosophical observation, cultural criticism, and practical examples to question received opinions and encourage independent judgment.



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WHETHER these are real letters, or whether the author chose to throw his observations into the epistolary form, is a point of no great consequence. The invention of a story to shew how they came into the editor’s hands is by no means difficult.—A parcel of papers rescued from the trunk-maker or pastry-cook, has saved many an author from perishing. Cervantes and Sterne were not above such shifts; but they have served so often, that now, even the truth, tho’ without the least mixture of the marvellous, passes for invention.

Should these little volumes contain any new and useful observations on men and things, it is a sufficient reason for their publication—if the physic be wholesome, it is no matter under what form it is administered.