And wafts embodied thought a thousand ways.
Could souls to bodies write, death's power were mean,
For minds could then meet minds with heaven between.'
James Howell, who has left us a most amusing collection of letters, and therefore may be allowed to speak with some authority, says 'familiar letters may be called the 'larum bells of love;' and he puts the same idea into the form of a distich, thus—
'As keys do open chests,
So letters open brests.'
Unfortunately all the letters in the Epistolæ Ho-elianæ are not genuine, but were written when Howell was confined in the Fleet prison, and were made up in order to supply their author with money for his necessities.
To Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, has been given the credit of the invention of letterwriting, but her claim is easily disposed of, as we have specimens of written communications very long before her time. The earliest letter of which we have any record is that written by David to Joab, directing him to place Uriah in the front of the battle. There are several classical stories, that bear a likeness to this, of persons who carried letters, in which their own execution was desired; thus Homer tells the story of Bellerophon, who himself bore the sealed tablets that demanded his death. In later Jewish History we learn from the Bible that Queen Jezebel wrote letters in Ahab's name, and sealed them with his seal, and sent them to the elders and nobles.
Cicero was one of the earliest to bring the art to perfection, and his letters exhibit most of the graces of which it is capable. Seneca and the younger Pliny were also amongst the masters in the art. When we consider the inconvenient and perishable medium that the Romans had to content themselves with, we cannot but feel surprise at the number of letters that were written, and the large proportion that has come down to us. Thin wooden tablets, coated over with wax, were used and fastened together with a crossed thread. The knotted ends were sealed with wax, and as the letters were usually written by a confidential slave (the librarius), the seal was the only guaranty of genuineness. Sometimes ivory or parchment tablets were used, and an elevated border was probably added, in order to prevent rubbing. The want of a system of posts was not felt among the Romans, as most families possessed tabellarii, or special slaves, whose duty it was to convey letters to their destination.
It was the practice with the Romans to place the names of both the writer and his correspondent at the commencement of the letter, as 'Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, unto Timothy, my own son in the faith;' and the ending usually consisted of the word vale, or ave, or salve. The dates were scrupulously added, and sometimes the very hours were mentioned. This method of the Romans might well be imitated by us, for we often find an old letter rendered of little value by the omission of a date. A bad habit that some writers indulge in is to use the name of the day of the week, instead of the day of the month and year.