The general advance in knowledge and the research into national affairs which were the features of eighteenth-century culture quickly brought the study of history into prominence. France led the way, and the Scots, traditionally allied to the French, were the first in Britain to feel the influence. Hence we have Hume’s _History of England_ (1754) and the works of Robertson. These books excelled in ease and sense, but the knowledge displayed in them was not yet sufficient to make them epoch-making. Gibbon’s _Decline and Fall_ (1776) in knowledge, in method, and in literary style is as near perfection as human frailty can attain. Thus within twenty or thirty years the art of writing history in English advanced from a state of tutelage to complete development. (_c_) _Letter-writing._ The habit of writing letters became very popular during the eighteenth century, and flourished till well into the nineteenth, when the institution of the penny post made letter-writing a convenience and not an art. It was this popularity of the letter that helped Richardson’s _Pamela_ into public favor. A favorite form of the letter was a long communication, sometimes written from abroad, discussing some topic of general interest. Such a letter was semi-public in nature, and was meant to be handed round a circle of acquaintances. Frequently a series of letters was bound into book-form. Collections of this kind were the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762), written to Pope and others from Constantinople, and of Thomas Gray, from the Lake District and the Continent. Sometimes the letters contain comments on political and social matters, as in the famous compositions of Lord Chesterfield to his son, which we have already noticed. We give an extract from one of Chesterfield’s letters, for it is valuable as an example of witty and polished prose. A letter of the type of Chesterfield’s is really an essay which is given a slightly epistolary form.