XCIX. People are apt to run into the same error in writing multitudes of letters, that they are in paying too many visits; as letters may be termed a sort of visits in writing. Numbers of people are addicted to this fault, and their reason for committing it is, that they are in hopes by this means, to recommend themselves to the good graces of those they write to; but nothing can be more absurd or ridiculous, than thinking, that by being troublesome to people, you will gain their esteem and affection; whereas the commission of this fault, is most commonly attended with a quite opposite effect; and I have seen many, who by the frequency of their letters, have lost the good-will of those who had a regard for them, and whose friendship they would have continued to possess, but for their teasing them with a superfluous repetition of letters. There are not a few, who write these sort of letters, for the sake afterwards of feeding their own vanity by shewing the answers to them, in order to manifest that they are esteemed by, and honoured with the correspondence of persons of distinction. These are not only troublesome to those they write to, but to those also to whom they shew the answers to their letters; and what most commonly happens is, that instead of making themselves appear respectable by doing this, they cause themselves to be despised, and to look ridiculous; for there is scarce any one who does not regard with contempt, a man that runs about from company to company reading and shewing his letters, like a bad poet, who is always troubling his friends with a repetition of his verses.