It has been said that, if heavy postage produced essays, cheap postage makes epigrams. But the latter were not wanting in the very earliest days. Nothing could be more epigrammatic than the note sent by one Irish chief to another: ‘Pay me tribute, or else ----’ To which the equally epigrammatic answer was: ‘I owe you none, and if ----’ Of this sort were the notes between Foote’s mother and Foote. ‘Dear Sam,--I’m in prison. Yours, E. FOOTE.’ The old lady was under arrest for debt. The son’s answer was: ‘Dear Mother,--So am I. Yours, S. FOOTE.’ And again, the letters between old Mrs. Garrick and young Edmund Kean: ‘Dear Mr. Kean,--You can’t play Abel Drugger. Yours, &c.’ To which intimation Edmund wrote back: ‘Dear Madam,--I know it. Yours, E. K.’ Instances occur now and then where a joke has been played, the fun of which was to make a man pay heavy postage for very unnecessary information. When Collins, the artist, was once with some friends around him, one of them resisted every attempt to induce him to stay to supper. He withdrew, and the friends in council over their banquet resolved that the sulky guest should be punished. Accordingly on the following day Collins sent him a folded sheet of foolscap, in which was written: ‘After you left we had stout and oysters.’ The receiver understood what was meant, but he was equally resolved to have his revenge. Accordingly, biding his time, he transmitted, in a feigned hand, to Collins, a letter in which the painter read only, ‘_Had_ you?’ Therewith the joke seemed at an end; but Collins would have the last word. He waited and waited till the thing was almost forgotten, and then the writer of the last query opened a letter one morning in which he had the satisfaction of finding an answer to it in the words, ‘Yes, we had.’ We cannot dismiss this part of the subject without expressing our regret that we are unable to remember the name of that British admiral who, after achieving a glorious victory at sea, despatched a letter to the Admiralty, in which there were only these or similar words: ‘ ... Beat the enemy; took, sunk, burned, and destroyed ships named in the margin.’ Tersest of admirals! The publication of the letters of deceased persons first arose, or began to be so common, about the middle of the last century, that Dr. Arbuthnot declared the knowledge of such a fact added a new terror to death. In 1781 the custom had not improved. ‘It has become so much the fashion to publish letters,’ said Dr. Johnson, ‘that I put as little into mine as I can.’ Nevertheless, when Boswell subsequently asked him if it would be proper to publish any of his letters after death, Johnson contented himself by remarking: ‘Nay, sir, when I am dead you may do as you will with mine.’