This title they owe, it would appear, to a mistake of the printer; for in an advertisement prefixed to one of the early editions, it is stated that “they have been called ‘Provincials,’ because the first having been addressed without any name to a person in the country, the printer published it under the title ‘Letter written to a Provincial by one of his Friends.’” This may be regarded as an apology for the use of a term which, critically speaking, was rather unhappy. The word _provincial_ in French, when used to signify a person residing in the provinces, was generally understood in a bad sense, as denoting an unpolished clown.[33] But the title, uncouth as it is, has been canonized and made classical forever; and “The Provincials” is a phrase which it would now be fully as ridiculous to attempt to change as it could be at first to apply it to the Letters. The most trifling particulars connected with such a publication possess an interest. The Letters, we learn, were published at first in separate stitched sheets of a quarto size; and, on account of their brevity, none of them extending to more than one sheet of eight pages, except the last three, which were somewhat longer, they were at first known by the name of the “LITTLE LETTERS.” No stated time was observed in their publication. The first letter appeared January 13, 1656, being on a Wednesday; the second on January 29, being Saturday; and the rest were issued at intervals varying from a week to a month, till March 24, 1657, which is the date of the last letter in the series; the whole thus extending over the space of a year and three months.