Melancholike Humours, in Verses of Diverse Natures by Nicholas Breton

included letters of compliment, of preferment of a servant, of declaring love to a mistress, of proposing marriage, of condolence, of challenge in a quarrel, of seeking to borrow money, and of offering advice. As Jean Robertson pointed out in her useful history of the genre, such handbooks took 'a new turn in 1602 with the publication of Nicholas Breton's A Poste with a Packet of Madde Letters.' (1) This last volume, the instant success of which prompted the author to enlarge it a year later and to issue a second part in 1605, was closely imitated by later writers including 'I.W.,' who followed Breton in attempting to entertain readers as well as moralize pithily on various subjects. A second edition was issued in 1629 and printed 'by Elizabeth Allde, for Francis Coules, dwelling in the Old Baily' (STC 24909.5), an imperfect copy of which is in the Huntington Library, San Marino, California.Ī Speedy Post constitutes a late addition to the popular succession of so-called letter writers or correspondence manuals that began with Angel Day's English Secretary and William Fulwood's Enemy of Idleness (both 1586) and continued well into the seventeenth century. The book was entered in the Stationers' Register 15 January 1625 and printed by Miles Flesher (or Fletcher) for William Sheares.

A4 and A4v), which the Princeton copy lacks but apart from the missing 'Contents of this Booke' in the American exemplar, both copies are complete and differ from each other only in a few insignificant stop-press corrections. The British Library copy contains a table of contents (sigs. Only two copies survive-one in the British Library (10905 bb 29), the other in the library of the Princeton Theological Seminary (SCB #11914).

Now published for the helpe of such as are desirous to learne to write Letters (STC 24909). This slim volume of fifty-nine pages, printed in black letter, is entitled A Speedie Poste, With certain New Letters, or The First Fruits of new Conceits, neuer yet disclosed. Gent.' issued a collection of letters, most with replies attached, designed both to amuse readers and to instruct them in the art of personal correspondence.

Melancholike Humours, in Verses of Diverse Natures by Nicholas Breton