And though respect
be a part following this, yet now here, and still I must remember
it, if you write to a man, whose estate and sense, as senses, you
are familiar with, you may the bolder (to set a task to his brain)
venture on a knot. But if to your superior, you are bound to
measure him in three farther points: first, with interest in him;
secondly, his capacity in your letters; thirdly, his leisure to
peruse them. For your interest or favour with him, you are to be
the shorter or longer, more familiar or submiss, as he will afford
you time. For his capacity, you are to be quicker and fuller of
those reaches and glances of wit or learning, as he is able to
entertain them. For his leisure, you are commanded to the greater
briefness, as his place is of greater discharges and cares. But
with your betters, you are not to put riddles of wit, by being too
scarce of words; not to cause the trouble of making breviates by
writing too riotous and wastingly. Brevity is attained in matter by
avoiding idle compliments, prefaces, protestations, parentheses,
superfluous circuit of figures and digressions: in the composition,
by omitting conjunctions [not only, but also; both the one and the
other, whereby it cometh to pass] and such like idle particles, that
have no great business in a serious letter but breaking of
sentences, as oftentimes a short journey is made long by unnessary
baits.
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