BELLES-LETTRES, a term used to designate the more artistic and imaginative forms of literature, as poetry or romance, as opposed to more pedestrian and exact studies. Modern usage applies the word more often to the little hills than to the moun tain-peaks of literature, and denotes the essay and the critical study rather than the epics of Homer or the plays of Shakespeare. The term appears to have been first used in English by Swift (1710).