LETTER, a character used in print ing. Type either of metal or wood. Used collectively to represent type, as "a case of letter," "a font of letter." Fat letter is type with body and face broad in proportion to its height. Lean letter is type thin or narrow in propor tion to its height. Body letter is type in which the main portion of a book or paper is printed. Body letter is known by different names, according to the size of the type; the sizes in most common use being: Pearl, Agate, Nonpareil, Minion, Brevier, Bourgeois, Long Primer, Small Pica, and Pica. These sizes are also known in terms of the point sys tem, another standard of type measure ment. Thus pica is now twelve point, nonpareil is six point, etc.
A letter is, in its nature, altogether familiar; this term may be used for whatever is written by one friend to an other in domestic life, or for the public documents of this description which have emanated from the pen of writers, as the letters of Madame de Sevigne, the let ters of Pope or of Swift; and even those which were written by the ancients, as the letters of Cicero, Pliny, and Seneca; but in strict propriety the latter are epistles—a term more adapted to what ever has received the sanction of ages; and by the same rule, likewise, whatever is peculiarly solemn in its contents has acquired the same epithet, as the epistles of St. Paul, St. Peter, St. John, St.
Jude. Letters and literature signify knowledge derived through the medium of written letters or books, that is, in formation; learning is confined to that which is communicated, that is, scholas tic knowledge. Such an expression as inen of letters, or the republic of letters, comprehends all -who devote themselves to the cultivation of their minds.