As the letters of Ovid and Cicero cited above show the letter is an inherently emotional mode of writing. Even in letters concerning mundane matters: the language [should low] along Like the clear water of a spring with a pleasant, gentle murmur, and ... not seem dead and sluggish Like fen water, devoid of all emotion' as Desiderius Erasmus explained in his treatise 'On the Art of Writing Letters' (De conscribendis epistolis, I522).' Both of these letters are written in emotion-rich language designed to lead the reader to imagine emotional turmoil, but there is a key difference between Cicero's letter to his friend Atticus and Dryden's translation of Canaces letter to her brother-lover Macareus composed by Ovid, One began its life as an actual missive, and the other is a representation of a letter crafted for a wider read