ABSTRACT
This chapter examines several fictional letters from individuals constructed to make those individuals appear dangerous or threatening. It assesses fictional satirical letters whose authors make their victims appear derisory and preposterous precisely to diminish threat or danger, to castigate or punish them. The chapter shows some progress in sorting out the mass of pamphlet material designated as letters during the century, specifically those letters that have a condemnatory, satirical, or libelous character. To render the satires effective as ideological statements aimed at specific political or religious adversaries, the authors of these satires in epistolary form name names. Uses of the terms satire, libel, and pamphlet throughout the seventeenth century were indeed imprecise. Illustrating the influence of classical satirist Horace on early modern satire, Steven Shelburne writes, "In the English Renaissance, the epistolary ethos is the natural complement of formal satire".
