ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a short history of how the letters were viewed in the years after their publication. It argues that such seething takes place very noticeably in the letters of Hertford and Pomfret; and that it forces them at least temporarily to withdraw into an epistolary redoubt within the larger fortification of the landed aristocracy. For the Countesses epistolary space was a place to retreat within rather than a place through which to make advances to the world without. Specific pressures within the Venetian oligarchy combined with personal embarrassment at the hands of Montagu, Walpole and Thomson had all finally taken their toll. The rise of the Post Office was inextricably linked with the massive growth in industry and commerce that took place during the first half of the eighteenth century: necessitating as it did better communications.
