Near two thousand of his letters — a mode of composition in which Libanius was thought to excel — are still extant, and already published. The critics may praise their subtle and elegant brevity yet Dr. Bentley (Dissertation upon Phalaris, p. 487) might justly though quaintly observe that "you feel, by the emptiness and deadness of them, that you converse with some dreaming pedant, with his elbow on his Desk."