which he gave an account of all the battles the Romans had had with the Germans. His nephew says, that a dream, which occurred when he served in the army in Germany, first suggested to him the design of this work : it was, that Drusus Nero, who extended his conquests very far into that country, and there lost his life, appeared to him, and conjured him not to suffer his memory to be buried in oblivion. He wrote likewise " A treatise upon Eloquence; and a piece of criticism "concerning dubious Latinity." This last work, which was published in Nero's reign, when the tyranny of the times made it dangerous to engage in studies of a freer kind, is often cited by Priscian. He completed a history which Aufidius Bassus left unfinished, by adding to it thirty books, which contained the history of his own times. Lastly, he left thirty-seven books upon the subject of natural history: a work, says his nephew, of great compass and learning, and almost as full of variety as nature herself. It is indeed a most valuable treasury of ancient knowledge. For its defects, which in the estimation of modern students of natural history must unavoidably be numerous, he thus apologizes, in the dedication to Vespasian: "The path which I have taken has hitherto been, in a great measure, untrodden; and holds forth to the traveller few enticements. None of our own writers have so much as attempted these subjects; and even among the Greeks no one has treated of them in their full extent. The generality of authors in their pursuits attend chiefly to amusement; and those who have the character of writing with great depth and refinement are involved in impenetrable obscurity. Such is the extent of my undertaking, that it comprehends every topic which the Greeks include under the name of Encyclopædia; of which, however, some are as yet utterly unknown, and others have been rendered uncertain by excessive subtlety. Other parts of my subject have been so often handled, that readers are become cloyed with them. Arduous indeed is the task to give what is old an appearance of novelty; to add weight and authority to what is new; to cast a lustre upon subjects which time has obscured; to render acceptable what is become trite and disgusting; to obtain credit to doubtful relations; and, in a word, to represent every thing according to nature, and with all its natural properties. A design like this, even though incompletely executed, will be allowed to be grand and noble." He adds

afterwards, "Many defects and errors have, I doubt not, escaped me; for, besides that I partake of the common infirmities of human nature, I have written this work in the midst of engagements, at broken periods which I have stolen from sleep."

It would be unjust to the memory of this great man, not to admit this apology in its full extent; and it would be still more unjust, to judge of the merit of his work, by comparing it with modern productions in natural history, written after the additional observations of seventeen hundred years. Some allowance ought also to be made for the carelessness and ignorance of transcribers, who have so mutilated and corrupted this work, that, in many places, the author's meaning lies almost beyond the reach of conjecture,

With respect to philosophical opinions, Pliny did not rigidly adhere to any sect, but occasionally borrowed such tenets from each, as suited his present inclination or purpose. He reprobates the Epicurean tenet of an infinity of worlds; favours the Pythagorean notion of the harmony of the spheres; speaks of the universe as God, after the manner of the stoics; and sometimes seems to pass over into the field of the sceptics. For the most part, however, he leans towards the doctrine of Epicurus.

To the works of this author may be added a vast quantity of manuscripts, which he left to his nephew, and for which he had been offered by Largius Licinius 400,000 sesterces, that is, about 3200l. of our money. "You will wonder," says his nephew, "how a man, so engaged as he was, could find time to compose such a number of books; and some of them too upon abstruse subjects. Your surprise will rise still higher, when you hear, that for some time he engaged in the profession of an advocate, that he died in his 56th year, that from the time of his quitting the bar to his death he was employed in the highest posts, and in the service of his prince: but he had a quick apprehension, joined to an unwearied application." Ep. iii. 5. Hence he became not only a master in polite literature, in grammar, eloquence, and history, but possessed a knowledge of the various arts and sciences, geography, mathematics, philosophy, astronomy, medicine, botany, sculpture, painting, architecture, &c. for of all these things has he treated in the very important work that he has left us.

The first edition of Pliny's "Naturalis Historia" came from the press of Spira at Venice in 1469, and is reckoned one of the most beautiful, rare, and valuable publications of the fifteenth century. Mr. Dibdin describes the copy in lord Spencer's library as the finest extant. Five other editions were published from 1470 to 1476, such was the demand for this store-house of natural history. Of the modern editions, the preference is usually given to that by the celebrated father Hardouin, of which there are two, the first "in usum Delphini," Paris, 5 vols. 4to; the second, 1723, 3 vols. folio, which is a more copious, splendid, and critical performance. Since that, we have an excellent edition by Franzius, Leipsic, 1778-91, 10 vols. 8vo. Another by Brotier, Paris, 1779, 6 vols. 8vo.. And a third, Bipont, 1783, 6 vols, 8vo. There are translations of it, or of parts, in all languages. That endless translator Philemon Holland exerted his own and his readers' patience on a version into English, published in 1601, folio.1

PLINIUS CÆCILIUS SECUNDUS (CAIUS), nephew of the preceding, was born A. D. 62, at Novocomum, a town upon the lake Larius, near which he had several beautiful villas. Cæcilius was the name of his father, and Plinius Secundus that of his mother's brother, who adopted him. He discovered from his infancy, good talents and an elegant taste, which he did not fail to cultivate, and informs us himself that he wrote a Greek tragedy at fourteen years of age. He lost his father when he was young, and had the famous Virginius for his tutor or guardian, of whom he gives a high character. He frequented the schools of the rhetoricians, and heard Quintilian; for whom he ever after entertained so high an esteem, that he bestowed a considerable portion upon 'his daughter at her marriage. He was in his eighteenth year when his uncle died; and it was then that he began to plead in the forum, the usual road to promotion. About a year after, he assumed the military character, and went into Syria with the commission of tribune: but as this did not suit his taste, he returned after a campaign or two. He tells us, that in his passage homewards he was detained by contrary winds at the island Icaria, and that he employed himself in making

verses: he enlarges, in the same place, upon his poetical efforts; but in this respect, like Cicero, he valued himself upon a talent which he did not eminently possess.

Upon his return from Syria, he settled at Rome, in the reign of Domitian. During this most perilous time, he continued to plead in the forum, where he was distinguished, not more by his uncommon abilities and eloquence, than by his great resolution and courage, which enabled him to speak boldly, when hardly any one else could venture to speak at all. On these accounts he was often singled out by the senate, to defend the plundered provinces against their oppressive governors, and to manage other causes of a like important and dangerous nature. One of these causes was in favour of the province of Bætica, in their prosecution of Babius Massa; in which he acquired so general an applause, that the emperor Nerva, then a private man, and in banishment at Tarentum, wrote him a letter, in which he congratulated, not only Pliny, but the age which had produced an example so much in the spirit of the ancients. Pliny relates this affair, in a letter to Tacitus; and he was so pleased with it himself, that he could not help informing his correspondent that he should not be sorry to find it recorded in his history. He obtained the offices of questor and tribune, and escaped the proscriptions of the tyrannical reign of Domitian. There is, however, reason to believe that he owed his safety to the death of the emperor, as his name was afterwards found in that savage's tablets among the number of those who were destined to destruction..

He had married on settling at Rome, but losing his wife in the beginning of Nerva's reign, he soon after took his beloved Calphurnia; of whom we read so much in his Epistles. He had not however any children by either of his wives: and hence we find him thanking Trajan for the jus trium liberorum, which he afterwards obtained of that emperor for his friend Suetonius Tranquillus. He was promoted to the consulate by Trajan in the year 100, when he was thirty-eight years of age and in this office pronounced that famous panegyric, which has ever since been admired, as well for the copiousness of the topics, as the elegance of address. He was then elected augur, and afterwards made proconsul of Bithynia; whence he wrote to Trajan that curious letter concerning the primitive Christians, which, with. Trajan's rescript, is happily extant among his " Epistles." "Pliny's letter," as Melmoth observes, in a note upon the passage, "is esteemed as almost the only genuine monument of ecclesiastical antiquity, relating to the times immediately succeeding the apostles, it being written at most not above forty years after the death of St. Paul. It was preserved by the Christians themselves, as a clear and unsuspicious evidence of the purity of their doctrines; and is frequently appealed to by the early writers of the church, against the calumnies of their adversaries." It is not known what became of Pliny, after his return from Bithynia; nor have we any information as to the time of his death; but it is conjectured that he died either a little before, or soon after, his patron the emperor Trajan, that is, about A. D. 116.

Pliny was unquestionably a man of talents, and various accomplishments, and a man of virtue; but in dislike of the Christians he seems to have indulged equally his master Trajan, whose liberal sentiments respecting informers in his short letter cannot be sufficiently admired. Pliny wrote and published a great number of books: but nothing has escaped the wreck of time, 'except the books of Epistles, and the "Panegyric upon Trajan," which has ever been considered as a master-piece. His Letters seem to have been intended for the public; and in them he may be considered as writing his own memoirs. Every epistle is a kind of historical sketch, in which we have a view of him in some striking attitude, either of active or contemplative life. In them are preserved anecdotes of many eminent persons, whose works are come down to us, as Suetonius, Silius Italicus, Martial, Tacitus, and Quintilian; and of curious facts, which throw great light upon the history of those times. They are written with great politeness and spirit; and, if they abound too much in turn and metaphor, we must impute it to that degeneracy of taste, which was then accompanying the degenerate manners of Rome. Pliny, however, seems to have preserved himself in this latter respect from the general contagion : whatever the manners of the Romans were, his were pure and incorrupt. His writings breathe a spirit of great goodness and humanity: his only imperfection is, he was too desirous that the public and posterity should know how humane and good he was; and while he represents himself, as he does, calling for Livy, reading him at his leisure, and even making extracts from him, when the erup