Book I.] DEDICATION. 9 



painting and sculpture, of wliom jou will find an account 

 in these volumes, whose works, although they are so perfect 

 that we are neyer satisfied with, admiring them, are inscribed 

 with a temporary title \ such as " Apelles, or Polycletus, was 

 doiDg this ; " implyiQg that the work was only commenced 

 and still imperfect, and that the artist might benefit by the 

 criticisms that were made on it and alter any part that 

 required it, if he had not been prevented by death. It is 

 also a great mark of their modesty, that they inscribed their 

 works as if they were the last which they had executed, and 

 as still in hand at the time of their death. I think there are 

 but three works of art which are inscribed positively with 

 the words " such a one executed this ; " of these I shall give 

 an account in the proper place. In these cases it appears, 

 that the artist felt the most perfect satisfaction ^^'iih. his work, 

 and hence these pieces have excited the envy of every one. 



I, indeed, freely admit, that much may be added to my 

 works ; not only to this, but to all which I have published. 

 By this admission I hope to escape from the carping critics", 

 and I have the more reason to say this, because I hear 

 that there are certain Stoics and Logicians', and also Epi- 

 cureans (from the Grrammarians"* I expected as much), who 

 are big with something against the little work I published 

 on Grrammar^ ; and that they have been carrying these 

 abortions for ten years together — a longer pregnancy this 

 than the elephant's^. But I well know, that even a woman 

 once -v^Tote against Theophrastus, a man so eminent for his 

 eloquence that he obtained his name, Avhich signifies the 



* " Pendenti titulo ; " as Hardouin explains it, " qui nondum absolutum 

 opus significaret, verum adhuc pendere, velut imperfectvun." Lemaire, 

 i, 26. 2 " Homeroinastigse." 



3 " Dialectici." By tkis tenn our aiithor probably meant to designate 

 those critics who were disposed to dwell upon minute verbal distinctions ; 

 " dialecticarum captionum amantes," according to Hardouin ; Lem. i. 28. 



* " Quod argutiarum amantissimi, et quod aemulatio inter illos acer- 

 bissima." Alexandre in Lemau'e, i. 28. 



5 Pliny the younger, in one of his letters (iii. 5), where he enumerates 

 all his uncle's pubhcations, informs us, that he wTote " a piece of criticism 

 in eight books, concerning ambiguity of expression." Melmoth's 

 Phny, i. 136. 



^ The ancients had very exaggerated notions respecting the period of 

 the elephant's pregnancy ; om' author, in a subsequent part of liis work 

 (viii. 10), says, "Decern Minis gestarevulgusexistimat; Aristotcles biennio." 



