10 



experimentally the trutli of Cicero's eulogy on the love of letters. 

 Those studies which amused them in prosperity became the con- 

 solation of their misfortune. A mind imbued with a taste for 

 literature finds solace in its own contemplations, and learns, in 

 the acquisition of mental treasures, to forget the evils and de- 

 privations it has suffered from the world. If to this taste be 

 joined a love of nature, it becomes still more independent. No- 

 thing, indeed, can be better calculated than a fondness for na- 

 tural history, to recreate the mind and body, and preserve both 

 in a state of healthful activity. It presents an ever-vaiying and 

 inexhaustible fund of pleasure ; and, while it inspires the most 

 sublime sentiments of the wisdom and benevolence of the Deity, 

 teaches man to be resigned to his lot. Who has read the vo- 

 lume of nature with success, and not become more virtuous and 

 more happy? 



Prior to his exile, Oppian must have laid the foundation of 

 his future fame. Though the Halieutics were first made public 

 at Rome, it is likely that the Cynegetics first occupied his at- 

 tention, and that, though he did not finish , he composed the 

 greater part of them, while he had an opportunity, in Cilicia, of 

 acquiring experimental knowledge of the subject. His situation 

 now, in an island surroimded by all the finny tribes of the Adriatic, 

 was peculiarly favourable to his icthyological studies. Here he 

 might collect many facts both from the experience of the fisher- 

 men of the island and his own. In the poetical colouring and 

 arrangement of these facts he found an uncloying feast, and in- 

 stead of blaming the cruelty of the emperor, bewailing his condi- 

 tion with unmanly tears, or complaining of the injustice of fortune,* 



* Ovid seems to have found only an image of his misfortunes in those objects which would 

 have diverted a mind devoted to the study of natural history ; 



