1 86 A. D. 73. 



If from the fubjeds of the Roman empire we pafs to the free nations 

 of the northern parts of Europe, we fhall find, indeed, very few materi- 

 als for naval hiftory, but thofe few very honourable to their nautical 

 knowlege and enterprife. Without the aid of afTured periodical fair 

 winds and fmooth water, without the certainty of a nightly anchorage, 

 or of a land-fall on the oppofite coaft of an inland fea, but trufting to 

 the appearance of the ftars, with probably the affiftancc derived from 

 the flight of birds carried with them for the purpofe*, they committed 

 themfelves to the boimdlefs and flormy Northern ocean, and held their 

 fearlefs courfe from Nerigon (luppofed to be Norway) to Thule ; [P//«. 

 L. iv, c. 16] which by the moft moderate and probable hypothefis was 

 Shetland. Thofe who mfift upon making it Iceland, lengthen the voy- 

 age, and exalt without, however, exaggerating, the fcience and intrepid- 

 ity, of the navigators of the North. The Suiones, a people of the Bal- 

 tic fea, are faid by Tacitus [Germania] to have had powerful fleets. Their 

 vefl^els, as already obferved, were conftruded fo as to reverfe their courfe 

 without the operation of going about ; and their oars were not fixed to 

 the row-ports, like thofe of the Mediterranean vefi'els, but loofe, and 

 ready to be fliifted or laid in, like thofe of modern boats. They made 

 no ufe of fails. - (See above, pp. 137, 184.) 



77 — Pliny finifhed his great work, entitled Natural hijiory, in thirty- 

 feven books f. The firft fix, after the preliminary one, contain, in very 

 comprefled language, a complete fyftem of cofmography and geography, 

 as they were then underftood ; and the remaining thirty contain dc- 

 fcriptions of every article in the animal, vegetable, and mineral, clafi~es, 

 or kingdoms, and alfo all the works of art, together with fyftems of 

 agriculture and medicine ; the whole work containing, according to his 

 own prefatorv, or dedicatory, letter to the emperor Titus Vefpafian, twen- 

 ty thoufand things worthy of obfervation, extraded from about two 

 thoufand volumes, many of which were fcarcely ever read, even by the 

 lludious, and exhibiting a copious pidure of the univerfal fcience of the 

 age. This work, which has furniftied about half of the materials for the 

 view of the trade of the Roman world, and to which I have on fo many 

 other occafions been indebted, fully deferves the charader, given of it 

 by his nephew, of being ' copious, learned, and no lefs diverfified than 

 ' Nature herfelf ;' and it is undoubtedly one of the moil fignal monu- 

 ments of indefatigable induflry and univerfal knowlege that was ever 



J'crmone. Put they were all mere gran^marians, f Though they are numbered, and quoted, as 



who knew no more of the fubjitt, upon which they thirty-fcvcn books, they are in truth only thirty-fix, 



have undertaken to inilrucl others, than what they wliat is called the fird book being merely a table 



collciftcd from the old Roman poets and hlllorians, of contents, with catalogues of the authors cjuoted 



■who lived many centuries before them, and were or followed, who are niolUy Greeks. Winy him- 



perhaps almofl as ignorant as thcmfclvet- Mar- felf calls them thirty-lix books. Hi« nephew how- 



cellus fays, the yards are held fad by the anchors ! ever, in the enumeration of his finiflicd works, 



* For the mcihod of lleering by the flight of icakcs them thirtyfeveii. 



birds fee below under the year 890. 3 



