MEMOIR OF PLINY. 21 



pearles, disposed in rewes, ranks, and courses, one 

 by another, round about the attire of her head, her 

 cawle, her borders, her peruk of hair, her bond grace 

 and chaplet, at her eares pendant, about her neck in 

 a carcanet, vpon her wrest in bracelets, and on her 

 fingers in rings, that she glittered and shon again like 

 the sun as she went. The value of these ornaments 

 she esteemed and rated at 400,000 hundred (40 mil- 

 lions) sesterces ;* and offered fairly to proue it off- 

 hand by her bookes of accounts and reckonings. 

 Yet were not these jewels the gifts and presents of 

 the prodigal! prince her husband, but the goods and 

 ornaments from her own house, fallen to her by way 

 of inheritance from her grandfather, which he had 

 gotten together, euen by the robbing and spoiling of 

 whole prouinces. It was not sufficient, belike, (con- 

 tinues our author, in reprobating the luxuries of his 

 fellow-citizens,) to bring the seas into the kitchen 

 to let them down the throat into the bellie, vnlesse 

 men and women both caried them about in their 

 hands and eares, vpon their head, and all oner their 

 body. And yet what societie and affinttie is there 

 betwixt the sea and apparell ; what proportion be- 

 twixt the waues and surging billowes thereof, and 

 wooll ? for surely this element naturally receiues us 

 not in her bosom, vnlesse we be stark-naked ; and 

 set the case, there were so great good fellowship 

 with it and our bellies, how comes our backe and 



* Equivalent, perhaps, to L, 400,000 Sterling. 



