MEMOIR OF PLINY. 53 



ficient to clad them, euery one according to their 

 kind ; as, namely, shells, pods, prickes, hard hides, 

 shag, hristles, haire, downe, feathers, quills, skales, 

 and fleeces of wooll. Man alone, poore wretch, she 

 hath layed all naked upon the hare earth, euen on 

 his birth day, to cry and vvraul presently from the 

 very first houre that hee is home, in such sort, as 

 among so many liuing creatures there is none sub- 

 ject to shed tears and weepe like him ; and verilie to 

 no babe or infant it is giuen to laugh till he bee four- 

 ty daies old, and that is counted very early. O folly 

 of all follies euer to thinke (considering this simple 

 beginning of ours) that we were sent into this world 

 to Hue in pride, and carie our heads aloft ! The first 

 hope that we conceiue of our strength, the first gift 

 that time affordeth vs, maketh vs no better than 

 four-footed beasts." Some of the examples of handi- 

 craft mentioned by Pliny, are curious, as shewing 

 the great perfection to which the manual arts had 

 then arrived in Rome. " Cicero hath recorded that 

 the whole poeme of Homer, called Ilias, was written 

 on a piece of parchment, which was able to be crush- 

 ed within a nut-shell. Callicrates vsed to make pis- 

 mires, and other such like little creatures, out of yvo- 

 rie, so artificially, that other men could not discerne 

 the parts of their body one from another. There was 

 one Myrmecides, excellent in that kinde of work- 

 manship, who, of the same matter, wrought a cha- 

 riot with foure wheels, and as many steeds, in so little 

 roome, that a silly flie might couer all with her 



