22 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY 



of Germanicus's unsuccessful navigation of the Amisia, and 

 with the grand geographical sketch of the mountain chains 

 of Syria and of Palestine ( 36 ). Curtius ( 37 ) has left us a 

 fine natural picture of a forest wilderness to the west of 

 Hekatompylos, through which the Macedonian army had 

 to pass in entering the humid province of Mazanderan; 

 to which I would refer more in detail, if, in a writer 

 whose period is so uncertain, we could distinguish with 

 any security between what he has drawn from his own 

 lively imagination, and what he has derived from historic 

 sources. 



The great encyclopedic work of the elder Pliny, which, 

 as his nephew, the younger Pliny, has finely said, is " varied 

 as nature herself," and which, in the abundance of its 

 contents, is unequalled by any other ancient work, will be 

 referred to in the sequel, when treating of the " History of 

 the Contemplation of the Universe/' This work, which 

 exerted .a powerful influence on the whole of the middle 

 ages, is a most remarkable result of the disposition to com- 

 prehensive, but often indiscriminate collection. Unequal in 

 style sometimes simple and narrative, sometimes thoughtful, 

 animated, and rhetorically ornate it has, as, indeed, might 

 be expected from its form, few individual descriptions of 

 nature ; but wherever the grand concurrent action of the 

 forces in the universe, the well-ordered Cosmos (naturae 

 majestas), is the object of contemplation, we cannot mistake 

 the evidences of true inward poetic inspiration. 



We would gladly adduce the pleasantly-situated villas oi 

 the Romans, on the Pincian Mount, at Tusculum, and 

 Tibur, on the promontory of Misenum, and near Puteoli and 

 Baise, as evidences of a love of nature, if these spots had not. 



