UNSYSTEMATIC KNOWLEDGE. 297 



instances, Theophrastus having said that the plane- 

 tree is in Italy rare 11 , Pliny, misled by the similarity 

 of the Greek word (spanian, rare), says that the 

 tree occurs in Italy and Spain 12 . His work has, 

 with great propriety, been called* the Encyclopaedia 

 of Antiquity ; and, in truth, there are few portions 

 of the learning of the times to which it does not 

 refer. Of the thirty-seven Books of which it con- 

 sists, no less than sixteen (from the twelfth to the 

 twenty-seventh) relate to plants. The information 

 which is collected in these books, is of the most 

 miscellaneous kind ; and the author admits, with 

 little distinction, truth and errour, useful knowledge 

 and absurd fables. The declamatory style, and the 

 comprehensive and lofty tone of thought which we 

 have already spoken of as characteristic of the 

 Roman writers, are peculiarly observable in him. 

 The manner of his death is well known: it was 

 occasioned by the eruption of Vesuvius, A.D. 79, to 

 which, in his curiosity, he ventured so near as to 

 be suffocated. 



Pliny's work acquired an almost unlimited autho- 

 rity, as one of the standards of botanical knowledge, 

 in the middle ages ; but even more than his, that of 

 his contemporary, Pedanius Dioscorides, of Anazar- 

 bus in Cilicia. This work, written in Greek, is held 



1 Theoph. iv. 7- "Ei/ /uei/ jap TM ASpj'a ir\a.Tavov ov 



irA.f/i/ -nf.fi TO Aio/i>;cou<;, iepdv^ (Tiraviav 3e Kai ev 'IraA/a irdtrrj. 



2 Piin. Nat. Hist. xii. 3. Et alias (platanos) fuisse in Italia, 

 ac nominatim Hispania, apud auctores invenitur. 



