20 Pliny s Epistle to 1\ Vespasian. [BooK I. 



the more precious only because they are consecrated in the 

 sacred Temples. 



We, indeed, have written of you all your Father, your- 

 self, and your Brother, in an adequate Volume, which we 

 compiled touching the History of our Times, beginning at 

 the Place where Aufidius Bassus ended. If you inquire of 

 me, Where that History is ? I answer, That it is long since 

 finished, and by this Time is justified and approved by your 

 Deeds : otherwise I was determined to leave it unto my 

 Heir, and I gave Order that it should be published only 

 after my Death, to remove the Suspicion that it had been 

 written to obtain some selfish End. And by so doing, I do 

 both them a great Favour, who, perhaps, were inclined to 

 publish the like Chronicle ; and Posterity, also, who, I well 

 know, will compete with us as we have done with our Pre- 

 decessors. A sufficient Argument of this my Mind you shall 

 have by this, that in the Front of these Books now in Hand, 

 I have set down the Names of those Writers whose Help I 

 have used in the compiling of them : for I am of Opinion, 

 that it is the Part of an honest Man, and one that has a 

 Claim to any Modesty, to confess by whom he hath pro- 

 fited ; and not as many of those Persons have done, whom I 

 have alleged for my Authors. For, to tell you the Truth, in 

 conferring them together about this Work of mine, I have 

 met with some of our modern Writers, who, Word for Word, 

 have copied out whole Books of old Authors, and never 

 vouchsafed so much as the Naming of them ; but have taken 

 their Labours to themselves. And this they have not done 

 in the Spirit to imitate and match them, as Virgil did 

 Homer: much less have they shewed the Simplicity and 

 Openness of Cicero, who, in his Books on the Common- 

 wealth, professeth himself to follow Plato; in his consola- 

 tory Epistle written to his Daughter, he saith, " I follow 

 Crantor" and Pancetius likewise, in his Treatise concerning 

 Offices. Which Volumes of his (as you know well) deserve 

 not only to be handled, but read daily, and committed en- 

 tirely to Memory. It is the Part of a base and servile Mind 



