LIFE AND WEITINGS OF PLINT. XV 



one occasion he found fault with me for walking — " You 

 might have avoided losing all those hours," said he ; for he 

 looked upon every moment as lost which was not devoted to 

 study. It was by means of such unremitting industry as 

 this that he completed so many works, and left me 160 

 volumes of notes', WTitten extremely small on both sides, 

 which in fact renders the collection doubly voluminous. 

 He himself used to relate, that when he was procurator in 

 Spain, he might have parted with his common-place book to 

 Largius Licinius for 400,000 sesterces ; and at that time the 

 collection was not so extensive as afterwards. "When you 

 come to think of how much he must have read, of how much 

 he has written, would you not reallv suppose that he had 

 never been engaged in business, and had never enjoyed the 

 favour of princes ? And yet, on the other hand, when you 

 hear what labour he expended upon his studies, does it not 

 almost seem that he has neither written nor read enough ? 

 For, in fact, what pursuits are those that would not have 

 been interrupted by occupations such as his ? Wliile, again, 

 what is there that such unremitting perseverance as his 

 could not have effected ? I am in the habit, therefore, of 

 laughing at it when people call me a studious man, — me 

 who, in comparison with him, am a downright idler ; and 

 yet I devote to study as much time as my public engage- 

 ments on the one hand, and my duties to my friends on the 

 other, will admit of. Who is there, then, out of all those 

 who have devoted their whole life to literature, that ought 

 not, when put in comparison with him, to quite blush at a 

 life that would almost appear to have been devoted to 

 slothfulness and inactivity ? But my letter has already 

 exceeded its proper limits, for I had originally intended to 

 write only upon the subject as to which you made inquiry, 

 the books of his composition that he left. I trust, however, 

 that these particulars viiH prove no less pleasing to you than 

 the writings themselves ; and that they will not only induce 

 you to peruse them, but excite you, by a feeling of generous 

 emulation, to produce some work of a similar nature. — 

 Farewell." 



Of all the works written by Pliny, one only, the ' Historia 

 Naturalis ' has survived to our times. This work, however, 

 * " Electorum Commentarii." 



