LIFE AND WRITINGS OF PLINY. XVll 



He then presents us with a treatise on Mineralogy, in 

 which he has accumulated every possible kind of iniorin- 

 ation relative to the use of gold, silver, bronze, and 

 other metals ; a subject which not unnatiirally leads him 

 into repeated digressions relative to money, jewels, plate, 

 statues, and statuaries. Mineral pigments next occupy his 

 attention, with many interesting notices of the great painters 

 of Greece ; from which he passes on to the various kinds of 

 stone and materials employed in building, and the use of 

 marble for the purposes of sculpture, including a notice of 

 that art and of the most eminent sculptors. The last Book 

 is devoted to an account of gems and precious stones, and 

 concludes with an eulogium on his native country, as alike 

 distinguished for its fertility, its picturesque beauties, and 

 the natural endowments and high destinies of its pepole. 



From the writings of Pliny we gather of course a large 

 amount of information as to his opinions and the constitution 

 of his mind. His credulity, it must be admitted, is great in 

 the extreme ; though, singularly enough, he severely taxes the 

 Greeks with the same failing'. Were we not assured from 

 other sources that he was eminently successful in life, was in 

 the enjoyment of opulence, and honoured with the favour and 

 confidence of princes^, the remarks which he frequently 

 makes on human life, in the Seventh Book more especially, 

 would have led us to the conclusion that he was a disap- 

 pointed man, embittered against his fellow-creatures, and 

 dissatisfied with the terms on which the tenure of life is 

 granted to us. He opens that Book with a preface replete 

 with querulous dissatisfaction and repinings at the lot of 

 man — the only ' tearful ' animal — he says^. He repines at 

 the helpless and wretched condition of the infant at the 

 moment it is ushered into life, and the numerous pains and 



^ B. viii. c. 34. His acrimony may however, in this instance, have 

 outstripped his discretion. Though indebted to them for by far the larg- 

 est amount of his information on almost every subject, he seems to have 

 had a strong aversion to the Greeks, and repeatedly charges them with 

 lying, viciousness, boasting, and vanity. See B. ii. c. 112 ; B. iii. c. 6 ; 

 B. V. c. 1 ; B. XV. c. 5 ; B. xix. c. 26 ; B. xxviii. c. 29 ; B. xxxvii. c. 74. 



2 Of Vespasian and Titus for certain ; and probably of Nero, who 

 appointed liim " procurator Ceesaris" in Spain. 



^ Even on that point he contradicts lumself in the next Book. See 

 B. viii. c. 19, and 64, in reference to the lion and the horse. 



h 



