LIFE AND WEITINGS OP PLINY. XXI 



wise with his talent as a writer, and the immense treasury 

 which he opens to us of Latin terms and forms of expres- 

 sion : these, from the ver^ abundance of the subjects upon 

 which he treats, render his work one of the richest reposi- 

 tories of the Roman language. ' Wherever he finds it possible 

 to give expression to general ideas or to philosophical views, 

 his language assumes considerable energy and vivacity, and 

 his thoughts present to us a certain novelty and boldness 

 whieh tend in a very great degree to relieve the dryness of 

 his enumerations, and, with the majority of his readers, ex- 

 cuse the insufficiency of his scientific indications. He is 

 always noble and serious, full of the love of justice and 

 virtue, detestation of cruelty and baseness, oi which he 

 had such frightful instances before his eyes, and con- 

 tempt for that unbridled luxury which in his time had 

 so deeply corrupted the Roman people. For these great 

 merits Pliny cannot be too highly praised, and despite the 

 faults which we are obliged to admit in him when viewed as 

 a naturalist, we are bound to regard him as one of the most 

 meritorious of the Roman writers, and among those most 

 worthy to be reckoned in the number of the classics who 

 wrote after the reign of Augustus," 



and of which he has given the peculiar properties, would have swollea 

 his book to a most enormous size, almost indeed beyond conception. 



