274 REVIEWS. 
mous Pliny was only a youth.* The most popular of the ancient 
authors on plants is undoubtedly Pliny. His predecessors (we 
think that Dioscorides preceded him) give us little more than the 
bare names of plants. Seldom are their articles sufficiently de- 
scriptive to enable us to identify their subjects. This, the last of 
the three worthies of antiquity, often supplies us with an ample 
description of his plants, and generally adds a mass of informa- 
tion respecting them, either from his own reading (for he refers 
to a multitude of authors) or from his own observation. The 
volume before us contains the books of Natural History, from the 
XVIIIth to the XXIIIvd inclusive. The XVIIIth treats of the 
natural history of Grain; the XIXth on the cultivation of Flax 
and of various garden plants; the XXth is entitled ‘Remedies 
Derived from Garden Plants ;’ XXI. is on Flowers, and espe- 
cially those used for chaplets; Book XXII. is on the Properties 
of Plants and Fruits, and the XXIIIrd is on the Remedies de- 
rived from the cultivated trees. 
It would be impossible to give our readers any satisfactory 
résumé of the multifarious contents of this volume. The author 
was evidently a most learned man: he quotes multitudes of au- 
thors, both Greek and Latin, whose names only have descended 
to modern times; their works have perished—a mournful me- 
mento of the old adage, Morti debemur nos nostraque ; or, “ No- 
thing lasts for ever.” But his work is not merely a compilation 
of what had previously been written on the subject: it contains 
his own experience, the results of his own observation and his 
own sagacious remarks. His commentators have not concealed 
his blemishes, but have sometimes, with rather unkind severity, 
shown up his puerilities and superstitious observances; we hope they 
had other and better motives for so doing than to show their per- 
spicacity and critical acumen: it is easier to spy a fault than mend 
it, as the Scotch say. Pliny wrote for the generation of which he 
was a distinguished member, and he showed his good feeling in 
adopting many of the prejudices of his age. We will take the li- 
berty of quoting a story which was an old story when Pliny wrote ; 
it has been quoted before, but a good tale will bear twice telling, 
and this is a good one :—“ A certain freedman of Rome (one who 
* In this matter (the age when Dioscorides flourished) we follow Sprengel 
(comp. Hist. Rei Herbariz). We are aware that Dr. Bostock, in Smith’s ‘ Classical 
Biography,’ adopted a different view. 
