144 THE TREES AND SHRUBS, &c. [LECT. iv. 



Sir Thomas Phillips, of Middle Hill, in Worcester- 

 shire, was likewise accompanied with coloured draw- 

 ings, in many cases identical with those in the 

 earlier MS. alluded to. 



The works of Columella, too, are in most re- 

 spects an amplification in more elegant Latinity of 

 the earlier writings of Cato and Varro, and very 

 possibly the two latter would have been found to 

 be taken from the great Carthaginian work on 

 Agriculture by Mago, if the latter had come down 

 to us. 



How mortifying it is to think, that whilst these 

 repetitions of facts, and even of old fables, recorded 

 by many of the authors referred to, might have 

 been so well spared, we should have to deplore 

 such gaps in the history and literature of antiquity, 

 as have arisen from the loss of many of the Books 

 of Livy, and from the almost entire destruction of 

 the Comedies of Menander and Epicharmus. 



