Book I.] 
DEDICATION. 
9 
painting and sculpture, of whom you will find an account 
in these volumes, whose works, although thej are so perfect 
that we are neyer satisfied with admiring them, are inscribed 
with a temporary titled such as "Apelles, or Polycletus, was 
doing this ; " implying that the work was only commenced 
and still imperfect, and that the artist might benefit by the 
criticisms that were made on it and alter any part that 
required it, if he had not been prevented by death. It is 
also a great mark of their modesty, that they inscribed their 
works as if they were the last which they had executed, and 
as still in hand at the time of their death. I think there are 
but three works of art which are inscribed positively with 
the words " such a one executed this ; " of these I shall give 
an account in the proper place. In these cases it appears, 
that the artist felt the most perfect satisfaction with his work, 
and hence these pieces have excited the envy of every one. 
I, indeed, freely admit, that much may be added to my 
works ; not only to this hut to all which I have published. 
Ey this admission II ^ . to escape from the carping critics^, 
and I h i e the mor^ reason to say this, because I hear 
that there are certa* x Stoics and Logicians', and also Epi- 
cureanu (from the Grammarians^ I expected as much), wno 
are big with something against the little work I published 
on Grammar^ ; and that they have been carrying these 
abortions for ten years together — a longer pregnancy this 
than the elephant's^. But I well know, that even a woman 
once wrote against Theophrastus, a man so eminent for his 
eloquence that he obtained his name, which signifies the 
* " Pendenti titiilo ; " as Hardoum explaias it, " qui nondnm absolutum 
opus significaret, vermn adhuc pendere, velut imperfectinn." Lemaire, 
i. 26, 2 « Homeromastigse." 
3 " Dialectici." By this term otir author probably meant to designate 
those critics who were disposed to dwell upon minute verbal distinctions ; 
" dialecticarum captionum amantes," according to Hardouin ; Lem. i. 28. 
^ " Quod argutiarum amantissimi, et quod semulatio inter illos acer- 
bissima." Alexandre in Lemaire, i. 28. 
^ Pliny the younger, m one of his letters (iii. 5), where he enumerates 
all his uncle's pubHcations, informs us, that he wrote " a piece of criticism 
in eight books, concerning ambiguity of expression." Mehnoth's 
PHny, i. 136. 
^ The ancients had very exaggerated notions respecting the period of 
the elephant's pregnancy ; our author, in a subsequent part of his work 
(viii, 10), says, "Decern annisgestarevulgusexistimat; Aristoteles biennio.'* 
