LirE AND WEITINGS OP PLINT. XV 
one occasion lie found fault with me for walking — " You 
might have avoided losing all those hours," said he ; for he 
looked upon every moment as lost which was not devoted to 
study. It was by means of such unremitting industry as 
this that he completed so many works, and left me 160 
volumes of notes \ written extremely small on both sides, 
which in fact renders the collection doubly voluminous. 
He himself used to relate, that when he was procurator in 
Spain, he might have parted with his common-place book to 
Jjargius Licinius for 400,000 sesterces ; and at that time the 
collection was not so extensive as afterwards. When you 
come to think of how much he must have read, of how much 
he has written, would you not really suppose that he had 
never been engaged in business, and had never enjoyed the 
favour of princes ? And yet, on the other hand, when you 
hear what labour he expended upon his studies, does it not 
almost seem that he has neither written nor read enough ? 
Eor, in fact, what pursuits are those that would not have 
been interrupted by occupations such as his ? "While, again, 
what is there that such unremitting perseverance as his 
could not have effected ? I am in the habit, therefore, of 
laughing at it when people call me a studious man, — me 
who, in comparison with him, am a downright idler ; and 
yet I devote to study as much time as my public engage- 
ments on the one hand, and my duties to my friends on the 
other, will admit of. Who is there, then, out of all those 
who have devoted their whole life to literature, that ought 
not, when put in comparison with him, to quite blush at a 
life that would almost appear to have been devoted to 
slothfulness and inactivity ? But my letter has already 
exceeded its proper limits, for I had originally intended to 
write only upon the subject as to which you made inquiry, 
the books of his composition that he left. I trust, however, 
that these particulars will prove no less pleasing to you than 
the writings themselves ; and that they will not only induce 
you to peruse them, but excite you, by a feeling of generous 
emulation, to produce some work of a similar nature. — 
rarewell." 
Of all the works written by Pliny, one only, the ' Historia 
Naturalis ' has survived to our times. This work, however, 
^ " Electorum Commentarii." 
