44 
MEMOIR OF PLINY. 
The Natural History of Pliny, the last ami most 
important of liis writings, may justly he said to have 
introduced the second distinct epoch of physical 
knowledge, which remained nearly in the state where 
he left it for about 1300 years, without patronage 
or cultivation, until the night of barhaiisin passed 
away, and the restoration of letters awoke the dormant 
energies of the human intellect. This great work 
is the only one of his numerous performances that 
has come down to us ; the titles given to Titus in 
the dedication, shew that it was concluded in the 78th 
year of Christianity, that is, only one year before the 
author’s death. To gather the materials for it mustevi- 
deiitly have occupied the better part of his life ; since, 
according to his own statement, it contains extracts 
from more than two thousand volumes, written by au- 
thors of every description, travellers, historians, geo- 
graphers, philosophers, physicians, and others ; with 
manyofwhora we only become acquainted in the pages 
of Pliny. This immense magazine of information well 
deserves to be denominated the Encyclopindia of the 
ancients ; it is certainly the most curious and extra- 
ordinary work which the Roman literature ever pro- 
duced, and may be considered as the depository of 
all that was known in science and the arts from the 
earliest ages of the human race. There is scarcely 
a discovery or an invention, a department of nature, 
or a region of the earth, with which antiquity was ac- 
quainted, that it does not comprehend. It is not 
only a valuable storehouse of intelligence but a 
