MEMOIR OF PLINY. 
The life of Peiny, like that of most men whose 
days are spent in study and retirement, is meagre 
of incident. Although he appears to have travelled 
over a great part of Europe in the service of the 
state ; to have visited Africa, and perhaps Egypt and 
Palestine, yet no record of these adventures has been 
preserved ; and liad it not been for the occasional 
notices that occur in his own writings, and especially 
the information respecting his private habits and li- 
terary labours, contained in the Epistles of his ne- 
phew and namesake, Pliny the Younger, posterity 
would have known nothing of the biography of this 
great historian of Nature, except the era in which 
he flourished, the works he produced, and the re- 
markable circumstances attending his deatli. Of the 
difierent accounts of this illustrious author which we 
possess, the most ancient is that ascribed to Sueto- 
nius, — the most ample is given by Count Rezzonico 
YOL. IX. 
B 
