charged with having made use of his exorbitant power to oppress the people, and to excite the vindictive passions of his master. By the marriage of his daughter Plautilla with Caracalla, who had already, for somne years, enjoyed the rank of Augustus, he obtained admittance into the imperial household; where his pride, and the influence which he possessed over the emperor, rendered him an object of suspicion and dislike. Being at last accused privately to the emperor of aiming at the succession, he was slain by a soldier, at the order of Caracalla, in the presence of Severus. Plau-way doubtful, and universally allowed to be by Plautilla was banished by Severus, along with her brother Plautus, to the island of Lipara, where, seven years after, she was put to death by order of Caracalla, A.D. 211. (Herodian, 3, 10.—Dio Cass., 75, 14, seqq.— Spartian., Vit. Sev.) Gellius informs us that Lucius Ælius, a most learned man, was of opinion that not more than twenty-five were his. Varro wrote a work entitled Quæstiones Plautina, a considerable portion of which was devoted to a discussion concerning the authenticity of the plays commonly assigned to Plautus; and the result of his investigations was, that twenty-one were unquestionably to be admitted as genuine. These were subsequently termed Varronian, in consequence of having been separated by Varro from the remainder, as no tus. The twenty-one Varronian plays are the twentystill extant, and the Vidularia. This comedy appears to have been originally subjoined to the Palatine MS. of the still existing plays of Plautus, but to have been torn off, since, at the conclusion of the Truculentus, PLAUTUS, M. Accius, a celebrated comic poet, the we find the words Vidularia incipit." (Fabr., Bib. son of a freedman, and born at Sarsina, a town of Um- Lat., 1, 1.—Osann., Analect. Crit., c. 8.) And Mai bria, about 525 A.U.C. He was called Plautus from has recently published some fragments of it, which he his splay-feet, a defect common to the Umbrians. found in the Ambrosian MS. Such, it would appear, Having turned his attention to the stage, he soon had been the high authority of Varro, that only those realized a considerable fortune by the popularity of his plays which had received his indubitable sanction were dramas; but, by risking it in trade, or spending it, ac- transcribed in the MSS. as the genuine works of Plaucording to others, on the splendid theatrical dresses tus: yet it would seem that Varro himself had, on which he wore as an actor, and theatrical amusements some occasion, assented to the authenticity of several being little resorted to on account of the famine then others, induced by their style of humour corresponding prevailing at Rome, he was quickly reduced to such to that of Plautus.-The following remarks may throw necessity as forced him to labour in a mill for his some light on the general scope and tenour of the comdaily support. (Aulus Gellius, N. A., 3, 3.) Many edies of Plautus. In each plot there is sufficient acof his plays were written in these unfavourable cir- tion, movement, and spirit. The incidents never flag, cumstances, and, of course, have not obtained all the but rapidly accelerate the catastrophe. But, if we reperfection which might otherwise have resulted from gard his plays in the mass, there is a considerable, and, his increased knowledge of life and his long practice perhaps, too great, uniformity in his fables. They in the dramatic art. Twenty plays of this writer have hinge, for the most part, on the love of some dissolute come down to us. But, besides these, a number of youth for a courtesan, his employment of a slave to comedies now lost have been attributed to him. Au-defraud a father of a sum sufficient for his expensive lus Gellius (N. A., 3, 3) mentions that there were pleasures, and the final discovery that his mistress is a about a hundred and thirty plays which, in his age, free-born citizen. The charge against Plautus of unipassed under the name of Plautus; and of these nearly formity in his characters as well as in his fables has forty titles, with a few scattered fragments, still remain. been echoed without much consideration. The porFrom the time of Varro to that of Aulus Gellius, it traits of Plautus, it must be remembered, were drawn seems to have been a subject of considerable discus- or copied at the time when the division of labour and sion what plays were genuine; and it appears that the progress of refinement had not yet given existence to best-informed critics had come to the conclusion that those various descriptions of professions and artists, a great proportion of those comedies which vulgarly the doctor, author, attorney-in short, all those characpassed for the productions of Plautus were spurious. ters, whose habits, singularities, and whims have supSuch a vast number were probably ascribed to him plied the modern Thalia with such diversified materifrom his being the head and founder of a great dramat-als, and whose contrasts give to each other such relief, ic school; so that those pieces which he had, perhaps, that no caricature is required in any individual repremerely retouched, came to be wholly attributed to his sentation. The characters of Alcmena, Euclio, and pen. “There is no doubt,” says Aulus Gellius, "but Periplectomenes are sufficiently novel, and are not rethat those plays, which seem not to have been written peated in any of the other dramas; but there is ample by Plautus, but were ascribed to him, were by certain range and variety even in those which he most freancient poets, and afterward retouched and polished quently employed, the avaricious old man, the deby him." Even those comedies written in the same bauched young fellow, the knavish slave, the braggart taste with his came to be termed Fabula Plautine or captain, the rapacious courtesan, the obsequious paraPlautiana, in the same way as we still speak of Æso- site, and the shameless pander. The severe father pian fable and Homeric verse. "Plautus quidem," and thoughtless youth are those in which he has best says Macrobius, "ea re clarus fuit, ut post mortem succeeded. The captain is exaggerated, and the ejus comœdiæ, quæ incerta ferebantur, Plautina tamen change which has taken place in society and manners esse, de jocorum copia, agnoscerentur." (Sat., 2, 1.) prevents us, perhaps, from entering fully into the charIt is thus evident, that a sufficient number of jests acter of the slave, the parasite, and the pander; but stamped a dramatic piece as a production of Plautus in the fathers and sons he has shown his knowledge in the opinion of the multitude. But Gellius farther of our common nature, and delineated them with the mentions, that there was a certain writer of comedies truest and liveliest touches.-The Latin style of Plauwhose name was Plautius, and whose plays, having tus excels in briskness of dialogue as well as purity the inscription Plauti, were considered as by Plautus, of expression, and has been extolled by the learned when they were, in fact, named not Plautine from Roman grammarians, particularly Varro, who declares Plautus, but Plautiana from Plautius. All this suf- that if the Muses were to speak Latin, they would emficiently accounts for the vast number of plays as- ploy his diction (ap. Quinct., Inst. Or., 10, 1); but, cribed to Plautus, and which the most learned and in- as Schlegel has remarked, it is necessary to distintelligent critics have greatly restricted. They have guish between the opinion of philologers and that of differed, however, very widely as to the number which critics and poets. Plautus wrote at a period when his they have admitted to be genuine. Some, says Ser-country as yet possessed no written or literary lanvius, maintain that Plautus wrote twenty-one comedies, guage. Every phrase was drawn from the living others forty, others a hundred (ad Virg., Æn., init.). source of conversation. This early simplicity seems pleasing and artless to those Romans who lived in an | favourite of the stage long after the plays of Cæcilius, age of excessive refinement and cultivation; but this Afranius, and even Terence were first represented. apparent merit was rather accidental than the effect (Dunlop's Roman Literature, vol. 1, p. 136, seqq., of poetic art. Making, however, some allowance for Lond. ed.)-The best editions of Plautus are, that of this, there can be no doubt that Plautus wonderfully Camerarius, Basil, 1558, 8vo; that of Lambinus, Lu improved and refined the Latin language from the rude tet., 1576, fol.; that of Gruter, Lugd. Bat., 1592, in form to which it had been moulded by Ennius. That which the division into acts, scenes, and verses first he should have effected such an alteration is not a little appears; that of Taubmann, Witteb., 1622, 4to; that of remarkable. Plautus was nearly contemporary with Müller, Berol., 1755, 8vo, 2 vols.; that of Ernesti, the Father of Roman song; according to most ac- Lips., 1760, 8vo, 2 vols.; the Bipont edition, 1779counts, he was born a slave; he was condemned, du- 88, 8vo, 2 vols., in which the text is corrected by ring a great part of his life, to the drudgery of the low- Brunck; that of Schmieder, Götting., 1804, 8vo, 2 est manual labour; and, as far as we learn, he was vols.; that of Bothe, Berol., 1809, 8vo, and that formnot distinguished by the patronage of the great, nor ing part of the collection of Lemaire, Paris, 1830, 4 admitted into patrician society. Ennius, on the other vols. 8vo. hand, if he did not pass his life in affluence, spent it PLEIADES (Пcúdɛç), I. the daughters of Atlas and in the exercise of an honourable profession, and was the ocean-nymph Pleione. They were seven in numthe chosen and familiar friend of Cato, Scipio Africa- ber, and their names were Maia, Electra, Taygeta, nus, Fulvius Nobilior, and Lælius, the most learned Halcyone, Celano, Sterope, and Merope. The first and polished citizens of the Roman republic, whose three became the mothers, by Jupiter, of Mercury, Darunrestrained conversation and intercourse must have danus, and Lacedæmon. Halcyone and Celano bore bestowed on him advantages which Plautus never en- to Neptune Hyrieus and Lycus; Sterope brought joyed. But perhaps the circumstance of his Greek forth Enomaus to Mars; and Merope married Sisyoriginal, which contributed so much to his learning phus. (Schol. ad Il., 18, 486.-Apollod., 3, 1.-Hyand refinement, and qualified him for such exalted so- gin., Poët. Astron., 2, 21.) These nymphs hunted ciety, may have been unfavourable to that native pu- with Diana; on one of which occasions Orion, haprity of Latin diction, which the Umbrian slave imbibed pening to see them, became enamoured, and pursued from the unmixed fountains of conversation and na- them. In their distress they prayed to the gods to ture. The chief excellence of Plautus is generally change their form, and Jupiter, taking compassion, reputed to consist in the wit and comic force of his turned them into pigeons, and afterward made them a dialogue; and, accordingly, the lines in Horace's Art constellation in the sky. (Schol. ad Il., l. c.) Acof Poetry, in which he derides the ancient Romans for cording to Pindar, the Pleiades were passing through having foolishly admired the "Plautinos sales," have Boeotia with their mother, when they were met by been the subject of much reprehension among critics. Orion, and his chase of them lasted for five years. That the wit of Plautus often degenerates into buf- (Etym. Mag., s. v. Theiác.) Hyginus (1. c.) says foonery, scurrility, and quibbles, sometimes even into seven years. (Keightley's Mythology, p. 464.)—The obscenity; and that, in his constant attempts at mer- constellation of the Pleiades, rising in the spring, riment, he too often tries to excite laughter by exag- brought with it the spring-rains, and opened navigagerated expressions as well as by extravagant actions, tion. Hence, according to the common etymology, cannot, indeed, be denied. This was partly owing to the name is derived from héш (Thɛiw), "to sail," the immensity of the Roman theatres and to the masks and is thought to indicate the stars that are favourable of the actors, which must have rendered caricature to navigation. (Völcker, Mythol. des Iap. Geschlechand grotesque inventions essential to the production tes, p. 77.) Ideler, however, thinks it more probable of that due effect which, with such scenic apparatus, that the appellation is derived from the Greek hɛios, could not be created unless by overstepping the mod-"full," denoting a cluster of stars; whence, perhaps, esty of nature. It must always be recollected, that the expression of Manilius (4, 523), “glomerabile sithe plays of Plautus were written solely to be repre- dus." Aratus (v. 257) calls the Pleiades iлrúnорot, sented, and not to be read. Even in modern times," moving in seven paths" (compare Eurip., Iph. in and subsequent to the invention of printing, the great-Aul., v. 6), although one can only discern six stars. est dramatists, Shakspeare, for example, cared little Hence Ovid says of these same stars (Fast., 4, 170), about the publication of their plays; and in every age Que septem dici, sex tamen esse solent." On the or country in which dramatic poetry has flourished, it other hand, Hipparchus asserts (ad Arat., Phan., 1, has been intended for public representation, and adapt-14), that in a clear night seven stars can be seen. The ed to the tastes of a promiscuous audience. In the whole admits of a very easy solution. The group of days of Plautus, the smiles of the polite critic were the Pleiades consists of one star of the third magninot enough for a Latin comedian, because in those tude, three of the fifth, two of the sixth magnitude, and days there were few polite critics at Rome; he re- several smaller ones. It requires, therefore, a very quired the shouts and laughter of the multitude, who good eye to discern in this constellation more than six could be fully gratified only by the broadest grins of stars. Hence, among the ancients, since no more than comedy. Accordingly, many of the jests of Plautus six could be seen with the naked eye, and yet since, are such as might be expected from a writer anxious as with us, a seventh star, a 112etus TúσTεpos (Erato accommodate himself to the taste of the times, and tosth., c. 14), was mentioned, the conclusion was that naturally catching the spirit of ribaldry which then one of the cluster was lost. Some thought that it had prevailed. It being, then, the great object of Plautus been destroyed by lightning (Theon., Schol. ad Arat, to excite the merriment of the rabble, he, of course, . c.); others, making the lost Pleiad to have been Elecwas little anxious about the strict preservation of the tra, fabled that she withdrew her light in sorrow at the dramatic unities; and it was a greater object with him fall of Ilium, and the misfortunes of her descendants, to bring a striking scene into view, than to preserve Dardanus having been the son of Electra and Jupiter the unities of place. In the Aulularia, part of the ac- |(Schol. ad Arat., l. c., where for Tov hλíov we must tion is laid in the miser's house, and part in the vari- read ris '12iov, and for Tòv hov džioкoμέvov must ous places where he goes to conceal his treasure; in substitute Tv Iιov džioкоμévηv.-Compare Orid, the Mostellaria and Truculentus, the scene changes Fast., 4, 177: " Electra Troja spectare ruinas non from the street to apartments in various houses. But, tulit.") According to another account, the "lost notwithstanding these and other irregularities, Plautus Pleiad" was Merope, who withdrew her light because so enchanted the people by the drollery of his wit and the ashamed of having alone married a mortal. (Ovid. buffoonery of his scenes, that he continued the reigning Fast., 4, 175) Others, again, affirmed that the star 66 It in question moved away from its own constellation, | covered there relative to several of its members and became the third or middle one in the tail of the Greater Bear, where it received the name of 'A2675, "the Fox." (Ideler, Sternnamen, p. 145.)—From their rising in the spring, the Pleiades were called by the Romans Vergilia. (Festus. — Isidor., Orig., 3, 70.) This constellation appears to have been one of the earliest that were observed by the Greeks. It is mentioned by Homer (I., 18, 483, seqq. Od., 5, 272, seqq.); and in Hesiod an acquaintance with it is supposed to be so widely spread, that the daily labours of the farmer can be determined by its rising and setting. (Hes., Op. et D., 383, 615) The metrical form of the name is IInλniúdes and ПIɛhɛtúdes, and hence some have been led into the erroneous opinion, that the name of the constellation was derived from Téhɛia, a "pigeon" or "dove," in allusion to the fancied appearance of the cluster. (Schwenk, Mythol. Skizz., p. 2.)-The Pleiades are assigned on the celestial sphere to a position in the rear of Taurus. (Hy-question, that is, in the second year of his reign, Pliny gin, Poei. Astron., 20.) Proclus and Geminus, however, place them on the back of the animal; while Hipparchus makes them belong, not to Taurus, but to the foot of Perseus. (Theon. ad Arat., Phan., 254. -Völcker, Mythol. der Iap. Geschl., p. 78.)-II. The name of Pleiades was also given to seven tragic writers, and the same appellation to seven other poets, of the Alexandrean school. (Vid. Alexandrina Schola, near the conclusion of the article.) was at Comum, too, that the younger Pliny, so well known by his Letters, and the nephew of the naturalist, was born. Pliny the Elder came to Rome at au early period, and attended the lectures of Appion, but it does not appear that he saw the Emperor Tiberius, the latter having already retired to Capreæ. From the account which he gives of the jewels which he saw at Lollia Paulina's, it has been supposed, that, notwithstanding his youth, he assisted occasionally at the court of Caligula. His attention was attracted, even at this early period, by the interesting productions of nature, and particularly by the remarkable animals which the emperors exhibited in the public spectacles. He relates in detail, and as an eyewitness, the particulars of a combat in the presence of the Roman people, with a large monster of the deep, which had been taken alive in the harbour of Ostia. This event having taken place while Claudius was constructing the port in could not have been at that time more than about nineteen years of age. We learn from himself, that, about his twenty-second year, he resided for a time on the coast of Africa, where he witnessed the change of sex in the case of Larius Cossicius, who, from having been, as was supposed, a girl, found himself transformed, the very day of his marriage, into a boy! Some modern writers have supposed, on no very strong grounds, however, that at this age Pliny served in the Roman fleet, and that he visited Britain, Egypt, and Greece. It appears, on the contrary, from the testimony of his nephew, that he was employed, while yet quite young, in the Roman armies in Germany. He there served under Lucius Pomponius, whose friendship he gained, and who intrusted him with the command of a part of the cavalry. He must have availed himself very fully of this opportunity to ex PLEIONE, one of the Oceanides, who married Atlas, king of Mauritania, by whom she had twelve daughters, and a son called Hyas. Seven of the daughters were changed into a constellation called Pleiades, and the rest into another called Hyades. (Ovid, Fast., 5, 84.) PLEMMYRIUM, a promontory of Sicily, in the immediate neighbourhood of Syracuse, and facing the island of Ortygia, forming with this island the entrance to the great harbour of that city. Its modern name is Mas-plore the country of Germany, since he informs us sa d'Olivera. (Dorvill. Sic., p. 191.-Thucyd., 7, 4. that he had seen the sources of the Danube, and had Wesseling, ad Diod. Sic., vol. 6, p. 555, ed. Bip.) also visited the Chauci, a tribe that dwelt on the borIt was fortified by Nicias during the siege of Syracuse ders of the ocean. It was during the operations in by the Athenians, as being well adapted by its situa- Germany that he wrote his first work, in which he tion for receiving supplies by sea; and here also he treated of the art of hurling a javelin from on horseerected three forts or castles, the largest of which con- back (De Jaculatione Equestri). His second work, tained all the warlike implements, and the provisions which was a Life of Pomponius, in two books, was of the army. At a subsequent period of the war, the dictated by his strong attachment to that commander, Athenians were compelled to abandon this post, and and by the gratitude which he felt towards him for his fortified themselves near Dascon, in its vicinity. (Thu-numerous favours. A dream which he had during cyd., l. c.—Id., 7, 23.) The position of Pleinmyrium may be regarded as one of the early causes of the failure of the expedition against Syracuse; for, as the place was destitute of fresh water, and the soldiers had to go to a distance for it, numbers of them were cut off from day to day by the Syracusans. (Letronne, ad Thucyd., 7, 4, p. 76.-Göller, de situ et origine Syracusarum, p. 76, seqq.) PLEUMOXII, a people of Gallia Belgica, tributary to the Nervii. Their precise situation is unknown. Lemaire places them in the vicinity of Tornacum, now Tournay. (Ind. Geogr., ad Cæs., p. 339.-Cæs., B. G., 5, 39.) this same war, and in which the shade of Drusus appeared to him and urged him to write that prince's memoirs, induced him to engage in a literary enterprise of great labour, that of writing, namely, the history of all the wars carried on in Germany by the Romans, and which he executed eventually, in the compass of twenty books. Having returned to Rome about the age of thirty years, he there pleaded several causes, according to the custom of the Romans, who were fond of allying the profession of arms to the practice of the bar. He passed, also, a part of his time at Comum, where he superintended the education of his nephew; and it was probably with the view of being PLINIUS, I. Secundus, C., surnamed the Elder, and useful to the latter that he composed a work entitled also the Naturalist, a distinguished Roman writer, Studiosus, in which he began with the orator from his born of a noble family, in the ninth year of the reign cradle, and conducted him onward until he had reachof Tiberius, A.D. 23. St. Jerome, in his Chronicle ed the perfection of his art. Judging from a quotaof Eusebius, and a Life of Pliny ascribed to Sueto- tion made by Quintilian, we are led to infer that, in nius, make him to have been a native of Comum; but this work, Pliny even pointed out the manner in which since, in the dedicatory epistle prefixed to his Natural the orator should regulate his dress, his person, his History, he calls Catullus his compatriot (conterra- deportment on the tribunal, &c. It appears, that duneum), and since Catullus was born at Verona, this last-ring the greater part of the reign of Nero, Pliny rementioned city has disputed with Comum the honour mained without employment. His nephew informs of having given birth to the naturalist, and writings us, that, towards the close of Nero's reign, when the without number have been elicited by the controversy. terror inspired by that monster prevented any one from One thing, however, is certain, that the Plinian family was settled at Comum, and possessed a large property in the neighbourhood, and inscriptions have been dis devoting his attention to pursuits a little more liberal and elevated than ordinary, Pliny composed a work in eight books, entitled Dubi Sermonis, which was, without doubt, a grammatical treatise on the precise | duced, and of the most remarkable human inventions. signification and use of words. And yet it is difficult, Four books are then devoted to terrestrial animals, to if we follow chronological computation, not to believe fishes, to birds, and to insects. The species belong. that Nero nanied him his procurator in Spain; for it ing to each class are arranged according to their size is certain, from the words of his nephew, that he filled or importance: their habits, their useful or hurtful this office he himself mentions certain observations properties, and their most remarkable characteristics made by him in this country, and we find no other are also discussed. At the end of the book on insects period in his life in which he could have gone thither. he speaks of certain substances produced by animals, We may presume that he continued in Spain during and of the parts that compose the human frame. Botthe civil wars of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, and even any occupies the largest space in the work. Ten during the first years of the reign of Vespasian. It books are devoted to an account of plants, their culwas during this period that he lost his brother-in-law; ture, their uses in domestic economy and the arts, and and, being unable, by reason of his absence abroad, to five to an enumeration of their medicinal properties. become his nephew's guardian, the care of the latter Five others treat of the remedies derived from aniwas intrusted to Virginius Rufus. On his return, mals; and in the last five Pliny treats of metals, miPliny would seem to have stopped for a time in the ning, earths, stones, and the employment of the latter south of Gaul; for he describes, with remarkable ex- for the purposes of life, for the calls of luxury, and for actness, the province of Narbonensis, and, in particular, the arts; while under the head of colours he makes the fountain of Vaucluse. He informs us that he saw mention of the most celebrated paintings, and under in this quarter a stone said to have fallen from heaven. the head of stones and marbles treats of the finest pieVespasian, with whom he had been on intimate terms ces of statuary and the most valuable gems. It is imduring the wars in Germany, gave him a very favour- possible but that, in even rapidly running over this able reception, and was in the habit of calling him to prodigious number of subjects, Pliny should make us him every morning before sunrise; which, according acquainted with a multitude of remarkable facts, and to Suetonius and Xiphilinus, was a privilege reserved which are the more valuable to us as he is the only by that emperor only for his particular friends. It author that relates them. Unhappily, however, the cannot be affirmed, with any great degree of certainty, manner in which he has collected and stated them that Vespasian elevated Pliny to the rank of senator. makes them lose a large portion of their value, as well Some writers state, moreover, though without any from his mingling together the true and the false, in proof, that Pliny served in the war of Titus against the an almost equal degree, as more particularly from the Jews. What he remarks concerning Judæa is not difficulty, and, in some cases, the impossibility, of dissufficiently exact to induce us to believe that he speaks covering exactly to what creatures he alludes. Pliny from personal observation; and, besides, we can hard-was not such an observer of nature as Aristotle; still ly assign to any other part of his life except this, the less was he a man of genius sufficient to seize, like composition of his work on the History of his own this great philosopher, the laws and the relations by Times, in thirty-one books, and forming a continua- which nature has regulated her various productions. tion of that of Aufidius Bassus. If Pliny, however, He is, in general, nothing more than a mere compiler, did not serve in the Jewish war, he was not less the and often, too, a compiler unacquainted himself with friend of Titus on that account, having been his com- the things about which he collects the opinions of othpanion in the course of other contests; and it was to ers, and, consequently, unable to appreciate the true this prince that he dedicated the last and most impor- force of these opinions, or sometimes even to comtant of his writings, his Natural History, in thirty-seven prehend their exact meaning. In a word, he is a books. The titles given to Titus in the dedication writer almost entirely devoid of critical acumen, who, show that this laborious work was concluded in the after having passed a large part of his time in making 78th year of our era; and it is evident that it must extracts from the works of others, has arranged them have occupied the greater part of his life to collect under certain chapters, adding thereunto, from time to together the materials. This great work is the only time, his own reflections, which have nothing to do one of Pliny's that has come down to us. It forms, with scientific discussion, properly so called, but either at the same time, one of the most valuable monuments present specimens of the most superstitious belief, or left us by antiquity, and is a proof of the most aston- are the declamations of a chagrined philosopher, who ishing industry in a man whose time was so much oc- accuses, without ceasing, men, nature, and the gods cupied, first by military affairs, and subsequently by themselves. We must be careful, therefore, not to those of a civil nature. In order fully to appreciate regard the facts which he has accumulated in their rethis vast and celebrated work, we must regard it un-lations to the opinion which he himself forms; but der three different aspects; its plan, its facts, and its we must restore them in thought to the writers from style. The plan is an immense one. Pliny does not whom he has derived them, and then apply to them propose to himself to write merely a natural history, in the rules of sound criticism, in conformity with what the restricted sense in which we employ the phrase we know of the writers themselves, and the circumat the present day, that is, a treatise, more or less de- stances in which they found themselves placed. Studtailed, respecting animals, plants, and minerals; he ied in this way, the Natural History of Pliny presents embraces in his plan astronomy, physics, geography, one of the richest mines of learning, since, according agriculture, commerce, medicine, and the arts, as well to his own statement, it contains extracts from more as natural history properly so called; and he contin- than two thousand volumes, written by authors of evually mingles with his remarks on these subjects a ery description, travellers, historians. geographers, phivariety of observations relative to the moral constitu- losophers, physicians, &c.; authors, with many of tion of man and the history of nations: so that, in whom we only become acquainted in the pages of many respects, his work may be regarded as having Pliny. A comparison of his extracts with the origi. been in its day a sort of encyclopædia. After having nals themselves, where the latter have come down to given, in his first book, a kind of table of contents, us, and more particularly with the writings of Arisand the names of the authors who are to supply him totle, will show that Pliny, in making his selections, with facts and materials, he treats, in the second, of was far from giving the preference, on every occasion, the world, the elements, the stars, &c. The four fol- to what was most important or most exact in the lowing books give a geographical sketch of the then authors whom he consulted. He appears, in general, known world. The seventh treats of the different ra- to have a strong predilection for things of a singular ces of men, and of the distinctive qualities of the hu- or marvellous nature; for such, too, as harmonize man species, of the great characters which it has pro- more than others with the contrasts he is fond of insti tuting, or the reproaches he is in the habit of making | by the ancients in the arts, and certain particulars of against Providence. He does not, it is true, extend an historical and geographical nature, of which we an equal degree of credence to everything that he re- would have been ignorant without his aid. That porlates, but it is at mere random that he either doubts or tion of his work which is devoted to the arts is the affirms, and the most puerile tales are not always those one that merits the most careful study. He traces which most excite his incredulity. There is not, for their progress, he describes their products, he names example, a single fable of the Greek travellers, con- the most celebrated artists, he indicates the manner cerning men without heads, others without mouths, in which their labours are conducted, and it cannot be concerning men with only one foot, or very long ears, doubted but that, if well understood, he would make which he does not place in his seventh book, and that, us acquainted with some of those secrets by means of too, with so much confidence as to terminate this cat- which the ancients executed works that we have only alogue of wonders with the following remark: "Hac been able imperfectly to imitate. Here again, howatque talia ex hominum genere, ludibria sibi, nobis ever, the difficulties of his nomenclature present themmiracula, ingeniosa fecit natura." We may without selves; he names numerous substances, they are subdifficulty, therefore, after observing this facility in giv- stances that must enter into compositions, or be subing credence to ridiculous stories about the human jected to the operation of the arts, and yet we know species, form an idea of the degree of discernment not what they are. With difficulty are we enabled to which Pliny has exercised in his selection of authori- divine the nature of a few, by means of certain rathties respecting animals either entirely new or but little er equivocal characteristics that are related of them; known. Hence the most fabulous creations, marti- and hence it is that we may be said to be in want, even chori with human heads and the tails of scorpions, at the present day, of a true commentary on Pliny's winged horses, the catoblepas whose sight alone was Natural History, a work that would require the most able to kill, play their part in his work by the side of extensive acquaintance with every department of physthe elephant and lion. And yet all is not false, even ical knowledge.-If, however, Pliny has but little merit in those narratives that are most replete with falsities. for us as a critic and a naturalist, the case is different We may sometimes detect the truth which has served with regard to his talents as a writer, and the immense them for a basis, by recalling to mind that these are treasure of Latin terms and forms of expression with extracts from the works of travellers, and by supposing which the abundance of his materials obliged him to that ignorance, and the love of the marvellous, on the supply himself, and which make his work one of the part of ancient travellers, have led them into these richest depôts of the Roman tongue. It has been exaggerations, and have dictated to them those vague justly remarked, that without Pliny it would be imposand superficial descriptions, of which we find so great sible to re-establish the Latin language; and this rea number even in modern books of travels. Another mark must be understood, not only with regard to very important defect in Pliny is that he does not al- words, but also their various acceptations, and the turn ways give the true sense of the authors whom he trans- and movement of sentences. It is certain, also, that lates, especially when designating different species of wherever he can indulge in general ideas or philoanimals. Notwithstanding the very limited means sophic views, his language assumes a tone of energy possessed by us at the present day of judging with any and vivacity, and his thoughts somewhat of unexdegree of certainty respecting this kind of error, it is pected boldness, which make amends for the dryness easy to prove that on many occasions he has substi- of previous enumerations, and may find favour for tuted for the Greek word, which in Aristotle desig-him with the generality of his readers, and atone in nates one kind of animal, a Latin word which belongs to one entirely different. It is true, indeed, that one of the greatest difficulties experienced by the ancient naturalists was that of fixing a nomenclature, and their vicious and defective method shows itself in Pliny more than in any other. The descriptions, or, rather, imperfect indications, which he gives, are almost always insufficient for recognising the several species, when tradition has failed to preserve the particular name; and there is even a large number whose names alone are given, without any characteristic mark, or any means of distinguishing them from one another. If it were possible still to doubt respecting the advantages enjoyed by the modern over the ancient methods, these doubts would be completely dispelled, on discovering that almost all the ancient writers have said relative to the virtues of their plants is completely valueless for us, from the impossibility of distinguishing the individual plants to which they refer. Our regret, however, on this account, will be greatly diminished, if we call to mind with how little care the ancients, and Pliny in particular, have designated the medical virtues of plants. They attribute so many false and even absurd properties to those plants which we know, that we may be allowed to be very indifferent respecting the virtues of those which we do not know. If we believe that part of Pliny's work which treats of the materia medica, there is no human ailment for which nature has not prepared twenty remedies; and, most unfortunately, for the space of two centuries after the revival of learning, medical men took great pleasure in repeating these puerilities. As regards the facts, therefore, detailed in his work, Pliny possesses at the present day no real interest, except as regards certain processes followed some degree for the insufficiency of his scientific in- |