foffolfr^ialfr '"^ -^--'^^ -^- (lass T V) ZO^ -Sl Book ,~R$ — HISTORY OF LETTER-WRITING FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE FIFTH CENTURY -*$rjr BY WILLIAM ROBERTS ESQ, BARRISTER AT LAW LONDON WILLIAM PICKERING MDCCcxLirr aoA* ?N J ^ S^f^ov siKOva ttcctTOQ rr\q kavrs \pvxVQ ypav\\oi\vpa, whence came the Trivatcec v sv avXij C 18 MECHANISM AND MATERIALS Marcia, whose name was followed by those of Lsetus and Electus, two persons holding high offices in the palace. To these succeeded a dismal catalogue of the principal men in the empire, and especially those who remained of the distin- guished friends of the emperor's late father. Having finished the writing, he laid it upon the couch, not suspecting that any would enter the room. It happened, however, that a little boy, a great favourite with the emperor, and who used to run at liberty about the palace, entered the chamber, while the emperor, after his usual surfeit, was taking the bath, and seeing the tablet lying on the couch, he seized upon it for a plaything, and run with it out of the apartment. By accident he met Marcia approaching the chamber. The lady, who was also much attached to the child, took him up to caress him, and, perceiving the tablet in his hand, she took it from him to preserve it from injury. The handwriting of the emperor was visible upon it ; she read the inscription. ' And is this,' she exclaimed, ' the reward of my long endurance of the indignities and contumelies of this man ?' Her course was immediately resolved upon. Lsetus and Electus were instantly communicated with; and poison having been first administered without the desired effect, a bold desperado, named Narcissus, was induced, by the promise of a large reward, to complete the tyrannicide, which he did by strang- ling the prince as he lay on his couch; an act easily accom- plished, in the helpless state to which the miserable man was reduced by the effect of the poison and his previous excess. By the above recital it appears, that long after the papyrus had acquired its celebrity, and the skins of animals had been improved into parchment at the court of Pergamus, tablets made of the bark of trees, especially of the lime or linden tree, were in use among those who had the power of choosing their materials. Whether books, properly so called, were ever made of bark, has been by many doubted, and by some alto- gether denied. MafFei stigmatizes the notion that public documents were ever inscribed on this substance, maintaining that the bark of the tilia was only used for making thin OF LETTER-WRITING. ]9 tablets, or for mere diptycha or pocket-books, to be written on both sides, a process not practicable with the Egyptian papy- rus; while others speak as positively of diplomas and other official documents being recorded on the linden bark. Whether books can be properly said to have been ever made of this or that material, must depend upon the meaning we annex to the word book. In its extended sense, and par- ticularly as it is used in Scripture, it may be considered as comprising all manner of written instruments, as edicts, contracts, and even epistles; and what shall we say to the Latin word for book, which so specifically associates the idea of book with that of the bark of trees ? Those, therefore, who deny that books were, in their proper meaning, ever made of the bark of trees, must be thinking only of what we moderns mean by the term book. The message from Sennacherib to Hezekiah, is, in our translation, said to have been conveyed by letters; but the Hebrew word is EDHDP. In Esther, chap, ix. ver. 20, " Mordecai," says our text, " wrote these things, and sent letters unto all the Jews;" the word letters being the translation of the word sepherim, the sense of which the Seventy render by the Greek word j3t€Xmc- What particular sort of material was used on any of such ancient occasions as last referred to, is matter of very uncertain speculation. The manufacture of Egyptian papyrus must have intro- duced a considerable improvement into the world of letters; soon after the date of which discovery the great libraries of Alexandria and Pergamus began their accumulations. This useful manufacture is said by Varro to have been invented shortly after the building of Alexandria, in Egypt, by the conqueror from whom the city was named, where the fabrication of it was extensively carried on. But it has been said that a manufactory of papyrus existed at Memphis three hundred years before the reign of Alexander. The uses to which the plant has been applied have been very various; but for the particular purpose of affording paper to be written upon, the date given by Varro has probability and testimony to support it. It seems to have passed through 20 MECHANISM AND MATERIALS several stages of improvement, and probably continued to be of a coarse contexture, till the Romans became masters of the country which produced it, who then made it the object of great care and attention. 13 It was principally found on the banks of the Nile, and though it grew in considerable quantity on the margin of the Tigris and Euphrates, and other rivers, in Egypt only it appears to have been a regular staple and manufacture. As the demands of literature increased, the supply became inadequate. We are informed that in the age of Tiberius there was such a scarcity of paper at Rome, that its use, even in contracts, was dispensed with by a decree of the senate. Pliny the Elder, who says he saw, in the house of Pompo- nius Secundus, the books of the Gracchi, w T ritten with their own hands on papyrus, and that the works of Virgil and Cicero were written in the same material, has treated expressly of the Egyptian papyrus in three successive chapters of his 13th book; and some curious information may be found on the subject in a commentary on these three chapters of the Roman naturalist, by Guilandrinus, a Prussian physician ; on which, however, Jos. Scaliger has passed an unsparing cen- sure, laying to his charge numerous mistakes in relation to the text of his author. The work of preparing paper from the papyrus is commenced by dividing, with a sharp instrument, the pellicles or filaments of the plant, which, when taken off, were extended on a plain surface, one being laid upon another transversely, or at right angles; and in this condition, being united by some glutinous substance, according to Pliny, afforded by the muddy water of the Nile, were pressed by a machine, or beaten with a mallet, into laminse, or sheets, for the purpose intended. Others have denied that there is any gummy or adhesive quality in the mud of the Nile, and have attributed the 13 The Romans used paper of various qualities, often very finely wrought and polished. The charta dentata was that which was made very smooth by being rubbed with the tooth of a boar or other animal. There was a famous manu- factory at Rome for dressing Egyptian paper, conducted by one Fannius. Plin. xiii. OF LETTER-WRITING. 21 adhesion of the stripes to one another to the saccharine matter of the plant itself. Vopiscus, in his account of the upstart Emperor, Firmus, relates, that so prodigious was his property in the paper of Egypt, that he was wont to boast that he was able to support an army with his papyrus and gluten; to which passage Sal- masius has subjoined a note, in which we are dazzled by his accustomed display of elaborate research. In opposition to the opinion of those who considered the Pretender's boast to imply only that he could maintain an army with the price of his paper, Salmasius contends for the literal import of the words used, and understands his author to mean that the two substances of which the paper in his possession was composed, was sufficient to supply aliment for an entire army. Papyrus is well known to be of an esculent quality, and to have been sometimes eaten by the Egyptians, who have been called Trcnrvpotyayoi, papyrus eaters. 14 The gluten also which was used in the manufacture, was of a nutritious nature, being composed of fine flour or mill-dust made into a paste with boil- 14 The traveller, Dr. Clarke, makes mention of a sort of flag, the typha palustris, flourishing most luxuriantly in the shallows of the river Don. " We found," he says, " the inhabitants of Oxai, and afterwards of Tschirchaskoy, devouring this plant raw, with a degree of avidity as though it had been a religious observance. It was to be seen in all the streets, and in every house, bound into faggots, about three feet in length, as we tie up asparagus, which were hawked about or sold in the shops. They peel off the outer rind, and find near the root a tender white part of the stem, which, for about the length of eighteen inches, affords a crisp, cooling, and very pleasant article of food. We ate of it heartily, and were as fond of it as the Cossacks, with whom, young or old, rich or poor, it is a most favourite repast. The taste is somewhat insipid ; but in hot climates, so cool and pleasant a vegetable would be every- where esteemed. The Cossack officers, however, who had been in other countries, assured us that they found this plant fit for food only in the marshes of the Don.*' In another place the same traveller observes that in almost all its cha- racteristics the Don bears resemblance to the Nile. " It has the same regular annual inundation, covering a great extent of territory, over which we now passed by water to Tschirchaskoy, although the land is dry by the months of July or August. The same aquatic plants are found in both rivers, and in particular the same tall flags, reeds, and bulrushes, sometimes rising to the height of twenty feet." 22 MECHANISM AND MATERIALS ing water, with the addition of a small quantity of vinegar ; or, of what was preferred for this purpose, fermented bread in boil- ing water, strained through a colander. Of this gluten and papyrus the Egyptian paper was composed. But in Egypt itself the turbid water of the Nile is said to have been chiefly used, which afforded, when drained, a glutinous substance of a sufficient consistence for the purpose intended. At Rome, where the manufacture was prepared with particular care, a gluten was made of superior properties to the mud of the Nile ; and in the days of Firmus the gluten used in Rome was adopted in Egypt, and thus that purpled adventurer came to say, in his boastful language, that he could with his property in paper maintain an army. Salmasius, borrowing from Pliny, describes the process. The papyrus was divided by a needle into the thinnest pos- sible stripes, the thinnest being the best suited to the purpose. The ends being then cut off, these stripes were laid lengthways in a frame, parallel and close together, and wetted with the water of the Nile. These stripes so disposed, like the warp in the loom, were laid horizontally; and upon these other layers were placed transversely, and in the same parallel close order, at right angles with those first laid in the frame, like the woof, or cross threads, of the weaver's yarn ; the first scheda, or sheet of connected stripes, being called by Pliny the stamen or statumen, and the transverse layers, or pellicles, the sub- temen.* Thus Lucan : Nondumjtumineas Memphis contexere biblos Noverat. The difference between the loom process and the paper making from the papyrus was only this : In the manufacture of the paper the transverse layers, answering to the subtemen, or woof, of the weaver, were simply laid across the statumen, or warp, with which it was connected by the help of the gluten ; whereas in the loom the transverse threads were carried by * Sec Plin. 1. xin. c. 12. OF LETTER-WRITING. 23 the shuttle under and over the direct threads of the warp or web in regular alternation. The next process was to put the two sheets of papyrus thus connected together by the gluten into a press ; from which they were afterwards taken and dried in the sun. When these were in this manner sufficiently dried, they were put together in one roll, or volume, being first joined by some adhesive matter, and thus made to com- pose what in Pliny is termed the scapus, from the Greek (r/c?j7roc,dorice o7ca7roe, a rod, or stem, of columnal or cylindrical shape ; in the same sense as the word kclvwv is frequently employed, which was a straight round rod, or rule. Hesychius : Kavwv, to E,v\ov Kept 6 6 fiiTOQ, &Ci ; and Suidas : kcivoviov ovto fcaXarett 17 ola^rjiroTe Trpayfiarsia, kclv ttXelovwv rvyyavr) 7TTV)^LlOVy 7] GTl^UJV, v) TTCiyiVijJV. Of what number of sheets the quire or roll of the papyrus consisted at different periods, whether ten or twenty, seems not to be a point of much importance; but some things relating to the fasces or parcels of the papyrus so united together, deserve our notice. It seems that the written papyrus was made up into similar rolls ; but the scapus, or gk^ttoq, more properly applied to the roll of paper before it was written upon, and tomus, or volumen, to the written rolls or books. By schedae were often meant single sheets torn off the scapi to receive what was hastily committed to it, to be afterwards entered or written out more fairly. In this detached form they reserved the extemporalia scripta et nondum emendata, which were written sometimes on the back of the sheet, and then had the name of opistographa, sometimes on the front or first page, and were then called adversaria. " In opistographis et adver- sariis rationes et diurna sua perscribebant,*quibus utramque chartae paginam occupabant, adversam et aversam, ab adversa dicta adversaria, ab aversa opistographa." Thus Lucian, in his dialogue Blojv tcqclgiq, says, that the satchel of the Cynics was stuffed with pulse and opistographal papers, in which they entered, as they occurred, their philosophical memorandums: " 0tAo the excision being begun at the middle of the plant, the first pellicle or stripe was the finest and best ; the second the next in goodness, and so on to the outside of the plant; the last being the coarsest, and fit only for the commonest purposes. The paper made of the stripes nearest to the middle being the thinnest and finest, was distinguished from the time of Augustus Imp. to that of Claudius Imp. by the name of Augusta; and that which was made of the second OF LETTER-WRITING. 25 stripe from the middle was denominated Livia, from the wife of Augustus. But the paper called Augusta was so fine as often to be penetrated by the reed or Roman pen, especially by those which were brought to a fine point (temperati calami), and sometimes to shew the writing through the paper: to remedy which defects the Emperor Claudius caused to be made a mixed paper, composed of the first and second stripe of the plant ; the latter being used for the statumen, or what answered to the warp or web, and the finer sort, or that which was taken nearest the middle, being put in the place of the subtemen or transverse stripes ; thus together producing a paper of sufficient delicacy for appearance, and sufficient sub- stance to resist the calamus or pen, and to prevent the letters from being visible through the paper. There are accounts also of a paper made in Madagascar, from the papyrus growing in that country, which is manu- factured by putting the leaves into a mortar, beating them to a paste, washing this paste with clear water on a frame of bamboos, expanding them into sheets^ and lastly glazing the surface with a decoction of rice water. The Egyptians also wrote on linen cloth, in periods very remote, specimens of which are often found with their mummies. A considerable number of MSS. written on papy- rus have been found in Herculaneum; and a process, under the patronage of the English court, has been long in operation to unfold them. The sheets are joined together, forming rolls, on which the characters, where the parts can be separated, can be easily read. But from the want of stops the sense is often difficult to be made out. Herculaneum was overwhelmed by the lava and burning ashes of the volcano, and of course the MSS. are in general half burned; and many are so united by the baked vegetable juice as to be impossible to be un- rolled. The MSS. which were discovered at Pompeii, crum- bled to powder when touched ; and some immediately upon their exposure to the air. The whole of Herculaneum lay so deep below the surface, and was so buried under ashes and lava, that the process of excavation has been attended with 26 MECHANISM AND MATERIALS the greatest difficulty. One room only was found not entirely choked, where, in some presses and compartments, MSS. to the number of 1756 have been discovered; all, it seems, on the paper of papyrus. The use of goldbeaters' skin, in imparting a sort of substance to the paper, by being applied to the back, has of late years aided much the process of unrolling. Out of the entire number, about 210 are said to have been successfully laid open. Monfaucon considered the cotton paper to have been familiar in Europe for six or seven hundred years before his time ; and it is known with certainty to have been in common use in the Western world from the tenth century. It had the name of charta bombycina ; and Dr. Prideaux is of opinion that it was brought into Europe from the East. Some manuscripts in Arabic and other Oriental languages, of a very ancient date, are written on paper appearing to have been made of silk, linen, or cotton, intermixed. 15 Linen manuscripts are some- times found in the Egyptian mummy cases. There are MSS. on cotton paper of the tenth century in the Royal Library of Paris; and from the twelfth century they are as common as those on vellum or parchment. The patronage of literature by the kings of Pergamus, which began about the middle of the third century before the Christian era, in the reign of Eumenes, put invention to the stretch to discover a substitute for the Egyptian papyrus ; which, from envy or other motives, was about this time for- bidden to be carried out of the country which produced it. The improvement produced by these efforts appeared in the elaboration of the skins of beasts into parchment and vellum, of which the origin stands recorded in the name of perga- menum. Of the leaves of vellum, or parchment, books of two descriptions were made ; one in the form of rolls composed of many leaves, sewed or glued together at the end. These were written on one side only, and required to be unrolled before they could be read. The other kind was like our present books, 15 Prideaux, Conn. P. I. B. 7. OF LETTER-WRITING. 27 made of many leaves fastened to one another. They were written on both sides, and were opened like modern books. The im- provement of this useful and convenient fabric could not fail to recommend it to general adoption wherever the purchase of it could be afforded, and particularly where any subject of importance was to be committed to writing. There were advantages, however, in the papyrus, which kept it in extensive use, till the better and more substantial paper made of cotton, equally flexible, compressible, and durable, was invented : a discovery known in the western world (say some writers) as early as the fifth century. The pergamenum kept its place amongst the latest improve- ments in the substances applicable to the art of writing; and, indeed, its competency to resist ordinary accidents, its capacity of being rolled into a volume, and the hardness of its surface, making the ink shew itself upon it almost in relief, will pro- bably secure for it a preference, where the above qualities are important. After the introduction of paper made of cotton, it is probable the papyrus was little used in Europe. It naturally gave place to the more substantial substitute ; besides which its diffusion was much impeded by the subjugation of Egypt to the dominion of the Saracens, so that there are few, if any, manuscripts on the papyrus posterior to the eighth century. The great invention of the manufacture of paper from linen rags has not been traced with any certainty to its origin. There are no distinct vestiges of its adoption among us before the fourteenth century. Some have given the honour of the invention to the Arabians ; an opinion which seems, however, to have little to support it. There appears to be better reason for assigning to the Chinese the credit of the discovery; but it has been claimed by every nation of the civilised world. One thing is clear, — that it is a discovery which has wonderfully increased the commerce of intelligence, and the amount of moral good and evil of which the intellect of man is capable. To it we may attribute the discontinuance of the practice of erasing from books the classical remains of antiquity, to make room for the legends and chronicles of monkish invention. 28 CHAPTER III. OF PENS, PENCILS, AND INK. The style, used by the ancients, was an instrument made of wood, metal, and other materials, pointed at one end, and blunt at the other; with the sharp end the}r wrote upon their tablets, covered with a sort of wax, using the obtuse end to obliterate the writing, or any part of it, when necessary. But when they wrote upon parchment, or papyrus, they made use of a reed, dipped in some staining or colouring liquor. Baruch is said, in the thirty-sixth chapter of Jeremiah, to have written his prophecies with ink, which is probably the earliest mention of this method of writing to which we can refer; though there is reason for supposing that the use of the reed 1 dipped in some marking liquor, existed in very ancient times in China, and other parts of the East. 2 It is the instrument at this day used in writing by the Turks, Persians, and Arabians. The Indian, or, more properly, the Chinese ink, needs only to be slightly rubbed in water to afford a substance rather solid than fluid, well adapted to the purpose of writing. 3 Ink- 1 Du Hald. Descr. Chin. vol. i. p. 363. Phil. Trans. No. ccxxvii.p. 155. 2 Called by the Romans stylus or graphium. 3 In the work on the Empire of China and its Inhabitants, by John Francis Davis, Esq., late his Majesty's Chief Superintendent in China, 1836, will be found the following information on this subject : " The date of the invention of paper seems to prove that some of the most important arts connected with the progress of civilization, are not extremely ancient in China. In the time of Confucius they wrote on finely-pared bark of the bamboo with a style. They next used silk and linen. It was not until a.d. 95, that paper was invented. The materials which they use in the manufacture are various. A coarse yellowish paper, used for wrapping parcels, is made from rice straw. The better kinds are composed of the liber or inner PENS, PENCILS, AND INK. 29 stands, with pens (reeds) lying by them, are represented in pictures found in Herculaneum. Those reeds were dipped in some liquid substance, various in its composition and colour, but for the most part black, and expressed by the word atra- mentum in Latin. It sometimes had the name of ccepia among the Latins, which signified the black or dark liquor emitted by the cuttle-fish. In Greek it had the general name of ypa(j>LKov [xeXav. St. John, in his Third Epistle, says, he did not intend to write with pen (reed) and ink. Allusions also to this mode of writing occur in most of the authors of the Augustan period, and their literary successors. bark of a species of the moras, as well as of cotton, but principally of the bamboo ; and we may extract the description of the last from the Chinese Repository, vol. iii. p. 265 : — ' The stalks are cut near the ground, and then sorted into parcels according to the age, and tied up in small bundles. The younger the bamboo, the better is the quality of the paper which is made from it. The bundles are thrown into a reservoir of mud and water, and buried in the ooze for about a fortnight to soften them. They are then taken out, and cut into pieces of a proper length, and put into mortars with a little water, to be pounded to a pulp with large wooden pestles. This semi-fluid mass, after being cleansed of the coarsest parts, is transferred to a great tub of water, and additions of the substance are made until the whole becomes of a sufficient consistence to form paper. Then a workman takes up a sheet with a mould or frame of proper dimensions, which is constructed of bamboo in small strips made smooth and round like wire. The pulp is continually agitated by other hands, while one is taking up the sheets, which are then laid upon smooth tables to dry. This paper is unfit for writing on with liquid ink, and is of a yellowish colour. The Chinese size it by dipping the sheets into a solution of fish glue and alum, either during or after the first process of making it. The sheets are usually three feet and a half in length, and two in breadth. The fine paper used for letters is polished, after sizing, by rubbing it with smooth stones.' " What is commonly known in this country under the name of Indian ink, is nothing more than what the Chinese manufacture for their own writing. The writing apparatus consists of a square of their ink ; a little black slab of schestus, or slate, found in the mountains called Leu-shan, on the west side of the Poyang lake, (where the last embassy saw quantities of these slabs manu- factured for sale,) polished smooth, with a depression at one end to hold water; a small brush, or pencil of rabbits' hair, inserted into a reed handle ; and a bundle of paper. " The Chinese, or, as it is miscalled, Indian ink, has been erroneously sup- posed to consist of the secretion of a species of sepia or cuttle-fish. It is, 30 PENS, PENCILS, AND INK. Sometimes, in order to make the writing more visible where the person addressed laboured under an infirmity of eye-sight, the letter was written with black ink (atramento) upon ivory ; and these epistles were called pugillares eborei.* Thus the Roman epigrammatist : Languida ne tristes obscurent lumina cera, Nigra tibi niveum littera pingat ebur. Mart. lib. xiv. Ep. 5. The Romans found it generally convenient, in composing, to manufactured from lamp-black and gluten, with the addition of a little musk to give it a more agreeable odour. A black dye is also obtained from the cup of the acorn, which abounds in gallic acid. Pere Contancin gave the fol- lowing as a process for making the ink : A number of lighted wicks are put into a vessel full of oil ; over this is hung a dome or funnel-shaped cover of iron, at such a distance as to receive the smoke. Being well coated with lamp-black, this is brushed off and collected upon paper. It is then well mixed in a mortar with a solution of gum or gluten, and when reduced to the consistence of a paste, it is put into little moulds, where it receives those shapes and impressions with which it comes into this country. It is occa- sionally manufactured into a great variety of forms and sizes, and stamped with ornamental devices, either plain or in gold and various colours. " They consider that the best ink is produced from the burning of particular oils, but the commoner and cheaper kinds are obtained, it is said, from fir wood. The best ink is produced at Hoey-chow-foo, not far from Nanking : and a certain quantity annually made for the use of the emperor and the court, is called Koong-me, ' tribute ink.' The best ink is that which is the most intensely black, and most free from grittiness." In the Himalayan provinces there is a plant found in great abundance, called Sitabharua, from which a coarse paper is made, by first detaching the bark of the stem and branches, and then submitting the same to the process of boiling, pounding it into a paste, straining it through a cloth to get rid of the coarser fibres, drying it in the sun, and finally spreading it upon a cotton cloth stretched upon a frame ; and this has probably been practised for cen- turies. The fabric is coarse, but capable of great improvement. See the de- scription of the plant Daphne Cannavina by Dr. Wallich, Asiatic Researches, vol. xiii. and of the mode of making paper from it in Journ. of the Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 8. Paper is said to be manufactured in Kashmire, in considerable quantities, from old cloth of the Jan-hemp, and from cotton rags. See Travels of Moor- croft and Trebeck, from 1819 to 1825. Murray. 4 Arundo, fistula, and canna, split at the point. 31 write their thoughts first upon waxen tables, for the facility of making alterations or corrections; and perhaps also for expe- dition, as they had no occasion to leave off for dipping the pen ; and when the draft was thus made correct, it was tran- scribed upon paper or parchment. They had also a blotting- paper, of a coarse contexture, which they called charta dele- titia, and which had also the Greek name of irakifiiptaroQ, from iraXiv, rursus, and ifaw, rado, from which what was written upon it might be easily rubbed out, or erased. 5 The better sort usually carried about them their pugillares, or small writing tables, on which they set down any thing which occurred. Thus Pliny, in his agreeable letter to his friend Tacitus, tells him that he took care to have about him, even when hunting, his stylus et pugillares, " ut si manus vacuas, plenas tamen ceras reportarem." 6 As the Romans wore neither sword nor dagger when in the city, they sometimes had re- course to the iron style which they thus carried about their persons, as a weapon of defence : accordingly we read in Suetonius, that Julius Caesar, when assaulted by the conspi- rators, upon receiving his first wound, pierced the arm of the assassin with his stylus, or graphium. Quintus Antyllius, one or the lictors of the consul Opimius, who offended the followers of Caius Gracchus, in the forum of Rome, by his pushing them aside with contempt, as they were support- ing their friend, was fallen upon by them in the fury of their resentment, and slain with their styles, or writing instruments. 7 5 Cic. Fam. lib. vii. Cicero to Trebatius. 6 Plin. lib. i. Ep. 6. 7 Florus, I. iii. c. 15. The friends of Caius Gracchus and Fulvius were greatly exasperated by his rejection, on his standing for the tribuneship the third time. His disappointment was followed by the elevation of his great enemy, L. Opimius, to the consulship, who exerted the whole power of his office to procure the repeal of Caius's popular laws. Caius, it is said, at the instigation of Fulvius, the triumvir, collected his friends, to defeat the consul's measures. On the day for proposing the abrogation of the laws in question, both parties repaired early in the morning to the capitol. While the consul was performing the customary sacrifices, Q. Antyllius, one of his lictors, while carrying away the entrails of the victims, said to the friends of Caius and Ful- 32 PENS, PENCILS, AND INK. Seneca, in his tract on Clemency, makes mention of a Roman knight, who having whipped his son to death, w r as him- self put to death by the people in the forum, who stabbed him with their styles. " Populus in foro graphiis confodit." 8 From which occasional use of this instrument, it is probable that the word stilletto in the modern language of Rome had its origin. The case for holding the implements of writing was called by the Romans scrinium, or capsa, 9 and by the Greeks icifiwror or KificoTtov ; a very essential part of the furniture or equip- ment of a person of any rank or importance in the more polished nations of antiquity. The use of black lead pencils, both for writing and draw- ing, is of old standing, though hardly, if at all, traceable to the times of Greek and Roman antiquity. There is, in- deed, a hint of it in the works of Pliny, where we have the words argento, aere, plumbo, linese ducuntur. 10 But the passage seems to signify nothing more than the use of these substances in making lines by the help of the rule. This application of these materials, and especially of lead, as being soft and easily rubbed out, appears to have been in practice many centuries ago. We know that above a thousand years ago transcribers made their writings even and regular by means of parallel lines, to be erased after having answered their purpose. In very old MSS. the traces of those lines are very visible; but, according to Beckman, this practice became rare after the fifteenth century, about which period the MSS. exhibit a want of the parallelism which is characteristic of the more ancient specimens. The use of lead pencils in writing has an early date in modern history. Gesner, in his book on Fossils, printed at vius, " Make way, ye worthless citizens, for honest men." And it is added, that he accompanied these words with a contemptuous motion of his hand, where- upon they fell upon him and killed him with their styles or pens of their tables. 6 Seneca, de Clement, lib. i. cap. 14. 9 Horat. Sat. lib. i. Sat. 4. lin. 22. 10 Plin. lib. xxxiii. p. 136, 33 Zurich in 1565, says, that pencils for writing were used in his day, with wooden handles and pieces of lead, or, as he rather believed, an artificial composition, called by some stimmi anglicanum. 11 Towards the end of the same century, Imperati mentions the graffio piombino, and says it was more convenient for drawing than pen and ink. The mineral, he says, was smooth, greasy to the touch, had a leaden colour, and a sort of metallic brightness. One kind was mixed with a clay, which they called rubrica. 12 But the pencils prin- cipally in use in Italy, at the period of the revival of letters, were composed of lead and tin, the proportion being two parts of the former to one of the latter ; which pencil was called a stile. It seems that the oldest certain account of the use of quills in writing, which has reached us, occurs in a passage in Isidorus Hispalensis, who died in 636. He mentions reeds and feathers, as instruments employed in writing. There is, besides, a small Latin poem on a writing pen, to be seen in the works of Anthelmus; the first Saxon, says Beckman, who wrote Latin, and who made the art of Latin poetry known to his countrymen. He is said also to have inspired them with some taste for compositions of this kind. He died in 709. The poem, De Penna Scriptoria, begins thus : Me pridem genuit candens onocrotalus albam, which, if not descriptive of a goose-quill, at least supposes an implement furnished by a feathered animal. Writing pens are mentioned by Alcuin, who lived in the eighth century, somewhat later than Anthelmus, and composed poetical in- scriptions for every part of a monastery, and among others for the writing study ; of which he says, that no one ought to talk in it, as it was very important that the pen of the tran- scriber should go correctly on without mistake. Tramite quo recto penna volantis eat. Mabillon saw a MS. of the Gospel written in the ninth 11 De Rerum Fossilium Figuris, p. 104. 12 Del Historia Naturale di Ferrante Imperato. In Napoli, 1599, p. 122, P 34 PENS, PENCILS, AND INK. century, in which the Evangelists were represented with quills in their hands. In the curious little work of Henricus Ackerus, called " Historia Pennarum," in which he treats of the pens of the famous Academicians, published at Altenburgh in 1726, we read of the one pen of Leo Allatius, with which he wrote his Greek for forty years, and on losing which he is said to have with difficulty refrained from tears. " Et eo tandem amisso tantum non lacrymasse." P. Holland, the translator of Pliny, performed his work with a single pen, and he has handed down the fact in the following verse : With one sole pen I wrote this book, Made of a grey goose-quill; A pen it was when I it took, A pen I leave it still. Cicero, in a letter to his brother Quintus, makes some pleasant allusions to his bad pen; 14 in which he tells him that he is apt to snatch up whatever pen (calamus) comes first to hand. 13 Ad Quint. Prat. lib. ii. ep. xv. " Calamo et atramento temperate-, charta etiam dentata res agetur. Scribis enim te meas litteras superiores vix legere potuisse : in quo nihil eorum, mi frater, fuit, quse putas. Neque enim occu- patus eram, neque perturbatus, nee iratus alicui: sed hoc facio semper, ut, quicumque calamus in manus meas venerit, eo sic utar tamquam bono." 35 CHAPTER IV. OF THE FORMS OF ANCIENT LETTERS. In the more early as well as the classic ages of antiquity- letters were made for delivery much in the same way as were their books, — generally in rolls ; and when paper and parch- ment came into use, with a wrapper of the coarser kinds of these materials, on which the name or address of the person written to was sometimes inscribed. In Cicero's time, a letter, if long, was divided into pages ; and it seems that Julius Caesar was accustomed to send his letters to the senate in a sort of book distinctly paged, and folded together, differ- ing, in this respect, from former generals, who, when they wrote to the senate, carried the line along the sheet, without any division or paging. In this practice he was followed by succeeding emperors. These epistles on public business were sometimes called libelli, 1 and sometimes codicilli ; litterse being the word generally in use to signify familiar letters. Thus Cicero to Lepta : " Accepi a Seleuco tuo litteras ; statim qusesivi a Balbo per codicillos, quid esset in lege," &c. 2 The Romans sealed their letters usually with some device or symbol, to notify the writer, and identify the person written to. In the Pseudolus of Plautus, the bearer thus accosts the person to whom he brings the letter : Nosce imaginem ; tute ejus nomen memorato mild, Ut sciam te JBallionem esse ipsum. 3 The wax, with the impression, kept the letter closed, and hence 1 " Sed jam supplicibus dominura lassare libellis." Mart. lib. viii. ep.xxxi. 2 Cic. ad. Fam. lib. vi. ep. xviii ; and see Tacit. Ann. lib. xvi. c. 24. 3 Plaut. Pseud. Act. iv. Seen. ii. v. 29 ; Id. Bacch. Act. iv. Seen. 6. v. 19. 36 THE FORMS OF ANCIENT LETTERS. the phrase, Solvere Epistolam : and as the impression or sig- num was generally defaced or broken in opening the letters, the messenger or bearer usually required the person to whom it was to be delivered to acknowledge the signum, 4 and name the writer, that it might with the more certainty appear that he was the person to whom the letter belonged. Thus Cicero, in his third oration against Catiline : " Ostendi tabellas Len- tulo, et quaesivi cognosceretne signum." Augustus Caesar at first adopted a sphinx for the device of his seal, both in his public acts and in his epistles; after- wards the figure of Alexander the Great; and ultimately his own likeness, engraved by Dioscorides ; which impression his successors continued to use ; and we are informed by his accurate biographer, that he was so precise in dating his letters, that he added the hour of the day or night in which they were written. 5 It was not unusual with the great men among the Romans to use one of the alphabetical characters in the place of the other, where it was their design to convey certain intelligence or orders to be understood only by the person written to ; the transposition having been previously concerted. Upon these occasions Julius Caesar, instead of the proper letter, made use of the letter that came fourthly after it in the alphabetical order ; as D for A, and so on. And Augustus used the letter immediately following the letter which should properly have been used. 6 In writing letters it was customary with the Romans to put their own names first, and after it the name of the person written to/ generally with the addition of Suo, to express the regard or affection of the writer : on which practice Martial has the following epigram .: 4 Plaut. Pseud. Act. iv. Seen. ii. v. 29 ; Id. Bacch. Act. iv. Seen. 6. v. 19. 5 Sueton. Aug. 6 Sueton. Jul. et Aug. ; and see Aul. Gell. lib. xvii. c. 9. 7 Paulino Ausonius ; metrum sic suasit ut esses Tu prior, et nomen progrederere meura. Aus. ep. xx. THE FORMS OF ANCIENT LETTERS. 37 Seu leviter noto, sen caro missa sodali; Omnes ista solet charta vocare suos. Mart. lib. xiv. ep. xi. Sometimes in flattery to the emperors, the letter-writer added Suus to his own name. Thus iElius Spartianus, the Augustan historian, superscribes his epistle to Dioclesian : " Dioclesiano Aug. iElius Spartianus suus salutem." By which word i suus ' an expression of peculiar homage and devotedness was in- tended ; similar in sense to the Greek phrase 6 avrov idiog, as is observed by Casaubon, who adds : " Sic Eutropius in Epistola ad Valentem. Sed non epistolse nomen suum prse- scripsit, sed in ima cera, more qui hodie obtinet, subscripsit hoc modo ' Eutropius V. C. peculiariter suus:' id. est, vestrse clementise peculiaris servus, aut domesticus." Other epithets were also added where the person addressed held any office of dignity ; and not unfrequently a word was used declarative of peculiar esteem, affection, or reverence ; as " optimo, dulcissimo," &c. " Salutem," as wishing health and safety, followed the name in Roman, and yaipuv, by which the same compliment was intended, usually stood prefixed to Greek epistles. The Roman letter ended with the word Vale, while the Greek concluded with Eppuxro, a word of the same import. Sometimes, indeed, the letter of a Roman to his friend was closed with the more emphatic compliment of "Cura ut valeas," — take care of your health ; " fac ut diligentissime te ipsum custodias." And when an exalted person was addressed, ceremony required such words as " Deos obsecro ut te con- servarint," — Heaven preserve you ! 8 8 The letters of eastern correspondence in ancient times very frequently commenced with the introductory words, " Thus says," u.fc Xeyet. In this manner begins the letter of Amasis, the Egyptian king, to Polycrates, and of Oroetes to the same tyrant of Samos, as given us in the Third Book of Herodotus ; A/jmmtiq TJoXvicpaTSi, (bde \sysi, 'Opoirrjg ILo\vicpaT£i, 6)df Xsyei ; and to the letter in Thucydides, i. 129, hde Xeyei PchtiXevq EspZriQ Uavcravia^ which letters will be produced in their proper place. The letter of the king of Assyria to the king of Jerusalem is commenced with similar introductory words : " Thus saith the king of Assyria," 2 Kings, xviii. 31. Wesseling, 38 THE FORMS OF ANCIENT LETTERS. in his note on the passage in Herodotus, above cited, says of this epistolary form of commencement, " Nihil simplicius et per Orientem olim probatius hac in Epistolis et Regum edictis formula." /Elian, in his Book of Various Histories, 1. xii. c. 51 , has a pleasant story, of which we are here reminded. " Menecrates, a physician of Syracuse, was so elated with the extraordinary cures performed by him, that he assumed the title of Jove, as being the dispenser of life to man; and accordingly, in a letter to Philip, king of Macedon, he adopted the following address : $i\i7T7rw Mevt- Kparrjg 6 Zevg ev irparreiv : ' To Philip Menecrates Jupiter sends felicity;' to which the monarch replied, heading his letter thus : ^iXnrrrog MeveicpaTti vyiaivuv ; * Philip to Menecrates sends sanity.' '* The anecdote which follows is amusing. Philip having ordered a sumptuous banquet, invited the celestial physician. The invitation was condescendingly accepted by Menecrates, who being introduced, was respectfully seated by himself at a separate table, with a censer placed before him ; in which situation he was left to regale himself with the fumes of the incense. At first he was much pleased with the homage shewn him; but after a while growing hungry, and finding nothing more sub- stantial proposed to him, he left the place with much dissatisfaction. The first use of the salutation x ai 9 HV is ascribed by many of the Greek grammarians to the demagogue, Cleon, who, they say, prefixed it, instead of ev TTparreiv, to his letter informing the Athenians of his victory at Pylum. But Xenophon, who would not have borrowed from Cleon, prefixed it to the pleasing letter which he makes Cyrus write to Cyaxares ; Kvpov Ilatd. lib. iv. Artemidorus, who wrote about a century before Christ, says, that the words Xaipeiv and sppwao, were the familiar beginning and ending of every epistle, idiov iraariQ £7ri ***£ (Jxktl tivzq, ov irpodYjKu — " mortal men ought not to entertain immortal anger ;" a passage in the fragment of the " Philoctetes of Euripides," 15 and not written till about one hundred and twenty years after the death of Phalaris, is made use of by him. Epist. xxiii. is addressed to Pythagoras, and we find the doctrine and institution of that great person there designated by the name of philosophy ; a word invented by Pythagoras himself, and not likely to have been used as a word of course by this correspondent. The use of the word tragedy in Epistle lxiii. could not escape the scrutiny of Dr. Bentley, who is thereby led into a lengthened discussion concerning the age of tragedy in Greece, in which he most elaborately shews that it owed its origin to Thespis, whose first performance was about the 61st Olymp.; more than twelve years after the death of Phalaris. There is something too in the silly complaint of the tyrant, that Aristolochus was writing tragedies against him, that has sufficiently the air of imposture; for, as the critic observes, " it borders upon absurdity to suppose a man, while living, to be the argument of a tragedy." The dialect in which these epistles are written, is not over- looked. The language is Attic, the favourite idiom of the 13 Diod. p. 246. " Diog. Laert. in Vit. Democ. 15 Stobaeus, tit. xx. tripi opyqg. 58 LETTERS ATTRIBUTED TO PHALARIS. sophists, but not of Sicily, wherein the Doric tongue was generally spoken and written. That the Attic should be, as according to these epistles it would seem to have been, not only the court dialect of Agrigentum, but also that in which domestic and ordinary matters were transacted, appears very strange, especially as it was the idiom of a decided democracy which, in the days of Phalaris himself, had driven out Pisistratus, for no other reason than because he bore the name of tyrant. And even in Astypalsea, where Phalaris was said to have been born, no other idiom than the Doric can be reasonably supposed to have been in use, as it lay among a cluster of islands where the Doric was the dialect. And if Astypalaea was in Crete, where the defenders of the epistles would place it, still the argument follows him there, as the Doric was as much the language of Crete as of Sicily. Besides all this, " in the time of the true Phalaris the Attic dialect was not yet in fashion, there being at that time no Attic prose in existence, except in Draco's and Solon's laws ; and in but one piece or two in verse." In addition to which remark, it is observed, that the use of certain Greek words in a sense in which they never were used but by writers of a late date, manifestly betrays the hand of the sophist. The use of the word 6vya-rip in the sense of maiden; the confusion of the word /aeXog with EXsyeiov ; the application of TTpovoia, which in the days of Phalaris expressed only human prudence and foresight, to denote the providence of God — a force first given to it by Plato — and of oroi^eta, to signify the elements in a philosophical sense, which, until it was so used by Plato, had the sense only of the grammatical elements, or the first constituents of language, 16 — go no little way towards fixing a character of fraud upon these plausible letters. In treating of the matter and business of the letters im- puted to Phalaris, the censures of the critic may, perhaps, be chargeable with some excess. It may be said of them generally, that they have a sort of fictitious aspect, and a style and character which favour the suspicion of imposture ; :6 See the long and learned note in Lennep. 142. LETTERS ATTRIBUTED TO PHALARIS. 59 but it is hardly doing them justice to treat them as altogether destitute of spirit and ingenuity. The furious determination of the people of Himera to wage a ruinous war with Catana, about the ashes of the poet Stesichorus, who had died and was buried at the last named city; and their application to the tyrant of Agrigentum for his assistance, who advises, by way of compromise, that Himera shall build a temple to the poet, and Catana remain possessed of his tomb, cannot be regarded but as an insipid and extravagant story, the off- spring of an imbecile imagination. And what more can be said in behalf of those epistles which relate the supposed appli- cation by Nicocles to the tyrant, for his good offices towards obtaining for him from the same poet, Stesichorus, a copy of his verses upon his deceased wife, Clearista; upon which errand a special messenger is sent to Agrigentum, a distance of one hundred miles, to procure a request to be forwarded one hundred miles further to the author of the verses ? The rewards which Phalaris is made to bestow upon his physician for his successful treatment of a malady under which the tyrant was labouring, have the air of romance, and, naturally enough, put Dr. Bentley in mind of the lupins with which the actors in comedies so easily made their pay- ments, and bestowed their bounties. Gold was in those days a scarce commodity in Greece. It was in Phalaris's time that the Spartans, having been commanded by the oracle to gild the face of Apollo's statue with gold, and not being able to find any of that metal in Greece, were ordered to buy it of Croesus, king of Lydia; which was done: but scarce as it was, the gratitude of Phalaris for the cure of his distemper, overflowed in a liberality that, besides the donation of ten pairs of large Thericlean cups, twenty slaves, fifty thousand Attic drachms, an annual salary as great as was paid to the chief officers of the army and fleet, could not be satisfied without the further compliment of four goblets of re- fined gold, and eleven silver bowls of elaborate workmanship. When the temple of Delphi was plundered, gold was yet so scarce in Greece, that Philip of Macedon having a little 60 LETTERS ATTRIBUTED TO PHALARIS. golden cup, weighing only about half a pound, troy weight, put it under his pillow every night. It must be owned, therefore, that never was medical skill so royally rewarded ; and that at a time when, in Greece, the attendance and care of physicians appear to have been but unhandsomely requited ; for as we read in the Third Book of Herodotus, the celebrated Democedes, the Crotonian, but a few years after the death of Phalaris, was hired for a whole year by the iEginseans, for a single talent ; for the next year, by the Athenians, for a hundred minse, that is, a talent and two thirds; and in the year following, by Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, for two talents. On these and other like evidences of fraud, Dr. Bentley has spared neither wit nor learning. His style of ridicule, as it is entirely his own, so is it above competition for scholastic humour and controversial raillery. His finishing topic is the long oblivion in which the letters must have reposed between the time of their composition and the date of their discovery — a thousand years ; covering a period which may be regarded as the greatest and longest reign of learning that the world has seen : in all which time these famous letters were never heard of. " They first came to notice," says Dr. Bentley, "in the dusk and twilight which preceded a long night of ignorance." During this interval various writers tell us things of Pha- laris which are entirely at variance with the supposed letters. There was also within that period frequent controversy re- specting the bull of Phalaris. Timseus, the Sicilian historian, who wrote in the 128th Olympiad, treats the whole as a fiction, notwithstanding all that had been said of it by historians and poets. He, therefore, could have heard nothing of the letters, or, if he had heard of them, he passed them by in silent contempt. But it is still a stronger fact, that Poly- bius and Diodorus, who both endeavour to refute Timaeus, and establish the story of the bull, do neither of them call these letters to their aid, which, had they been in existence, and their existence known, would have furnished them with a decisive argument ; and one of these writers was a Sicilian born. LETTERS ATTRIBUTED TO'PHALARIS. Gl The letters of Phalaris to his wife and his son, are agree- able specimens, or rather imitations, of conjugal and parental tenderness ; and one could almost have wished the collection to have been proved genuine, for their sakes ; but, unfortu- nately, they are themselves among the evidences of the fraud. The fifty-first letter makes the wife of Phalaris to have been poisoned at Astypalsea, soon after her husband's flight ; and the sixty-ninth shews her again alive in Crete, many years after, when Phalaris had long reigned in Agrigentum; and assuredly the current report of the tyrant's having devoured his own son, alluded to and not discredited by Aristotle, 17 could never have prevailed, if the letters in question had been genuine compositions. There are five supposed to have been written by the tyrant to his son Paurola, and two to his wife Eurythia, all of which have certain turns of elegant senti- ment and expression, which little comport with the qualities generally imputed to him. He has also credit for several other very agreeable letters to his friends. He is made to write as follows, to one of his generals, to console him for the loss of his son, who was slain in battle : PHALARIS TO LACRITUS. For the greatness of your sorrow for the death of your son, all manner of allowance ought to be made. I cordially sympathise with you, and feel the misfortune as my own ; since I look upon myself as standing in a sort of near relation to him. Although I am in the habit, perhaps, of viewing these events with a firmer mind than others, being persuaded that it answers no good purpose to indulge in immoderate grief. There is much to console you in your present distress ; first, that he died in battle, fighting valiantly for his country ; then, that his destiny rewarded him with so glorious a death at the moment of victory : and lastly, that, having lived a blameless life, he sealed his virtue by his death. For while a virtuous man continues in life, whether he will maintain his character, or sink below it, is uncertain ; since casualties, 17 Aristot. Eth. Nicom. vii. 5. 62 LETTERS ATTRIBUTED TO PHALARIS. rather than prudent counsels, influence the minds of men. But he that passes unimpeached out of life, is established in his glorious estate beyond the possibility of change. Con- sidering, therefore, his perseverance in maintaining his virtue and integrity to the last moment of his existence as a due return for his birth and bringing up, reward his memory, by bearing the loss of him with fortitude and composure. PHALARIS TO HIS WIFE EURYTH1A. I feel myself to owe you, my Eurythia, the greatest gra- titude, both on my own account and on the account of the son to whom we have given birth. On my own account, because, when I was a banished man, you chose rather to remain in your bereaved state, than accept any other husband, though many were desirous of being united to you : on our son's account, because you have been a mother, a nurse, and a father to him, nor have preferred any husband to Pha- laris, nor any other son to Paurola. Persist in this kind feel- ing towards your husband and son, and especially towards the latter, until he shall attain the age of a ripe discretion, and no longer need the guidance of either father or mother. I press these things upon you with so much earnestness, not as having any distrust of the mother of my child, and espe- cially of such a mother, but as actuated by the fears and anxieties natural to a father. You are able from your own parental experiences, and from your sympathy with a father's feelings for his child, to pardon the importunity of this letter. Farewell. PHALARIS TO PAUROLA HIS SON. It behoves you, my son, to cherish the greatest affection for both your parents, and to hold them in the highest respect, for a son owes a debt of piety and gratitude to those from whom he has derived his existence, and from whom he has received so many benefits ; but rather neglect your father, than your mother ; for the care and assiduity which a father exercises towards his children in their nurture and bringing LETTERS ATTRIBUTED TO PHALARTS. 63 up, cannot possibly equal those of the mother. She, indeed, besides bringing forth the child, and imparting to it its first nourishment, has sustained innumerable other anxieties in rearing it. But the father has the enjoyment of his child, after he has reached his adult state, under the education of his mother, without having experienced any trouble. Your mother, under peculiar difficulties, and greater than others have had to contend with, on account of my exile, has laboured hard to prepare you for the age of manhood ; doing the duties of both parents. So that I would have you pay the whole debt of gratitude which is usually due to both parents, to your mother, as having performed the whole work. The duties which you owe to your father will be performed, if you make your mother the engrossing object of your tender- ness. I ask nothing more for myself than that you should be full of piety towards your mother. Or rather, I should say, such conduct towards her will be acknowledged by me as so much kindness actually done to myself. Thus it becomes you to lay the foundation of filial duty to your father, in acts of gratitude and affection to your mother. Farewell. THE SAME TO THE SAME. When I happened to be at Himera, upon some necessary business, I heard the daughters of Stesichorus sing some poems to the lyre, partly composed by their father, and partly by themselves. Those«of their own were certainly inferior to their father's ; but when compared with the poems of others, they were greatly superior. Insomuch, that I should esteem him to have been thrice happy who had so instructed his daughters; and those thrice happy, whose attainments had been carried to an extent beyond what was natural to their sex, by such instruction. But to come to the point, Paurola, I am very anxious to be informed with what design you are so given up to the exercise of the body in arms, and hunting, and such like pursuits; while you suffer the mind to be unexercised in study and Grecian literature ; to cultivate which ought to be your chief and almost your sole object. 64 LETTERS ATTRIBUTED TO PHALARIS. Regard must be had to the exercises of the body, for the sake of health, rather than strength, unless, indeed, a person is desirous of qualifying himself for contending in the sacred games ; but to provide by every means for the improvement of the mind, should be the great concern of him who is desirous of living with the greatest credit in a popular state. Unless, perhaps, you have resolved (which some say is the case) to seek and affect the imperial station, as that to which you are authorized by the laws to aspire ; and on that account you are cultivating bodily strength, to fit you for the acquisition and maintenance of this sort of supremacy. But take counsel in this matter from one who repents of his condition as a monarch ; who not spontaneously, but of necessity, has entered upon that career. He who has had experience of the life of a private man, and also of that of a monarch, would rather wish to be ruled over, than to rule. A private man has only one tyrant to fear. He is free from other disturbances. But the potentate is at once in dread of those who are without, and those by whom he is guarded. Among other fears and miseries, he is under continual apprehension from the treachery of his protectors. Therefore, embracing your parent's prudent counsel, do not affect an elevation above the common lot. Leave, therefore, monarchical power, exposed as it is to con- stant fears and unceasing dangers, to your enemies and their children. But if your youth and inexperience persuade you to imagine that there is something pleasant and delectable in the condition of a monarch, instead o*f the greatest infelicity, you are altogether in an error, arising from your ignorance of what that condition really is. Pray God that he will never give you experimental knowledge of what the life is which a monarch leads. The letter which Phalaris is made to write to Pythagoras, has a good deal of character in it, and is in no bad keeping with the general tone of the compositions of the same kind which are in this publication ascribed to the tyrant of Agri- gentum. The epistle runs thus : LETTERS ATTRIBUTED TO PHALAUIS. G5 TO PYTHAGORAS. The despotic rule of Phalaris is at the farthest distance, in the estimation of men, from the philosophy of Pythagoras. Yet, though this be the general opinion, there is no reason why we should not try its validity by the experience which an inter- course with each other will afford. Familiar converse will sometimes unite in friendship characters which may seem at first to have nothing in common. Indeed, report has brought to my ears such an account of you, that I am convinced I shall find in you one of the worthiest of men. But do not form a hasty judgment of me, nor listen to unsupported opi- nions concerning me. It is owing to these prejudices excited against my government as despotic and tyrannical, that it is unsafe for me to come to you ; for if I should venture upon the journey without a military guard, I should be at the mercy of every one who might choose to attack or insult me ; and if I proceed with a force sufficient for my protection, I shall be suspected of hostile intentions. But to you it is permitted to travel in safety, and without any apprehension of injury : there is, therefore, nothing to prevent your coming to me, and passing your time with me in perfect ease and security. When you are persuaded to make a trial of me, you will find to your surprise the private friend where you are looking for the despot; and if you are expecting the private friend, you will find a character with something in it savouring of despotism, — and that of necessity, for it is not possible to administer such a government as that with which I am invested, without a degree of severity that may amount in the opinion of some to cruelty : a despot to be safe, must take care not to err on the side of humanity. For many other reasons, but especially that you may know me as I really am, I feel very desirous of being brought into familiar intercourse with you. I shall readily be made a convert to the truth, if by the instructions of Pythagoras it shall be shewn to me that, consistently with F 66 LETTERS ATTRIBUTED TO PHALARIS. my personal safety, I can adopt a gentler and milder method of governing than that which I have hitherto pursued. In a letter supposed to have been afterwards written by the same tyrant to one of his friends, it would appear that he was successful in obtaining a visit from Pythagoras, and that the visit did him no prejudice in the esteem of the philosopher. PHALARIS TO ORSILOCHUS. If the reputed unwillingness of Pythagoras, the philosopher, to visit me, has given occasion to some calumny concerning me, as you have said, coupling that statement with an opinion of your own, that he deserved praise for his prudence in avoid- ing my society ; surely I deserve praise when it appears that he has now been my voluntary and pleased companion these five months. Unless he had found in me something suitable and agreeable to his own character and habits of thinking, he would not have remained with me an hour. 67 CHAPTER VIL PYTHAGOREAN CORRESPONDENCE. If we accept as genuine the following epistle from Pythag^ oras to the first Hiero, the communication from Phalaris to Orsilochus, as exhibited in the preceding chapter, will be less worthy of belief. PYTHAGORAS TO HIERO. The life I lead at present is easy, tranquil, and secure. But yours is by no means suitable to me. A moderate and self- denying man has no need of a Sicilian table. Pythagoras finds everywhere enough to satisfy the wants of the day. The servitude of a palace is heavy and intolerable to one not accustomed to it. A sufficiency in one's self is at once safe and honourable ; no one envies or plots against it. By living in this tranquil and secure state, we draw nearest to God. Good habits are not the offspring of luxury and sensual indul- gence, but rather of that state of indigence which favours the growth of virtue. Variety and excess in pleasure enslave the souls of weak mortals, especially the pleasure in which you find your principal gratification. By thus giving yourself up to the guidance of your passions, you become captivated by them, and have no power to rescue or help yourself. While thus you live, your conversation must be the reverse of that which is profitable. Do not, therefore, ask Pythagoras to live with you. Physicians have no desire to be sharers in the diseases of their patients. 1 Another letter ascribed to Pythagoras, but of the same 1 See " Court of the Gentiles," by Theoph. Gale, 135; and " Opuscula Mythological by Thomas Gale, Amstelaedami, apud Hen. Wetstenium, 1688. 68 PYTHAGOREAN CORRESPONDENCE. doubtful origin, has been preserved by Stobseus, and is given us among the Fragmenta Pythagoreorum at the end of the Opuscula of Thomas Gale ; 2 which, togetherwith some of the epistles imputed to certain scholars of the same renowned philosopher, it may not be amiss in this place to present in an English dress. The letter of Pythagoras, who was the founder of the Italic school, is to Anaximenes, a follower of Thales, and a professor of the Ionic philosophy, of which Thales laid the foundation. PYTHAGORAS TO ANAXIMENES. You, my excellent friend, if you were content to be no better than Pythagoras in generosity and glory, would leave Mile- tus and travel to other countries. But the glory of your own country detains you at home, and so it would me, were I of like capacity with Anaximenes to promote its prosperity. If the cities of Greece are bereaved of those who are so capable of assisting them, they not only lose that which is their grace and ornament, but the peril they are exposed to from the hostility of the Persians is greatly increased. It is not, there- fore, right in your situation to be always star-gazing, but more honourable to watch over one's country. Even I am not always occupied in study, but have my thoughts sometimes engaged in the quarrels and contentions of the Italian states. Lysis was a scholar of Pythagoras, and is generally men- tioned as the preceptor of Epaminondas; but Dr. Bentley thinks that the contemporary of Epaminondas could not have been also an auditor of Pythagoras, and is strongly of opinion that there were two persons of that name, both scholars of the Pythagorean school, the one a contemporary of Pythag- oras, the other of Epaminondas, to whom history relates him 2 He was greatly distinguished by his knowledge of the Greek language, of which he was the Regius Professor at Cambridge. In 1672, he was chosen Head Master of St. Paul's School, and was employed to write the inscriptions on the Monument erected in memory of the conflagration in 1666. PYTHAGOREAN CORRESPONDENCE. 69 to have fled after the catastrophe next mentioned. It is a well- recorded fact, that Lysis and Archippus, two of the scholars of the great philosopher, were the only persons who escaped from the lire in which the scholars assembled at the house of Milo, in the town of Crotona, were destroyed, in consequence of the excitement produced by their political interference: 3 and the interval between that event and the age of Epami- nondas will not allow us, without assigning to Lysis, the auditor of Pythagoras, an improbable length of life, to suppose him to have been also the friend of Epaminondas. The letter of Lysis to Hipparchus, one of the same school, is as follows : LYSIS TO HIPPARCHUS. After Pythagoras disappeared from among men, I never expected to witness the dispersion of those who had been united under his instruction and discipline. But when, con- trary to expectation, they were scattered in various directions, as persons coming forth from a great merchant-ship on the completion of her voyage, I considered it a sacred duty to store up in my memory his divine precepts ; and by no means to impart the benefits of his wisdom to those whose souls were uncleansed from their defilements, even in their sleep. For I deemed it as unlawful to proffer to any persons first present- ing themselves, things acquired with so much labour and study, as to divulge to the profane the mysteries of the two 3 The incendiary who set fire to the house where the Pythagorean college was assembled, was Cylon, a man of opulence and influence in that city. Lysis and Archippus, being the youngest and strongest of the number, escaped; of which transaction the epoch generally assigned is Olymp. lxxii. 3. The death of Epaminondas at the battle of Mantinea, happened Olymp. civ. 2. Lysis is said by Diogenes Laertius to have been the author of the golden verses, and there are other authorities to the same effect. Hierocles, a heathen philosopher, who lived in the fifth century, and taught in Alexandria, wrote a commentary on the sirr) x9 v(J <*-i or golden verses, of which commen- tary Photius has preserved fragments, and ascribed them to Lysis. Jamblicus, in recording this memorable slaughter of the first Pythagoreans, adds, that when the innocence of the Pythagoreans appeared to others of the city, thej stoned those who had destroyed them. 70 PYTHAGOREAN CORRESPONDENCE. Eleusinian goddesses. Those who do the one or the other of these things seem to me to be equally impious. It is but reasonable to consider how much time we have consumed in washing out the spots which had become, as it were, ingrained in our minds, until, after the lapse of five years, we were made capable of hearing and receiving the discourses and doctrines of that great man. As dyers prepare the cloth by a cleansing and constringing process to receive into its substance an in- delible colour, which nothing can afterwards remove ; so that divine man prepared the lovers of wisdom to prevent his being disappointed in his expectations respecting those who were advancing under his discipline. For he did not deal in that spurious instruction and those snares in which the sophists entangle their inexperienced scholars, amusing them with unprofitable exercises ; but he laid the true foundation in their minds of human and divine knowledge: while these sophists, pretending to teach after the manner of Pythagoras, and in appearance doing many showy and surprising things, only deceive and ensnare their youthful hearers, and render those who listen to them conceited and presumptuous. Their speculations and discourses are of a liberal and specious appearance, but are coupled with a practice of the most disorderly and gross description. It is as if one poured into the muddy bottom of a deep well pure and pellucid water, whereby the foul contents would be set in motion, and the water corrupted; just so it is with those who teach and are taught after this manner. A thick and impervious hedge seems to grow up round the hearts and minds of those who are not in the pure and regular course initiated, shutting out the ingenuous forms of mildness, modesty, and intelligence. All manner of evil principles grow rank under this thick wood, entirely intercepting the view of right reason. Among the parents of these evils, I would name first intemperance and avarice. They have, indeed, each of them a numerous offspring. Intemperance engenders impiety, excesses, and corruptions, leading to enormities and outrages against nature, and terminating in headlong ruin and destruction. Already PYTHAGOREAN CORRESPONDENCE. 71 have we seen men, urged on by their lawless passions, break through all the barriers of nature ; stopping at no limits, and regardless of the rights and sanctities of kindred ; reverencing neither the authority of parent, or law, or prince, or state; but striving to get the mastery over them, in order to accom- plish their subversion and ruin. Such are the fruits of intem- perance. — From avarice, proceed rapine, parricide, sacrilege, poisonings, and such like enormities. The first step towards reformation must be to clear the forests where these savage passions are bred and nourished, by the most effective methods; and, having thus vindicated the rights of reason and humanity against these wicked propensities, our next aim should be to infuse something of a wholesome character in their stead into the soul. What you have learned, noble Hipparchus, with great pains and study, you have not main- tained ; having tasted Sicilian luxuries, which you ought not to have allowed yourself to taste a second time. It is cur- rently reported that you have carried your philosophy abroad, a thing forbidden by Pythagoras, who, having committed his commentaries to the keeping of Darao, his daughter, enjoined her not to let them go forth out of his own family. She might have sold them for a large sum, but would not part with them. Poverty and obedience to her parent, were considered by her much more honourable than gold ; and it is said, that at her death she left the same with a similar prohibition to her own daughter Bistalia. We men are less faithful to him, and transgress his rules, to which we have solemnly professed our adherence. If you are changed in this respect, I shall rejoice; but if otherwise, you are to me as one out of life. Theano is the name by some given to the wife of Pythagoras, and by others to his daughter. It may be that he had both a wife and daughter of that name. In the heading of the letter which follows, Theano is introduced as the person who was called the daughter of Pythagorean wisdom, i) Trjg YlvOayopetov aoQiag Ovyarr^p. Her letter is to a friend named Eubula, on the education of her children. 72 PYTHAGOREAN CORRESPONDENCE. THEANO TO EUBULA, ON THE EDUCATION OF HER CHILDREN. I hear you bring up your children in a delicate manner. But let me remind you, that it is the duty of a mother not to educate her offspring in habits of pleasure and indulgence, but to give them the discipline which will lead them to that which is good and wise. See that you do not act the part of one that rather flatters than loves them. When pleasure becomes part of the education of children, it is sure to render them ungovernable. Nothing is more pleasing to children than habitual indulgence ; wherefore, my dear friend, have a special care not to convert your nursery into a place rather of seduction than education. Nature is seduced and perverted when the will and senses become devoted to pleasure ; the mind is thereby rendered incapable of effort, and the body is enfeebled. Children should be seasoned by rough and laborious exer- cises for the sorrows and conflicts of life, that they may not be the slaves of accidents and impressions, charmed with whatever flatters the sense, and frightened by every call to exertion; but, on the contrary, may learn to honour virtue above all things, abstaining from pleasure, and resting on what is good and profitable. Neither ought they to be suf- fered to eat to satiety, to be expensively amused, to be licen- tious in their sports, to say what they please, or to choose their own pursuits. I am informed that if they cry you are full of fears, and are ambitious to change their tears into laughter, and even if they strike their nurse, or use violent language towards your- self, that you only smile ; — that your study is how to keep them cool in the summer heat, and warm in the winter's frost ; and to surround them with all those indulgences which poor children know nothing of, and without which they are as well nourished, grow as well, and enjoy a firmer constitution and better health. You seem to bring up your children as if they were the progeny of Sardanapalus, dissolving by effemi- PYTHAGOREAN CORRESPONDENCE. 73 nate breeding the proper nature of the other sex. What can be done with a child who if he has not his food brought him immediately sets up a cry ; and when the time for his meal arrives is only content with what solicits the palate; is overcome with a little heat, trembles with a little cold, spurns at reproof, is impatient of denial, must have dainties, or is mightily offended ; delights in wickedness, and carries his effeminate selfishness into everything he says and does ? But, my dear friend, knowing, as you well do, that children brought up in these habits of softness and self-indulgence, when they come to man's estate, are in a condition of miserable slavery ; withhold from them, I entreat you, these allurements, and, conducting their education on strict and austere, instead of these enervating principles, accustom them to endure hunger and thirst, cold and heat, and to comport themselves with modest shame before their equals and their seniors. Thus taught and bred up, they will become noble and ingenuous in their minds and manners, in the seasons both of study and relaxation. It is labour, my dear friend, which prepares the minds of boys for the highest attainments ; by which process, when properly prepared, they will the more readily take the dye and tincture of virtuous principles. Wherefore I pray you to be very careful lest as vines badly trained are des- titute of fruit, so your children, in consequence of their bad education, may yield only the useless products of a perverse cultivation. THEANO TO NICOSTRATA, CONSOLING HER UNDER THE ILL- USAGE OF HER HUSBAND, AND RECOMMENDING THE PROPER CONDUCT TO BE OBSERVED TOWARDS HIM. The report has reached me of the insane behaviour of your misguided husband, that he has formed a disgraceful intimacy, and that you are inflamed with jealousy, My dear friend, many similar cases have come to my knowledge. Men are, as it seems, taken captive by women of this character, — are kept in chains by them, and robbed of all sense and prudence. 74 PYTHAGOREAN CORRESPONDENCE. You, it seems, give yourself up to sorrow ; have no rest day or night ; your despondency almost deprives you of your reason; and you are only occupied in schemes of vengeance. But do not thus, my dear friend. The province of a wife is not to watch over her husband, but to be obedient to him ; and this duty of obedience calls upon her to bear his follies with patience. His present connexion has no tie but plea- sure, but his engagement to his wife is grounded on the value of her services ; and her prudence consists in her care not to mix fresh evil with what is already evil enough, nor to heap folly upon folly. For there are certain delinquencies which are aggravated by reproaches, but which, if rebuked only by silence, cease of themselves. Thus a fire goes out by being undisturbed. If your husband is desirous of doing what is wrong without your knowledge, and you withdraw the veil with which he covers his trespass, he will soon openly trans- gress. Do not let it appear that all you value in your husband is his attachment, but rather expect your happiness from his integrity, for this forms the grace of the conjugal union. Of this be sure that to the person who has seduced his af- fections, he betakes himself only when impelled by his evil passions ; but that it is for the comfort of companionship that he returns to your society. While his grosser nature leads him to her, his correcter feelings and better reason give you the preference in his mind : the season of illicit pleasure is brief and transient; satiety soon succeeds. No one but the despe- rately profligate can be long content with such company. What can be more vain than a cupidity that delights in doing wrong to itself ? It will be stopped, therefore, at some time or other, by being forced upon perceiving that it is throwing away character, while it is lessening the true enjoyment of life. No man in his senses w 7 ill persist in a voluntary infliction on him- self; but, recalled at last by a perception of what is due to himself, and seeing how much his bad practices are reducing the stock of his real gratifications, he will begin to recognise your value ; and, unable to bear any longer the infamy of his own conduct, he will suddenly change his views and sentiments. PYTHAGOREAN CORRESPONDENCE. 75 But let me entreat you, my dear friend, do not seek to re- taliate by adopting the manners of those who have drawn away your husband ; but rather seek to distinguish yourself in his eyes by the chaste propriety of your demeanour towards him, by your superintending care of his family, by your correct intercourse with his acquaintance, and by your tenderness towards his children. Do not even suffer yourself to be trans- ported with jealousy towards her who has done you this in- jury. Such persons are not worth your attention, but let the whole bent of your mind be directed towards the virtuous ; and cherish always a disposition to peace and reconciliation, for these beautiful and gentle qualities compel the respect even of our enemies. Honour and esteem can only be the re- ward of uprightness. By this, a wife may acquire a power over her husband, and be held in honour, rather than in servitude by him. By this mode of reproving him, he will be the sooner put to shame, and will sooner seek to be reconciled. He will love you with the greater ardour by being rendered sensible of his injustice towards you, and by being taught to appreci- ate the integrity of your conduct, while at the same time he is made to apprehend the risk to which he has exposed him- self of losing your affections. The reconciliation of friends, when their differences are com- posed, resembles the delight produced by the cessation of cor- poral suffering. Endeavour to sympathise with him in all that befalls him. When he suffers from sickness, yours must be the suffering of mental disease ; if he sinks in his reputation, you must be content to fall with him ; if he does any thing to mar his fortune, it will become you to endure voluntarily the same privations : and thus you will show him that your union with him is complete ; so that to inflict pain upon him as the correction of his ill conduct, would be to inflict it upon your- self. If you could resolve to separate yourself from your present husband, and make trial of another, that other might offend in the same way, and so might another still. Solitude would not suit a young temperament like yours. Are you prepared 76 PYTHAGOREAN CORRESPONDENCE. to abjure the yoke altogether, and live a life of celibacy? Or will you adopt the desperate resolution of neglecting the management of your house, and thus ruin your husband ? You will then be involved in the same condition of want and misery. But will you take vengeance upon the unworthy seducer of your husband's affections ? Depend upon it she will be on her guard, and will well observe your motions. And if you pro- ceed to acts of open hostility, you will find that a female lost to shame is a desperate antagonist. Again, do you think it seemly to have daily contests with your husband ? And what would be the advantage of this ? Conflict and mutual re- proaches will never bring back order and self-restraint, but will only widen the breach, and multiply the causes of irri- tation. What next? Will you consult how you may do him some harm ? Far be this from you, dear friend. We are taught by the tragedy in which the crime of Medea is set forth in a sad story of woful incidents, to repress the risings of jealousy. As in a disease of the eyes we must keep our hands from touching them, so must you take care not to aggravate your wrongs by remonstrance and vindication. It is in patient endurance that you will find your most effectual relief. THEANO TO CALLISTONA. ON THE GOVERNMENT OF SERVANTS. To you, the juniors of our sex, is conceded the legitimate province of the government of a family, as soon as you enter into the state of matrimony. But instruction in this duty ought to proceed from those who from their age are more fit to furnish the rules of household economy : for it is highly becoming to commence our inquiry into those things with which we are unacquainted, as learners, and to place the highest value on the counsel of persons of age and experience. And really these things are very fit to engage the thoughts of a young lady, and to be made a part of her early education. To married ladies is committed the primary cares of the house, PYTHAGOREAN CORRESPONDEISXE. 77 and especially the regulation of the female servants: 4 and nothing more conduces to the good state of this department than benevolence. This object is not attained by the mere purchase of the persons of our servants, but is a posterior ac- quisition, resulting from the treatment of them by prudent mistresses. It is an advantage proceeding from the just use of the service of our domestics ; not fatiguing them by the im- position of too much labour, nor suffering them to be weak, for want of due support. There are some who think it is their most gainful course, by oppressing their servants with toil, and affording them a scanty subsistence, to get what they can out of them, by hard treatment. Thus while they make by this miserable proceeding a few farthings profit, they are met by a malicious counteraction, much odium, and the most in- jurious conspiracies. But I would recommend to you to re- ward the daily labours of your servants, by measuring out their provisions in a just proportion to the products of their industry. But in cases of refractory behaviour, consult your own sense of duty, not their advantages. Servants should be respected and punished according to their deserts. But cruelty is followed by no satisfaction to the person who inflicts it, and reason is as much opposed as humanity to malice and oppres- sion. But if servants are actuated by such an extraordinary measure of vice and profligacy as to be beyond correction, they must be got rid of, That which ceases to be of use, had better not be retained ; but in such a proceeding act delibe- rately and with consultation, acquainting yourself well with the truth of the facts before you condemn, and the real amount of the delinquencies, that you may limit and proportion the pun- ishment. It comports with the authority of a mistress to give sentence ; it is a becoming act of grace and favour to remit the punishment of the offence. By a due regulation of yourself in these matters, you will maintain decorum and propriety in the manners of your household. Some mistresses, to gratify a cruel 4 It must be remembered that these servants were slaves, either purchased or born in the house. 78 PYTHAGOREAN CORRESPONDENCE. temper, inflict corporal chastisement on their servants, giving way to their anger and resentment, and being over severe in noting every transgression. Thus some servants are worn down by too lengthened employment ; others seek their safety by absconding ; some, to escape from their sufferings, have re- moved themselves by their own hands. And thus these mis- tresses having created a desert around them, have had abun- dant cause to repent of their violence and temerity. But, my dear friend, think of those instruments which, if their strings be too loose, send forth but a feeble sound, and if too much stretched, are broken. In the same manner it is with the go- vernment of servants; too much relaxation produces the disso- nance of disobedience, but where severity is urged too far, nature herself gives way. In all things, moderation is the best and safest course. MELISSA TO CLEARETA. ON FEMALE DRESS AND ATTIRE. You appear, my friend, to be endowed by nature with many shining qualities ; and I cannot but infer from the ardent de- sire you manifest to hear something on the proprieties of female dress and decoration, that you are anxious to increase in virtue as you grow in years. To begin then. It behoves a wise and well-educated woman to present herself to her lawful husband not richly but modestly adorned ; in a dress more distinguished by its delicate whiteness and purity, than by its costliness and profusion. Those thin, transparent textures of purple, variegated with golden ornaments, ought to be rejected, as suitable only to those vicious characters who use them for the purpose of seduction. But that which most adorns a woman who seeks only to please and attract her husband, is her carriage and demeanour, and not her habiliments. It is the grace and honour of the married lady to please well her own husband, not to captivate the vulgar gaze. Let the blush upon your cheek, the sign of virtuous shame, serve in the place of paint; and modesty, propriety, and prudence, be substituted for gold and emerald. She that has a proper estimate of femi- PYTHAGOREAN CORRESPONDENCE. 79 nine modesty will find the beauty which she most delights in, not in the splendour of attire and ornament, but in the ge- neral regulations of her home, and in the happiness she im- parts to her husband, by the faithful accomplishment of his wishes ; for the will of the husband is the unwritten law by which the wife should govern herself, and to which her life should be conformed. She may take credit to herself for having brought with her the fairest and largest dowry in her habit and principle of obedience. It is to the beauty and wealth of the soul that we are to trust, rather than to the outward advantages of person or fortune : those are often the victims of disease or envy, but the wealth of the soul abides with us till death, firm and unmoveable. If the letters last above produced are received as the genuine products of the pens of the immediate scholars of Pythagoras, they must be admitted to bear very creditable testimony to the discipline of that ancient school; and as very curious and interesting specimens of the rules of society recognized amongst the most morally educated in the primitive times of heathen antiquity. But let us not be too charitable in giving all this credit to Pythagoras and his school. That Pythagoras bor- rowed the purest part of his moral philosophy from the Jewish church and Scriptures, is generally admitted by the best in- formed, or rather, it may be said, is proved by abundant testi- monies ; as will be seen by turning to the various passages to that effect produced by Theophilus Gale, in his Court of the Gentiles. 5 Amongst other authorities there relied on, that of Strabo is particularly strong, who relates of Pythagoras that he went into Judea, and for some time dwelt in Mount Carmel, where the priests shewed Pythagoras's walks, even in his time. Josephus also bears a like testimony, who, speaking of Pythagoras, gives it as his opinion that he was well ac- quainted with Jewish learning, and eagerly adopted many 5 Part II, cap. v. sect. 2. 80 PYTHAGOREAN CORRESPONDENCE. things belonging to it. That he was in Judea, and dwelt in Mount Carmel, is stated by Jamblicus, and also that he tra- velled twenty-two years in Egypt; and Archbishop Usher, in his Annals says, " It may be proved that Pythagoras conversed with the Jews at Babylon, forasmuch as he transferred many of their doctrines into his philosophy, as Hermippus declares in his First Book of Things concerning Pythagoras, cited by Josephus, and in his First Book of Lawgivers, cited by Cuzen ; which is likewise confirmed by Aristobulus the Jew, a Peripatetic, in his first book to Philo- meter, who, moreover, was induced by the same reason to believe that the books of Moses were translated into the Greek tongue before the Persian empire ; whereas it is much more probable that Pythagoras received that part of his learn- ing from the conversation he had with the Hebrews." The letter above produced as written by Lysis, one of the most celebrated scholars and auditors of Pythagoras, brings to view a leading characteristic of his discipline, — sequestration from the common intercourse of the world. It was the great rule of that sect to hold no communion or fellowship with any persons not initiated into the same, and regularly trained by the exercises and trials prescribed by its great founder, for arriving at that moral perfection and completeness in them- selves, avrapxzLa, which he proposed to their attainment. And in this particular the College of Pythagoras seems to have copied the pattern of the sect of the Essenes among the Jews, separating themselves from the rest of mankind, whom they regarded as profane, and not to be admitted into their society. The Pythagorean order and method of institution, and par- ticularly the mode of receiving and preparing the candidates for reception into the Pythagorean college, is succinctly set forth in the eighth chapter of the first book of Aulus Gellius; wherein the attention paid to the carriage and physiognomy of the novice at his first introduction is singular and striking. "Jam a principio adolescentes qui sese addiscendum obtulerant fpvcrioyvojfievei." The Pythagorean name and profession existed through PYTHAGOREAN CORRESPONDENCE. 81 many ages, from the time of the great founder. In the time of the Emperor Adrian and the Antonines many adhered, ostensibly at least, to the rules and discipline of his severe institution. The sophists, especially, affected a great venera- tion for the mysteries and lofty claims of the Italic school ; and it is not improbable that the letters handed down to us as having been written by the early scholars of Pythagoras, if not really the productions of those under whose names they have come to us, were composed by some sophist or sophists under the reigns of the philosophic emperors, when the maxims and doctrines of the Greek sage were in high reputation at court. By Marcus Aurelius, surnamed Antoninus, the Pytha- gorean avrapKua was a dogma sure to be regarded with favour. If these letters are to be considered as the productions of so late a period, we are not to wonder that the spirit of their contents has so lively and useful a bearing upon the duties and details of domestic life ; since, after the communication of the light of the gospel, heathen philosophy involuntarily partook of its character ; and sometimes, hardly conscious of the source of its amelioration, rose greatly above its own principles, and advanced new claims to respect, in ignorance of the grounds on which those claims properly rested. That the Stoics copied many Christian precepts into their own system of morality, no one can doubt, who gives due attention to the writings of Seneca or Marcus Antoninus. That the Pythagorean schools were replenished from the same sacred fountains, is clearly seen in what issued from the pens of those sophists who taught at a later period in Alexan- dria and Rome, as adepts in the Italic philosophy ; and who, if they were not strictly Pythagoreans, may at least be said to have Pythagorized with all the pretensions of that proud sect. This will more plainly appear, if a comparison be made between the early professors of the Pythagorean discipline and those who, closing the long retinue of the great founder, flourished in the dawn of the Christian day. Numerous fragments of the Pythagoreans are preserved in the cok lections of Stobseus and others ; and those which are given G 82 PYTHAGOREAN CORRESPONDENCE. us at the end of Gale's Opuscula are interesting and valuable; but it may be doubted whether any of the philosophers whose moral sentences are there produced, except Secundus, who certainly lived under the reign of Adrian, were existing after the commencement of our Lord's ministry. Sextus, or Sextius, called the Pythagorean, has been thought by some to have been the person named by Marcus Aurelius, surnamed Anto- ninus, among those to whom he was indebted for their advice and instruction in his youth. If the same was the Sextus whose Enchiridion of instructive maxims appears in the dress given it in the Latin translation of Ruffinus, he was certainly one of those heathen philosophers whose writings owed much to Gospel morality; though it must be confessed that the passages principally so characterised have been suspected to be the interpolations of the translator. The probability is, that the preceptor and friend of Marcus was not the author of the sentences alluded to, but another Sextus, who lived in the time of Julius Caesar and the begin- ning of the reign of Augustus, and of whom Seneca, in Epist. lxiv. makes such honourable mention. If the Sextus of Marcus Antoninus was really the author of the Enchiridion in question, and of the particular sentences to which allusion has been made, the Christian, with the book of God in his hand, must read them with great interest, as one among the most striking instances of the furtive intermixture of its holy precepts with the dogmas and aphorisms of heathen wisdom. 4 4 Thus, for example, we find among the sentences of Sextus, the Pythago- rean, the following, which, if Sextus gave them to his scholars, Sextus, it would seem, must himself have gone for them to school to Him who taught as never man taught. Dignus esto eo, qui te dignatus est filium dicere, et age omnia ut Alius Dei. 1 Cor. vi. 17, 18; Rom. viii. 14, 16, 17, 21. Corpus quidem tuum incedat in terra, anima autem semper sit apud Deum. Col. iii. 2, 3 ; Phil. iii. 20. Ver castus et sine peccato potestatem accepit a Deo esse films Dei. John i. 12. Nequaquam latebis Deum, agens injuste sed nee cogitans quidem. Heb. iv. 12, 13. Quot vitia habet anima, tot etdo- minos. John viii. 34; Rom. vi. 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. Quod Deus tibi dat nullus auferre potest. John xvi. 22. Non cibi qui per os inferuntur polluunt hominem, sed ea quae ex malis actibus proferuntur. Matt. xv. 17, et seq. In PYTHAGOREAN CORRESPONDENCE. 83 omni quod bene agis autorem esse deputa Deum. 2 Cor. iii. 5 ; Phil. iv. 13 ; John xv. 5. Mali nullius autor est Deus. Quod pati non vis ab alio, neque id facias. Matt. vii. 12. Cum praxes hominibus memento quod et tibi prseest Deus. Eph. vi. 9 ; Col. iv. 1. Nefas est Deum patrem invocare, et aliquid inhonestum agere. Luke vi. 46; John xiv. 11, 12. Liber eris ab omnibus cum Deo servieris. 1 Cor. vii. 22 ; Rom. vi. 22. Solent homines abscindere aliqua membrorum suorum pro sanitate reliquorum; quanto id prsestantius pro pudicitia fiet ? Matt. v. 29. Sermo verus de Deo, sermo Dei est. Matt. xi. 27. Omnem magis causam refer ad Deum. Phil. iv. 6 ; 1 Pet. v. 7. Qusecunque dat mundus, nemo firmiter tenet. John xiv. 27 ; Matt. vi. 19. Divina sapientia vera est scientia. 2 Cor. ii. 6, et seq. ; James iii. 17; 1 Thess. iii. 13. Cor diligentis Deum in manu Dei stabilitum est, 1 John iv. 18. Si non diligis Deum non ibis ad Deum. 1 Cor. xvi. 22. 84 CHAPTER VIII. SPURIOUS GREEK EPISTLES. The letters which have been ascribed to Themistocles were first printed at Rome, in the year 1626, from a MS. in the Vatican. They were suspected to be a forgery by some, but by many they appear to have been taken upon trust as genuine productions. They all bear date posterior to his banishment, and none have been produced as having been written before that time. Thus thougrh all such as mav be supposed to have been written when they might reasonably be expected to have been preserved, have been lost; yet a regular series has been handed down as coming from the distant places 1 to which the general had repaired during his exile. These letters are in number twenty-one ; and among them is a letter to Pausanias, before the discovery of that Spartan's traitorous correspondence with the Persian power. There are also other letters from Themistocles to the same person after the detection of the conspiracy ; whereas, it appears from Diodorus, that Pausanias was put to death six years before the exile of the Athenian. The epistles of Socrates 2 and his scholars, Xenophon, Aris- tippus, and others, were collected and published by the cele- brated Leo Allatius, having been found in a MS. in the Vatican. They were printed in the year 1637. They have decided marks of their spurious origin, notwithstanding all the efforts of the editor, in his elaborate introduction, to establish their legi- 1 Argos, Corcyra, Epirus, Ephesus, Magnesia. 2 Ruhnkenius, in his " Annotations to the Memorabilia," considers these Socratical epistles as decidedly fictitious, (ad lib. i. 11, 48, 60.) And it is not a little strange to find so acute a critic as Valckenaer quoting from them as if they were genuine. See his note concerning the title of the work above alluded to. SPURIOUS GREEK EPISTLES. 85 timacy. The correspondence of Socrates with the king of Macedon has the air of puerile romance. In another letter which the great philosopher is supposed to write to one of those who had fled with Thrasybulus from the violence of the thirty tyrants, he is made to give an account of the state of Athens since their departure. He relates the death of Leon, and the transactions in which he was engaged ; which Leon, and after him Theramenes, were both sacrificed before the flight of Thrasybulus, with his companions, to Thebes. In a letter from one of the scholars of Socrates, it is stated, that the Athenians put to death both Anytus and Miletus, the prosecutors of Socrates ; whereas the two facts are well authen- ticated that Miletus was killed, but that Anytus was banished. In one of these letters Xenophon invites some friends to come to see him at his plantation near Olympia, informing them that Aristippus and Phaedo had been visiting him there, to whom he had been reciting his memoirs of Socrates, which both had approved of; whereas this Aristippus was always on the worst terms with Xenophon, and could hardly have given his approbation to a book which, as Dr. Bentley observes, was a satire against himself. The letters abound in errors and anachronisms, which the great critic has well exposed. And the subjects of the correspondence, as well as its tone and character, very decisively betray the imposture. Aristippus, in a letter to his daughter, tells her that, in case of his death, it was his wish that she should go to Athens and live with Myrto and Xantippe, the two wives of Socrates. And this may be considered as among the plainest evidences of the spurious origin of the epistles. There was a tradi- tion that the great philosopher had two wives, which had its foundation in the supposed testimony of Aristotle, in his book 7T£pi svyeveiag, concerning Nobility. But Plutarch sus- pects that book to be spurious; and it is observable that neither Plato nor Xenophon makes any mention of Myrto. Polygamy being against the law of the commonwealth, Hieronymus Rhodius sets up a statute, made in the days of Socrates, au- thorising, on account of the scarcity of the people, marriage 86 SPURIOUS GREEK EPISTLES. with two women at one time. But as no mention is made of this statute by any other author, and there is little intelli- gence in the provisions of it, Dr. Bentley seems to have very reasonable ground for supposing it to have been the off- spring of invention, for supporting the story of the two wives. In the same collection of letters, too, there are some which suppose Socrates to have but one wife ; and Xenophon, in a kind letter to Xantippe, in which he makes much of her and her little ones, says not a word about the other wife. It is from Xenophon that we have this ill report of the temper and behaviour of Xantippe, so that he must have played a very double part, if while he was writing this com- plimentary epistle to the lady, he was traducing her in the accounts he was preparing for posterity. It seems that it was only from him that Xantippe had the character of scold assigned her, as Plato and the other Socratics are silent on this head. In the ridicule which was aimed at Socrates by the comedians, his scolding wife is never alluded to ; and Athe- naeus suspects the whole to have been a calumny. The letter from Xenophon to Xantippe is as follows : LITTLE TIME AFTER THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. I have committed to the hands of Euphron, the Megarite, six small measures of wheaten cakes, and eight drachms, also a new cloak for winter wear. Accept these trifles, and be assured that Euclid and Terpsion are very good and worthy persons, full of kind feelings towards you, and of respect to the memory of Socrates. When the children shew an inclination to come to us, do not oppose their wishes, as it is but a little way for them to come to Megara. My good lady, let the abundance of the tears you have shed, suffice. To mourn longer will do no good, but rather harm. Remember what Socrates said, and endea- vour to follow his precepts and counsels. By incessant grief, you will greatly injure yourself and the children. These are young Socrateses, and it not only becomes us to support them SPURIOUS GREEK EPISTLES. 87 while we live, but to endeavour to continue in life for their sakes. Since if you, or I, or any other who feels a tender concern for the children of the deceased Socrates, should die, they will suffer loss by being deprived of a protector, and a contributor to their support and subsistence. Wherefore try to live for these children ; which can only be done by attending to the means of preserving your life. But grief is among the things opposed to life, as those can testify who experience its hurtful effects. The gentle Apollodorus, for so he is called, and Dion, give you praise for not receiving assistance from any body standing in no particular relation to you. You say you abound, and you are much to be commended for so speaking of yourself: as far as I and your other intimate friends are able to assist you, you shall feel no want. Take courage then, Xantippe, and let none of the good instructions of Socrates be lost, for you know in what honour that great man was held by us ; and consider well the example he has left us by his death. For my own part, I really think his death was a great benefit to us all, if it be regarded in the light in which it ought to be. 2 Five epistles have come down to us as having been written by Euripides, and these were said by Apollonides, who wrote a treatise on false history, to have been forged by Sabirius Polio, " the same who counterfeited the letters of Aratus." The Greek Professor at Cambridge, Dr. Joshua Barnes, who produced an edition of the works of Euripides, seemed jto have the fullest conviction of the genuineness of these letters ; but Dr. Bentley has added his weighty opinion to that of Apollo- nides, to throw an entire discredit upon them. Every letter seems to contain the matter of its own detection and ex- 2 Xenophon's return from his Asiatic expedition was not till some time after the death of Socrates, so that this letter could not have been written from Me- gara so recently after that event, as by the contents it would appear to have been. Nor does it seem probable that he was at Megara at all after his return, for he did not leave Agesilaus till he went to settle at Scyllum. (See Diog. Laert. ii. 52.) 88 SPURIOUS GREEK EPISTLES. posure ; especially one of them, which is supposed to have been written from the court of Archelaus, king of Mace- donia, in which, in answer to some reproaches which had been cast upon him for his going from Athens, he declares himself to pay no regard to what might be said of him at Athens by Agatho or Mesatus. Now this Agatho, unfortu- nately for the credit of Sabirius Polio, 3 the inventor of the letters, was all this while himself at the court of Archelaus, with Euripides. 4 The injury done to Euripides by Cephiso- phon seems to have been unknown to or overlooked by the fabricator of these letters, when he addresses one of his letters to the person so named. Other inconsistencies, puerilities, and improbabilities, supply an internal evidence sufficiently strong to bring these letters of the tragic poet under a pretty decisive charge of forgery. The letters of Aratus are also con- sidered as the invention of the same Sabirius Polio : but they are not extant, so that no judgment can be formed of the credit due to them but what is affected by the suspicion suggested by the forgeries in such frequent practice by the sophists. One of these sophists was doubtless the author of the collection given to the public under the name of Alciphron, who, some say, lived in some part of the fourth century; while others assign him a much earlier date, even anterior to Lucian, whom they charge with having borrowed from him without acknowledgment. 5 They are clearly supposititious and imitative epistles, intended to represent the manners of the Athenian Greeks in the most common intercourse of society, wherein parasites and courtezans make a prominent figure. The composition of the letters is not in bad Greek, 6 3 Bentley queries whether we should not read Sabinius or Sabidius Pollio ; as there was no such Roman family as the Sabirii, or such a surname as Polio. 4 See ^Llian. Var, Hist. 1. ii. c. 21. 5 Saxius places Alciphron between Lucian and Aristaenetus ; Lucian being the author, and Aristaenetus the imitator of his diction. Onomasticon. 6 There are several words occurring in Alciphron which are not to be found in ancient Greek writers, but clearly of modern adoption : as evn which Moses bases his great authentic record was never substantially set forth in any school of gentile philosophy. The letter of Seneca on the value of time is full of spirit and .point. TO LUCILIUS. Act up to your resolutions, my dear Lucilius. 7 Assert your right to yourself and to your time ; and that which you have hitherto been used to see taken or stolen from you, or slip away of itself, treasure up and preserve. Be persuaded of the certainty of what I say. One portion of our time is snatched from us, another is silently withdrawn, and another runs away of itself. But the most disgraceful loss is that which happens from our own neglect. If you consider the subject, you will perceive that part of our existence is wasted in doing what is wrong, part in doing nothing, and part in doing what does not belong; to the business before us. Can you name the man who puts the true value upon time ? who regards the passing day as he ought ? who feels the solemn 6 Proclus, the great maintainer of the eternity of the world and of souls, yet expressly declares that nava ipv%^ yevrjfia £ Sav/Jta- LETTERS OF SENECA. 265 fiovia) from which on other grounds he has been judged not to be wholly free, 12 he surely would not merit a place among philosophers above the rank of the great Roman 13 whose letters have been the subject of this chapter. cwv icepdoQ av eir) 6 Sravarog. And again, ei ovv toiovtoq 6 9avarog effri, Kepcog eywye Xeyoj ArroX. Hwicp Xt. 12 Socratem per canem, et nonnunquam etiam per anserem et platanum jurare solitum passim tradunt veteres. Cur vero id ageret, inter ipsos aeque non convenit, serio hoc alii factum, et ex deionSaifiovia, profectum existimant: alii vero ironiae Socraticae numinumque vulgo receptorum contemptuitribuunt. Conf. Lihan. in Apol. Socr. 665. 666. AttoX. Swicp. £. vrj rov kvvcl and $aid. v£. 6 skckttov daLfjiojv et seq. 13 Seneca was the ornament of the latter school of the Stoic philosophy- — an improvement upon the more ancient form, which carried its tenets often to a wild and paradoxical extremity. The first platform of their system appears to have been laid by the Cynics, whose characteristic notions and habits were preposterous, arrogant, and grossly licentious. The sect of the Stoics after a period of declension was revived in a meliorated form in the reigns of the first emperors of Rome, after the blessed epoch of the Christian revelation. " Haud pauca Christianorum," says Brucker, "praecepta imitati sunt, ita tamen, ut mutato sensu salva maneret Stoici Systematis integritas." Inst. Hist. Ph. Per. ii. S. vii. The signal fortitude and magnanimity of Ceecina Paetus, Thrasea, and Helvetius, and of their wives, the two Arrias, and Fannia, added great lustre to the sect ; which maintained its credit until it was absorbed in a medicated and eclectic philosophy, in which there was a confused mixture of the Stoic, Platonic, Peripatetic, and other systems. After two centuries from the Nativity of our Lord, there seems to have remained no distinct school of pro- fessors or dogmatists of this sect. The school of the Stoics which flourished in Imperial Rome, began with Athenodorus Tarsensis, under Augustus Caesar, and appears to have reached its acme in the person of M. Aur. Antoninus : " et in hoc quidem maximo viro," says Brucker, " Stoicae Sectae vigor emar- cuit." The interval was graced by Musonius, Chaeremon, Seneca, Dio Prusaeensis, called Chrysostomus on account of his eloquence, Euphrates, Epictetus, and Sextus. 266 CHAPTER XV. LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. The letters of the younger Pliny savour of a period in which the Roman state was much altered from its condition in the days of Cicero. He held the same offices as Cicero, and a similar provincial command, but he held them under a master to whom he was expected to account for all the particulars of his public conduct. His opinions and actions were all under a superintendance, that kept the germs of any great qualities, if there existed any in his mind, from fully disclosing them- selves. His public attainments seem to have been either cramped or naturally diminutive in comparison with those of the great man whom he professedly imitated; — one, whom in Rome, Rome regarded as her patriot and preserver, and who in exile or in foreign command carried with him the genius of Rome wherever he w 7 ent. The letters of Pliny are, however, very full of good sense and entertainment ; and of a more domestic character than either those of Cicero or Seneca.. They shew the decisive marks of the gentleman and the scholar, and deserve great respect for their polished and social urbanity. They are replete with the topics and interests of busy and contem- plative life ; but they contain little to illustrate the charm imparted to letters by a free and unfettered choice of familiar words and imagery controlled only by the discipline of taste, the restraints of principle, and the awe of public opinion. We may infer from his complying with the request of a friend to make a careful selection of his letters, (from copies it is to be presumed preserved by himself,) that they were, for the most part, written to be read by others besides those to whom they were addressed. That he considered letter- writing a branch of composition to be specially cultivated LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. 267 appears by his letter to Prisons, in which, where he solicits the patronage of that military commander for his friend, he mentions among- the accomplishments of that friend, the very- elegant style of his epistles, " Epistolas quidern scribit, ut musas ipsas latine loqui credas." He observes, in writing to Ferox, that the composition of his letters was opposed to the representation he had given of himself as having discontinued his studies, since they dis- played an elegance in their style and structure, which must have been the result of continued application, unless he could boast of the peculiar privilege of being able to express him- self in so perfect a manner, without any mental effort or pre- paration. And in another letter to a friend, he declares in strong terms his admiration of the great elegance with which his letters were composed. There is a justness of moral taste and feeling in the letter which I shall first select as a specimen of Pliny's manner, with which the reader, if haply one of those for whose perusal this work was designed, is likely to be well pleased. It is calculated to brino; him at once into familiarity, I had almost said into correspondence with the letter-writer. TO MINUTIUS FUNDANUS. The manner of passing one's time at Rome is generally such that it is curious to observe how rationally any single day may seem to be employed, when, if we cast our view back over many days together, we shall find no reason to be satisfied. Ask any one, what have you been doing to-day? He will say, perhaps, I have been at the ceremony of taking on the toga virilis. I have been at a wedding or espousals. A friend requested my signature to his will, or another called me to a consultation. These things on the day in which you are doing them seem very necessary: yet the same things appear very trifling when we look back and take a collective view of what we have been daily transacting. Then the general thought occurs, how many days have I consumed on things of no value. This is a reflection which frequently 268 LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. crosses my mind, after a studious interval passed at my Laurentine villa; or even when I have been there for the improvement of my health, for the mind depends much upon the support it receives from the animal frame. Here I neither hear nor utter anything of which I have reason to repent. No one entertains me here with the whispers of calumny. Here I censure none, unless it be myself, indeed, when I am dissatisfied with what I write. Here neither hope nor fear agitates my mind, and no rumours reach me to trouble my repose. I converse only with myself and my books. O this peaceful life, so well ordered, and so sincere ! O this sweet and honourable repose ! having, in my opinion, something in it more graceful and pleasing than almost any active em- ployment. O this sea, this shore, this true retirement, this scene so suited to contemplation and the muse ! Of how many new thoughts art thou the inventor and inspirer ! Leave then, my friend, I beseech you, as soon as you can, the noise, inanity, and frivolous pursuits of the city, and devote yourself to study and retirement. It is better as our friend Attilius used sensibly and wittily to say, " to be wholly unemployed than to be actively idle." The character drawn in the next letter is interesting and affecting ; — interesting as exhibiting an amiable portrait of a heathen gentleman ; and affecting as shewing the gloomy barrier which stopped the procedure of the finest minds, at a point so far below their capacity of expansion, had Chris- tianity been their guide and conductor. TO CATIL1US SEVERUS. I have been long detained in Rome, in a state of the greatest anxiety. The long and obstinate illness of Aristo, for whom I entertain the highest admiration and affection, troubles and afflicts me. There is no one whom I can name, in whom dignity, virtue, and learning are more conspicuous. How great is his skill in the laws, both civil and political, of his LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLIXY. 2G l J country ! how deep is his acquaintance with its events, its characters, and its antiquities. There is nothing you would wish to learn that he is not qualified to teach. To me he is a treasury to which I resort when I want information on any subject of abstruse enquiry. What integrity and weight there is in all he utters ! How circumspect and graceful is his modest reserve in delivering himself. Though he sees in a moment the very point at issue, yet before he pronounces his opinion, he treats it under all its aspects and reasonings, tracing it from its first principles to its consequences and con- clusions. In addition to all this, how frugal his diet, his dress how plain ! When I enter his chamber, and view him on his couch > I see an image of ancient manners. And all this is commended to our admiration by the nobility of his mind, which does everything on principle, and nothing from ostenta- tion. He looks for his reward to the value of the thing per- formed, and not to the credit accompanying it. In short, there is not a philosopher by profession who can endure a compari- son with him. He frequents not the gymnasia or porticos, nor idly wastes in long disputations his own time or that of others ; but his hours are usefully passed in civil and active employments ; an advocate for many, and assisting still more with his counsel. But although thus actively engaged, to none is he second in the virtues of temperance, piety, justice, and fortitude. You would be full of admiration could you see with what resignation he bears his illness ; and combats with his pains. How patiently he endures thirst ; and how still and quiet he is under the treatment necessary for the reduction of a raoing fever. A little while ago he called for me, and some others to whom he was most attached ; and requested we would ask his phy- sicians what they thought of the probable result of his illness, that in case they deemed his disorder incurable, he might put a voluntary end to his existence. But if they only thought his recovery would be difficult and tedious, he would remain and endure the struggle ; for so much he considered to be due to the entreaties of his wife, and the tears of his daughter, so much to us his friends, that if our hopes of him were not 270 LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. groundless, he would not defeat them by a voluntary death, — a resolution, in my judgment, to be reckoned among the highest examples of fortitude, and meriting the greatest eulogy. For to rush upon self-destruction with a sort of blind and instinctive eagerness to be freed from our pain, is a resolution which we share with many ;, but to deliberate calmly on the subject, to weigh well the reasons for life, or death, and to decide according to the preponderance on the one side or the other, is the proceeding of a great mind. The physicians hold out cheering prospects to us. It remains only that heaven may favour these expectations, and thus relieve me from this painful anxiety. And if such relief shall be granted me, I shall betake myself forthwith to my Laurentine villa ; that is, to my books and studious repose. At present my attendance upon my friend, and the anxiety of mind I feel concerning him, leave me no moments for reading or writing. I have now set before you my fears, my wishes, and my ultimate determination. I shall expect in return an account of what you have been doins:, what you are now doing, and what you intend to do. But may your communications be more cheerful than mine. The anxiety of my mind will be much relieved by the comfort of hearing that you are suffering no present uneasiness. One cannot but lament that a letter distinguished by such good principles and feelings as that which has just been set before the reader, should be spoiled by a deliberate approval of the sin of self-destruction. Pliny was a polite, humane, and accomplished man, but his reasoning powers were not such as to elevate him at all above the standard of heathen ethics. Nothing, indeed, could more strikingly shew the comfort- less character of the ancient philosophy, than that the des- perate resource of suicide should by so many of its high pro- cessors be regarded as the legitimate hope, and final consola- tion of those on whom life and mortality had nothing but their dregs to bestow. It is true it was not the general opinion of LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLTNY. 271 heathen antiquity 1 that suicide was lawful under any cir- cumstances, but there were few who would deny to the sick without hope of recovery the privilege of anticipating a lin- gering departure, and hastening the hour of deliverance. What better could be looked for from theological systems so defective in their adaptation to the entire predicament of man ; and coming so short of the span and compass of his being. They left him the sport of conjecture, caprice, and terror in all that concerned his unseen and ulterior destiny. Christianity has brought his immortality to light, and has at the same time surrounded the whole range of his existence with its sanctions, its precepts, and its promises. The noble testimony which is borne to its truth by its folding within its wide investiture our entire case and condition under all its modes and mutations, is too apt to be overlooked. Where the heathen theology lays its votary down, the victim of despair, Christianity takes him up, a suppliant for pardon. It makes his sorrow the forerunner of hope, and his pain the pre- parative to glory. This want of comfort in the theology and philosophy of the heathens was the determining motive with many of their zealous enquirers after truth, when the gospel had begun to diffuse itself, to visit the springs of its welcome intelligence. As soon as they began to quench their thirst at those fountains of living waters, they found their souls re- freshed beyond all their former experience, and their vision gladdened with new discoveries, before which the shadows of the old world were driven aw r ay and dispersed. The account which Justin Martyr gives of himself is a remarkable instance of the spiritual fruits of a conviction brought about by a succession of failures in seeking comfort 1 Vetat Pythagoras injussu imperatoris, id est Dei, de prsesidio et statione vitae decidere. Cic. de Senect. sect. xx. 73. From whom Plato in his Phsedo borrows the sentiment. ' Gc ev rivi Qpovpa ecrfisv 6i av9p(07roi, kcli ov Sei dr) eavTov sk ravrrjQ \vsiv ovd' cnrodidpacrtceLv. We mortals have a post assigned us to guard, and it does not become us to release ourselves from this charge, and desert our duty. " Piis omnibus retinendus animus est in custodia corporis; nee injussu ejus, a quo ille est vobis datus, ex hominum vita mi- grandum est, ne munus humanum assignatum a Deo defugisse videamini.' 7 Somn. Scip. 3. 272 LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLIXY. from other sources. In his dialogue with Trypho he relates his labours and researches among the oracles and sages of the gentile schools ; his toils through the learning of the Pytha- goreans, the Stoics, and the Peripatetics, in the vain pursuit of principles on which he could rest with no satisfaction, till finding in their ostentatious systems only disappointment, he made trial of the Platonist, whose lessons he studied in con- templative retirement. This new connexion pleased him well for some time, but landed him at last in a region of like barren speculations. For a long time he extended his enquiries only to multiply his defeats, till in his solitude he met with an aged and venerable man, who, after discoursing with him on the various lore of the philosophers whom he had so fruitlessly consulted, and convincing him of their inability to afford him the solace he was in search of, directed him to the Christian Scriptures as the true treasury of that heavenly wisdom which could alone speak peace to his soul. And this, as he tells us, he found, at last, to be the only sure and profitable philosophy. The letter which I shall next lay before the reader is of a very agreeable description. The comforts and compensations of old age have been often a favourite theme ; and though only he is qualified to represent them who has been " en- lightened ; and has tasted of the heavenly gift, and the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come;" the heathen mind has not been insensible to the importance of summoning to the aid of sinking humanity whatever solace could be drawn from the arguments and principles within its reach. The sentiments of the heathen moralists correspond in general with the melancholy shades of the picture presented to us by the chorus of the Hercules furens of Euripides. Old age, heavier than JEtna's rock, lies on my head? Nevertheless, even in heathen pages old age is sometimes 2 to de yrjpag au Bapvrspov Airvag cricoTreXuv EtTI KOaTL KSKTai. LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. 273 pleasingly vindicated, and its advantages produced in strong relief;—- no where with more spirit and effect than in the treatise of Cicero on the subject. But in that most interesting performance greater stress is laid on the compensations and employments of age than on its graces and its comforts. These are the privileges of the Christian's hope, and flourish only where the gospel places under the aged head its downy pillow. Cicero's old man stands before us in an attitude of stout resistance to his destiny. " Resistendum senectuti est, ejusque vitia diligentia compensanda sunt; pugnandum, tan- quam contra morbum, sic contra senectutem." He calls upon his old champion to summon all the residue of his strength to the field of duty, and to keep in exercise his remaining energies of mind and body, till the last drop of life's elixir is consumed. " Old age is honourable," says he, " if it defends itself; if it insists on its, own rights ; if it refuses to be at the disposal of another; if to its latest breath it asserts its domestic supremacy. Thus did Appius Claudius. 1 Four sturdy sons, five daughters, a great household, a nu- merous body of retainers, old and blind as he was, he main- tained in strict obedience. He kept his mind on the stretch like a bow. He suffered not age to master him, or extort from him a languid submission ; he preserved not merely an authority, but an empire over his family. He was feared by his servants ; revered by his children ; valued by all ; and in his parental discipline at home he maintained the severity of ancient manners.'" The Demonax of Lucian was a mellower old man : — " He lived to near a hundred years, without pain, grief, or disorder ; and without being burthensome or under obligations to any; was always serviceable to his friends, and never had a foe* Not only the Athenians, but all Greece, so loved and honoured him, that when he appeared in public the nobles rose up in respect to him ; and there was a general silence. Even in his extreme age he went about from house to house, supped, and passed the night wherever it pleased him ; the master always considered himself honoured as by some god or tutelary T 274 LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. genius. The sellers of bread would beg him as he passed along to accept of some from their hands ; and happy were they from whom he would receive it. The boys, too, would offer him fruit, and call him their father. On a sedition which broke out at Athens, his presence alone restored tran- quillity ; the moment he appeared all was silent : he perceived their shame and repentance, and without a word withdrew." The picture has a romantic air, and was probably overcharged. It is nevertheless very pleasing. But the letter of Pliny on the subject may be considered as containing the most agree- able description which heathen antiquity has bequeathed to us of the twilight of a firm and benign old age, casting a ruddy evening glow on the gathering cloud, behind which it cheerfully takes its leave, and retires from the scene of its labours and benefactions. TO CALVISIUS. I don't know that I ever passed a more agreeable time than I lately did with Spurinna. If I should live to be old, there is no man whose .old age I should be more ambitious to copy. Nothing can be more regular than his way of life. For my part, I am hardly more pleased with the settled course of the stars than I am with order and arrangement in the lives of men, especially of old men. In young men a certain con- fusion and agitation maybe permitted; but in the lives of old men, with whom the season is gone by for business and ambi- tion, all things should be calm and well ordered. This method of life Spurinna most perseveringly observes, and matters which we should think of little moment, were they not of daily occurrence, he brings within the circle of his periodical arrangements. The first part of the morning is passed in study on his couch ; at eight he dresses himself to go abroad : he takes a walk of about three miles': and exercises his body and mind at the same time. When he is at home again, if friends are with him, topics most worthy to engage the thoughts of accomplished persons are discussed and examined. If no LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. 2/0 friends are with him, a book is read to him ; and this is done even in the society of his friends, if it is agreeable to them. After this he reposes himself, and again a book, or, what is better than any book, he dilates upon some useful topic ; he afterwards takes an airing in his carriage, either with his wife, a lady of uncommon merit, or with some friend, as with myself very lately. How elegant, how entertaining is his company .in this hour of privacy ! What veneration he then inspires ! What events, what examples he brings before you ! What lessons of virtue you imbibe ! Although so tempered is his talk with modesty, that he never seems to dictate. After a ride of about seven miles, he walks again a mile ; he then returns home, and sits awhile, or takes to his couch and his pen. He composes Wricsj with the greatest taste and skill, both id Greek and Latin; and writes with surprising elegance, suavity, and vivacity ; qualities heightened in their effect by the reverence with which he is regarded. When the time for the bath is announced, which in winter is at three, in summer at two o'clock, hewperambulates in the sun, 3 without his clothes, for a while, and then takes a long- spell at tennis, with which exercise he combats with old age ; after bathing he lies upon his couch till supper time, and in this interval some amusing book is read to him : and all this time his friends are at liberty to partake of this entertainment with him or not, as they please ; his supper is elegant, but frugal, served in pure and antique plate. He has likewise in use a sideboard of Corinthian metal, which is his fancy, but not his folly. His repast is frequently enlivened by the attendance of the comedians, that the improvement of the mind may be mixed with the gratification of sense, tn summer he en- croaches upon the night, but no one thinks the time long ; his entertainment is continued with so much politeness and courtesy. By these means he has preserved his senses in full integrity and vigour to his seventy-eighth year, and a boply so agile and vivacious as to carry no mark of age but its wisdom. This course of life is the object of my vows and anticipa- 3 A practice customary with the Romans, being thought contributary to health. 276 LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PL] NY. tion ; and as soon as my age shall furnish me with an excuse for retreating from business, I shall enter upon it with the greatest eagerness. In the meanwhile I am worn down with a thousand cares and labours, in the midst of which I look to the example of Spurinna as my future solace. He too, as long as it became him, discharged public duties, presided in courts of justice, governed provinces, and earned his present repose by a life of great labour. Therefore I propose to myself the same course, and the same termination. And I now give it you under my hand and seal, that if you see me carried by ambition beyond this object, you may produce this letter against me, and lay your injunction upon me to be quiet, when I can be so without incurring the reproach of indolence. 4 The portrait which the above letter exhibits of a happy old age is so pleasing, and so full of interest, that I cannot dis- 4 Though the Appi us Claudius of Cicero, and the Spurinna of Pliny are greatly below the Christian standard, they rise in dignity far above the miserable level of our modern men of the world, when drawing towards the end of their nominally Christian course. It would be tedious and uninstructive to justify this observation by examples ; but an instance from the too well known letters of Lord Chesterfield to his son, may not be out of place here, for the sake of contrast- ing it with one or two specimens of a contrary character. It is thus that he writes from Bath, when age and infirmity begin to claim him as their victim. " The same nothings succeed one another every day to me, as regularly and uniformly as the hours of the day. You will think this tiresome, and so it is; but how can I help it ? Cut off from society by my deafness, and dispirited by my ill health, where could I be better ? You will say, perhaps, where could you be worse ? only in prison or in the galleys, I confess. However, I see a period to my stay here ; and I have fixed, in my own mind, a time for my return to London ; not invited there by either politics or pleasure (to both which I am equally a stranger) but merely to be at home ; which, after all, according to the vulgar saying, is home, be it never so homely." And in ano- ther letter written some few years after, he thus alludes to his weight of years, and the coming catastrophe : " I feel a gradual decay, though a gentle one, and I think that I shall not tumble, but slide gently to the bottom of the hill of life; when that will be I neither know nor care, for I am very weary." As an accomplished Christian gentleman, few have deservedly stood higher in the esteem and veneration of those around him than the late Sir William Pepys. He lived to a very old age with little decay of his faculties, or his capacities of mental pleasure; and it is thus he writes to Hannah More to- LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. 277 miss it without a few further remarks. Considered as a heathen specimen, it cannot but be regarded with a degree of admiration. However low it may graduate in the scale of value, when brought into comparison with the altitude of the Christian's hope and trust, it is surely far superior in honour and estimation to the " arm chair of dozing age," in which, according to Paley, " happiness is to be found as well as in either the sprightliness of the dance, or the ani- mation of the chase," or that " mere perception of ease," which the same author balances against "■ novelty, acuteness of sen- sation, and ardour of pursuit." This is not the comfortable old age which is conceived in the mind, and realized in the life of the waiting and contented Christian. The models of wards the close of his career : " As I have now accomplished my seventy- eighth year, you will not be surprised when I tell you that my thoughts are daily employed upon the great change which must inevitably soon take place ; nor do I find that the contemplation of it has had any bad effect on my spirits ; not from any confidence arising from a retrospect of my past life, but from the hope that the same gracious Being who has bestowed so many great blessings upon me in this life, will not withdraw his support and protection when I am entering upon another; but will comfort me when I pass through the valley of the shadow of death; not for any merits of mine, but for those of him, who is held out to us as a propitiation for our sins." In a strain of still deeper Christian interest, the Rev. John Newton opens his mind to the same Christian lady : " Surely He has done enough to warrant the simple surrender of myself and my all to Him. And now I am old, and know not the day of my death, my chief solicitude and prayer is, that my decline in life may be consistent with my character and profession as a Christian and a Minister ; and that it may not be stained with those infirmities which have sometimes clouded the latter days even of good men. May He preserve me from a garrulous, and from a dogmatical spirit; from impatience, peevishness, and jealousy. If called to depart, or to be laid aside, may I retire like a thankful guest from a plentiful table ; rejoicing that others are coming forward to serve Him, I hope better, when I can serve him in this life no more. And then at length when flesh and blood are fainting, if He will deign to smile upon me, I shall smile upon death. It is a serious thing to die, and it becomes me now far in my seventy-fourth year, to think seriously of it. Through mercy I can contem- plate the transition without dismay. There is a dying strength needful to bear up the soul in a dying hour. The Lord has said, ' As thy day, so shall thy strength be,' and ' my grace is sufficient for thee.' On these good words I would humbly rely, for, indeed, in myself I am nothing, and can do nothing ; and without his gracious influence I am alike unfit to die and to live." 278 LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. Cicero and Pliny shew, indeed, the animal and moral man in the act of summoning all his resources to palliate and post- pone what must be at last submitted to. Under the Gospel covenant, our case is committed to Him who can sustain our feebleness through the fearful and dark passages which lead to the last crisis, and to the crowning consummation of the final struggle. Holy Scripture affords the only safe precepts and patterns by which we may learn to grow old with a good grace. Under this dispensation, and under this tuition, old age becomes the harbinger of bliss ; hoary hairs are the blossoms of the grave ; the soul exults in the body's decay; and death is the entrance into life. The letter of Pliny relating the death of Silius Italicus is curious, shewing how an amiable man through the cloudy medium of heathen ethics could contemplate with approbation a self-inflicted death. It contains, however, such reflexions on the brevity of human life, as bring the topic home to the considerate mind. TO CANINIUS. I have just heard that Silius Italicus 5 has starved himself to death, at his villa near Naples. Having an imposthume, which was pronounced incurable, he determined with a reso- lution, not to be shaken, to seek refuge from a wearisome dis- ease in a voluntary death. To this concluding scene of his life he had been a very happy person, if we except the loss of the younger of his two sons ; but he left his elder and better son, in a flourishing condition, after seeing him attain to the consular dignity. It is true he lost some credit by his conduct under Nero ; being suspected of having been the pro- moter of informations in the reign of that Emperor. But of his interest with Vitellius, he made a wise and beneficent use. He acquired much honour by his government of Asia as 3 Said to have been an ardent admirer and imitator of Virgil, though holding a far inferior rank as a poet. The second punic war was the subject of his poem, which was extended through many books, LETTERS TO THE YOUNGER PLINY. 279 proconsul ; and on his retirement from office, he cleared him- self from the stains of his early life by an irreproachable be- haviour. He passed his time among the first men in Rome without power, and consequently without envy : lying much on his couch, and always in his chamber. He was much visited ; and court was paid to him for his worth, not his wealth. He passed his days in erudite conversation, with men of letters, when not employed in composing verses, which bore testimony rather to his industry than his genius. Some- times he recited his compositions, in order to take the opinions of his auditors. In his advanced age he quitted Rome al- together, and retired to Campania; nor could he be attracted from this retreat by the accession of a new Emperor, which I record as praiseworthy in the Prince who gave this liberty, and equally so in him who had the courage to use it. He was a great lover of the fine arts, 6 and was expensive to a blameable excess in his purchases. He had several villas in the same places ; always buying new ones, and neglecting the old ; in all of them he had large collections of books, many statues, and pictures, which he not only, enjoyed, but even adored ; but above all that of Virgil, the anniversary of whose birth-day he kept with more solemnity than his own ; espe- cially at Naples, where he was accustomed to approach his tomb with as much reverence as if it had been a temple. In this tranquillity he lived beyond the seventy-fifth year of his age, with a delicate, rather than an infirm state of body. He was the last of Nero's consuls, and was the survivor of all who attained to that rank in his reign, Nero having been killed in his consulate. And in thinking of this, a sad reflec- tion on the frail tenure of human existence crosses my mind. What is there so short and stinted as the longest life of man ? Does it not seem but yesterday that Nero was on the throne ? And yet not one of those who were made consuls in his reign is now alive. But why should I wonder at this when I look around me? Lucius Piso, the father of that Piso who was 6 Erat (pikoKaXog ad emacitatis reprehensionem. 280 LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. most atrociously assassinated by Valerius Festus in Africa, used to say, he did not see one person in the senate who sat in the house when he was consul : so short is the space which encompasses so large a multitude of living beings ; and, there- fore, I think that the tears of Xerxes are not only to be par- doned, but to be fully justified, who is reported to have wept when he cast his eyes upon his immense army, and considered how soon an end was to be put to the existence of so many thousands. But if such is the short and perishable duration of life, so much the more are we called upon to give it what length we can ; if not by our deeds, which are not always de- pendent on our own wills, at least by our studies and the exer- tions of our intellects; and if it is not permitted us to live long, let us strive to leave some memorial to testify to poste- rity that we have lived. I know you need no incitement to what is virtuous; but such is the interest I take in your hap- piness, that I cannot forbear urging you to continue the course in which you have been proceeding, in return for the same en- couragement for which I have so often been indebted to you. How virtuous is the contention when friends stimulate each other by their mutual exhortations to pursue the path of honour and immortality. The letter in which Pliny has presented to his friend a minute description of his Tuscan villa is an interesting docu- ment, as directing attention to the indications it affords of the tastes, habits, and manners of Rome, as they appear to have prevailed under the beneficent rule of the Emperor Trajan. In the structure, adaptation, and decorations of the Roman villas, may be traced the progress and stages of the social and domestic refinement of that extraordinary people, among whom the greatest properties of human nature were under the mis- guidance of infatuating superstitions, extravagant errors, and a lofty but perverted genius. In the villa of Scipio Africanus we have a specimen of the domestic arrangements of almost the greatest man of the LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. 281 great days of republican Rome. Seneca, in his letter to Lu- cilius, describing a visit he made to this villa, contrasts it with the style and fashion of the mansions of the Roman nobi- lity of his own time; in which, however, it must be owned, the taste for splendour sought its gratification rather in sculptural and architectural magnificence, than in the petty display of a more showy decoration. " I write this," says Seneca, " from the famous villa of Scipio Africanus, 7 having first paid my devotions to his manes, and the tomb in which I suspect the remains of this great man were deposited. 8 Nor do I in the least doubt that his soul went back to heaven from whence it came. Not because he was the leader of great armies, (for that was no more than was done by the furious Cambyses), but for his excellent moderation and piety, which were more admirably conspicuous when he left, than when he defended his country. How can I but admire that greatness of spirit, with which he withdrew into voluntary banishment, and thus re- lieved the state from all apprehensions on his account; for things had come to that pass, that either liberty must injure Scipio, or be injured by him. I found his villa built of square stone, with a wood near it, enclosed by a wall, a tower on 7 The first Scipio Africanus, whose ascendancy, arising from his personal excellence, and the greatness of his renown, made him the object of much jealousy and detraction. The efforts used to impeach him were met by him with a magnanimous contempt. He disdained to defend himself; and with- drew to his villa at Liternum, where he passed the residue of his days in the cultivation of his farms, and a noble simplicity of life. Major animus et natura erat, ac majorifortunae assuetus quam ut reus esse sciret, et submittere se in humilitatem causam dicentium. Tit. Liv. 1. xxxviii, s. 52. 8 It had been said by some that Scipio died, and was buried at Rome, and by others at Liternum, and this made Seneca express himself rather doubtingly on this point. Alii Romae, alii Literni, et mortuum et sepultum. Utrobique monumenta ostenduntur et statuae. Nam et Literni monumentum, monumen- toque statua superimposita fuit, quam tempestate disjectam nuper vidimus ipsi. Et Romae extra portam Capenam in Scipionum monumento tres statuae sunt; quarum duse P. et L. Scipionum dicuntur esse; tertia poetae Q. Ennii. Liv. 1. xxxviii. s. 56. Cicero, in his Oratio pro Archia Poeta. " Carus fuit Africano superiori noster Ennius. Atque etiam in sepulchro Scipionum pu- tatur is esse constitutus e marmore, s. ix. ; and see the note to the passage by Manutius. 282 LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. each side erected by way of bulwark, a reservoir under the buildings, and green walks, enough to supply an army with water. A bath narrow and somewhat dark, after the ancient custom. " It was a great pleasure to me to reflect on the habits and manners of Scipio, in contrast with those of our own time. In this corner the dread of Carthage, to whom it was owing that Rome escaped a second capture, was wont to bathe his body wearied with his rustic toils ; for he daily exercised himself in husbandry, and tilled the ground with his own hands, as was customary with our forefathers. Under this low and sordid roof stood Scipio. Now a man thinks himself poor and vile, unless the walls are adorned with large and costly circular carvings ; unless the Alexandrine marble is coloured with Numidian plaster; unless a rich and variegated coating is spread like a picture on the walls ; unless the cham- ber is covered with a roof or ceiling of a vitreous substance ; unless the Thasian stone, once reckoned a rare ornament even in a temple, now enclose our ponds, into which we throw our bodies exhausted by perspiration; unless the water issues out of silver spouts. And as yet I am speaking only of what are for the common people ; but what shall I say when I come to the baths of the freedmen ? What a concourse of statues, of columns supporting nothing, but placed only for ornament and a vain ostentation of expense ! what fine cascades resounding in their fall down a series of steps ! In short, to such a pitch of delicacy are we come, that we can tread upon nothing but precious stones." Seneca proceeds with his subject, enlarging upon the sim- plicity, and even meanness, of the construction and furniture of Scipio's bath, and then rapturously thus breaks forth, " How delightful was it to enter these baths, dark as they were, and covered over with a common ceiling of mortar; which one knew that Cato when edile, or Fabius, or one of the Cornelian family had tempered with their own hands." After the lapse of another century, the costly extent and fashion of these villas spoke the change which had taken place LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. 283 in the habits of the Roman Patrician. The retreat of Lucul- lus exemplified the luxury and splendour of the great men, who had acquired in their various commands and provincial govern- ments excessive riches, often the fruit of rapine and oppres- sion. His library with his porticos and galleries for literary conferences, his gardens and groves and shady walks around his mansion, and his numerous apartments for the varied en- tertainments of his friends, were the admiration of his con- temporaries, and maintained their reputation through several generations of those that came after him. 9 Cicero had many Villas, and some of them very sumptuous ; generally situated near the sea, at various distances between Rome and Pompeii, and so remarkable for elegance of struc- ture, and amenity of situation, as to be called by their dis- tinguished owner the eyes of Italy. His favourite seats were at Tusculum, Antium, Astura, and Arpinum ; in addition to which may be reckoned his Formian, Cuman, Puteolan, and Pompeian villas, with large plantations and gardens around them ; and other smaller retreats to serve as places of rest and refreshment in the journey to the more distant seats ; so numerous that some writers have enumerated no less than eighteen. His Tusculan villa, which once had Sylla for its owner, was the most richly adorned and furnished, as being the retreat nearest to the city, and most at hand when the fatigues of the bar or the senate made a speedy change of air and scene particularly desirable. But his more distant villas were sometimes preferable, as affording more retirement and tranquillity ; and at Antium especially, he kept his largest collection of books : but they were all constructed and laid out with much cost and elegance; some with porticos for philosophical conferences with his friends, and some with galleries for statues and paintings; in which Cicero appeared to take great delight. The description by Pliny of his villa, lying at the distance from Rome of about one hundred and fifty miles, and used by 9 It was in these gardens, near Neapolis, that Messalina, the abandoned wife of Claudius C. was put to death. See the vivid description of this tragedy in Tacit. Ann. lxi. 37, 38. 284 LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. him for his summer, as that of Laurentinum was for his winter residence, is given in the following letter, with much minute- ness of specification, and some graphical vivacity. He addresses himself to Apollinaris, one of his intimate friends, TO APOLLINARIS. I was much gratified by the concern you expressed when you heard of my intention to go in the summer to my Tuscan villa ; and by your kind purpose of dissuading me from such resolution, being impressed with an idea of the unhealthiness of the situation. It is true that the air of the Tuscan coast is misty and unwholesome, but my house lies at a good distance from the sea, at the foot of one of the Apennines, where the air is considered as particularly salubrious. And that you may lay aside all your fears concerning me, I will give you an ac- count of the country round, and the general agreeableness of my residence, which it will please you to hear, and me to relate. The climate is cold and chilling in winter. It is unfavour- able to the myrtle and olive, and all other plants requiring a genial temperature. But it suits the bay tree, which is here seen in its most lively verdure, though sometimes, but not oftener than in the vicinity of Rome, it is destroyed by the inclemency of the season. The summer here is wonder- fully soft. The air is constantly put in motion, but oftener by a gentle breeze, than a brisk wind. Thence it comes that here you may see an unusual number of aged persons, grand- fathers, and great-grandfathers of the young men. You may hear their old stories, and the wise speeches of men of the old time, so as almost to place you in the midst of a former age. The scenery of the country round is exceedingly beautiful. Image to yourself an immense amphitheatre, such as only the hand of nature is capable of forming. A vast plain bounded by mountains whose summits are crowned with lofty and venerable woods, containing a variety of game. The declivity of the mountains are clothed w 7 ith underwood. Little hills of a rich earth, on which you would be troubled to find a stone, if you wanted one, are intermixed with these coppices, which LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY 285 do not yield in fertility to the level lands below ; and though their produce is somewhat later, it is equally well matured. Under these. hills, vineyards on every side lie stretched out before you as far as the eye can reach ; at the end of which rises a grove of shrubs, forming as it were its border ; to which again succeeds a wide expanse of meadows and fields — fields requiring oxen of great size, and the strongest ploughs to break them up ; so tenacious is the glebe that it is necessary to give it nine several ploughings before it can be properly broken. The flowery and enamelled meads produce trefoil, and other kinds of herbage, always as soft and tender as when it first springs up ; and all this produce is nourished by perpetual rills. But though there is plenty of water, it never stagnates ; for whatever water the sloping land receives, without absorb- ing it, is poured into the Tiber. This river passes through the middle of the meadows, navigable only in the winter and spring, when it carries the produce of the lands to Rome. In summer it is so low as scarcely to deserve the name of a great river, but in the autumn it begins to resume its title. It would much delight you to view the region round from the top of the mountain. You would appear to be looking on a painted scene of exquisite beauty, such is the variety and ele- gance of outline wherever the eye happens to fall. My villa, near the foot of the hill, is so happily placed as to catch the same prospect which is seen from the top ; yet the acclivity by which you ascend to it, is attained by so gradual and im- perceptible an ascent, that you find you are on an elevation, without having been sensible of any effort in arriving at it. Behind, but at a great distance, are the Apennine mountains. In the serenest and calmest day we receive the winds that blow from this quarter, but spent and subdued before they reach us by passing through the space interposed. The aspect of a great part of the building is full south, and invites, as it were, the afternoon sun in summer (though somewhat earlier in the winter) into a portico of well proportioned dimensions, in which there are many divisions, and a porch or entrance hall after the manner of the ancients. Before this portico is 286 LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. a terrace walk, adorned with various figures, having a box hedge, and an easy slope, with the figures of animals in box on the opposite sides answering alternately to each other. In the level land below is the soft, I had almost said, the liquid Acanthus. 10 A walk goes round this area shut in with tonsile evergreens, cut into various forms. 11 This leads to 'the gestatio which is made in the form of a circus, with box in the middle cut into various shapes, with a plantation of shrubs, kept by the sheers from becoming luxuriant. The whole is fenced in by a wall, covered by box cut into steps. Beyond this lies a meadow as much set off by nature, as what I have been de- scribing is by art, which again terminates in other meadows and fields interspersed with coppices. The portico ends in a dining room, which opens upon the piazza with folding doors, from the windows of which you see immediately before you the meadows, and beyond a wide expanse of country. Here also is seen the terrace and the pro- jecting part of the villa, as also the grove and woods of the 10 This has been supposed to be a species of moss rather than what we call bear's foot ; if it be not rather an Acanthus, of the kind of which Virgil speaks in his fourth Georgic : — Aut flexi taeuissem vimen Acanthi. 11 If there is any invention or new art to which England has an undoubted and undisputed title, it is that of the pleasure garden. From the time, if ever the time was, when the garden of Alcinous bloomed any where but in the Odyssey, to the days of Addison, Pope, Burlington, and Kent, nothing had appeared in the world exhibiting those principles of taste, which in the early part of the last century, and principally under the auspices of the distinguished persons last above-mentioned, began their undisputed reign in this country. Among us these modes of torturing evergreens into fanciful forms, once the ambition of Cicero, Pliny, and Sir William Temple, are now in such contempt as to be below the notice of ridicule and satire. In those regions of the earth where nature is most boon, and pours forth her treasures in richest profusion, as in the eastern parts of the globe, the garden has been formed in absolute neglect of her lessons, and with a cold insensibility to her charms. In Italy, and in France, the same miserable taste in gardening has for ages prevailed. In the middle of the sixteenth century we find a Cardinal at Rome contriving a hanging garden to be suspended on the pillars of his mansion, with a folly hardly less than that of Nero, with his pastures on the roof of his golden palace. The tenacity of this false taste kept its hold for centuries in our own land. Neither in Lord Bacon's " platform of a princely LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. 287 adjacent garden walk, which has the name of hippodrome. Opposite nearly the middle of the portico, and rather to the back is an apartment which incloses a small area shaded by four plane trees, in the middle of which a fountain running over the brim of a marble bason refreshes with its gentle sprinkling the surrounding trees, and the verdure which they overhang. In this summer apartment there is an inner sleep- ing room which shuts out both light and noise; and adjoin- ing this is a common dining room, for the reception of my familiar friends. A second portico looks upon the little area, and has the same prospect as the portico I have just described. There is besides another room, which being close to the nearest plane tree enjoys a constant shade and verdure. Its sides are composed of sculptured marble up to the balcony ; and from thence to the ceiling there is a painting of boughs with birds sitting on them, not less pleasing than the marble carving; at the base of which is a little fountain, playing through several pipes into a vase, and producing a most agreeable murmur. From an angle of the portico you pass into a very spacious chamber opposite the dining room, which from some garden," nor in Sir William Temple's essay, which he has entitled " the Gardens of Epicurus," do we find more than the struggles of genius under the yoke of inveterate habit. The broad gravel walk, with rows of laurels, and a summer house at each end, was a leading feature in Moor Park, the scene of Sir William's elaborate taste; and though Lord Bacon ridicules the knots of figures, and other toys of the garden, he recommends the square form, encompassed with a stately arched hedge, to be done like carpenter's work, with little figures, and plates of round coloured glass, gilt for the sun to play upon The imagination of Milton could not endure these gaudy fetters. In his paradise nature is vindicated ; and it is not unlikely that to the homage paid to her by the great poet, she was indebted for the extension of her empire, in the next century, over the gardens and pleasure grounds of England. The spectator took up the cause of injured nature; and the paradise of Milton found a consecrated place in Addison's Pleasures of Imagination. To the clipped evergreens, and figures in box, yew, and holly, and all the verdant sculpture of the gardens, the 1 73d number of the paper called the Guardian, written by Pope, was little short of a sentence of proscription ; and his epistle to Lord Burlington helped further to put an end to groves nodding to groves, and alleys in fraternal rows. 288 LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. of its windows has a view of the terrace, and from others of the meadow ; while from those in the front you look upon a cascade which gratifies at once both the eye and the ear; for the water falls from a height foaming; in the marble bason below. This chamber is very warm in the winter, as it is much exposed to the sun. And if the day is cloudy the sun's place is supplied by the heat of an adjoining stove. From thence through a spacious and cheerful undressing room you pass to the cold bathing room, in which is a large and dark bath ; but if you are disposed to swim more at large, or in warmer water, there is in the same area a larger bath for that purpose, and near it a reservoir which will give you cold water if you wish to be braced again, on feeling yourself too much relaxed by the warm. Near the cold bath is one of moderate heat, being most kindly acted upon by the sun, but not so much affected by it as the warm bath, which projects further. This apartment for bathing has three divisions ; — two lie open to the full sun, the third is so disposed as to have less of its heat. Over the undressing room is built the tennis court, which admits of many kinds of games by means of its dif- ferent circles. 10 Near the baths is the staircase which leads to the inclosed portico, but not till the three apartments have been passed ; and of these one looks upon that little area in which are the four plane trees, another upon the meadows, and the third upon several vineyards; so that they have their respective aspects and views. At one end of the enclosed portico, and taken off from it, is a chamber that looks upon the hippodrome, the vineyards, and the mountains ; and next to this is a room having the sun full upon it, especially in the winter. To this succeeds an apartment which connects the hippodrome with the house. Such is the face and frontage of the villa. On the side of it is a summer inclosed portico, the position of which is high, so 13 Probably the balls were to be so struck as to fall within one of these circles, which might be variously disposed on the floors and walls. LETTERS OF THE YOUNGEli PLINY. 289 as not only to command the vineyards, but to seem to touch them. From the middle of this portico you enter a dining-room, cooled by the salubrious breezes from the valleys of the Apen- nines. From the very large windows at the back you have a prospect of the vineyards, as you have also from the folding doors, as if you were looking from the summer portico. Along that side of the last mentioned dining-room, where there are no windows, runs a staircase affording a private access for serving at entertainments. At the end of this room is a sleeping cham- ber; underneath this apartment is an enclosed portico, looking like a grotto, which during the summer, having a coolness of its own from being impervious to the sun, neither admits nor needs any breezes from without. After you have passed both these porticos, and where the dining-room ends, you again enter a portico, used in the forenoon during winter, and in the evening during summer: it leads to two several apart- ments, one containing four sleeping rooms, the other three, which in their turns have the benefit of the sun or the shade. The hippodrome extends its length before this agreeably dis- posed range of building, entirely open in the middle, so that the eye on the first entrance sees the whole. It is surrounded by plane trees, which are clothed with ivy, so that while their tops flourish in their own, their bodies are decked in borrowed verdure; the ivy thus wanders over the trunk and branches, and by passing from one plane tree to another unites the neighbours together. Between these plane trees box trees are interposed, and the laurel stationed behind the box, adds its shade to that of the planes. 11 This plantation forming the 11 The description of the garden may be said properly to begin here, ex- hibiting a taste very different from that which prevails in our country in the improvement of our home scenery. There is, I believe, no other description ex- tant of a Roman garden ; which seems, however, in the time of Cicero to have , been an object of care and cultivation to some of the most distinguished men of Rome in their hours of retirement. We find much mention made of the gardens of Lucullus, and of other great Romans ; but we have no descriptive account of their principles or practice in the disposition or co-adaptation of their grounds for pleasurable effect. It has already been observed in a note to a celebrated letter of Cn. Matius, the friend of Julius Csesar, to Cicero, u 290 LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. straight boundary on each side of the hippodrome, or great garden walk, ends in a semicircle, and is varied in form; this part is surrounded and sheltered with cypress trees, which cast around a dark and solemn shade ; while the open day breaks in upon the interior circular walks, which are nume- rous. You are regaled at this spot with the fragrance of roses, while you find the coldness of the shade agreeably tempered and corrected by the warmth of the sun. Having passed through these winding walks, you re-enter the walk with its straight enclosure, but not to this only, for many ways branch out from it, divided by box-hedges. Here you have a little meadow, and here the box is cut into a thousand different forms; sometimes into letters, expressing the name of the owner, sometimes that of the artificer. In some places are little pillars, intermingled alternately with fruit trees ; when on a sudden, while you are gazing on these objects of elegant workmanship, your view is opened upon an imitation of natural scenery, in the middle of which is a group of dwarf plane trees. Beyond these there commences a walk, abounding in the smooth and flexible acanthus, and trees cut into a variety of figures and names ; at the upper end of which is a seat of white marble, overspread with vines, which are supported by four small Carystian pillars. 14 From this seat water issues through little pipes, as if pressed out by the persons sit- ting upon it; and first falling into a stone reservoir, is re- that Matius employed much of his time, after his retreat from all public busi- ness, in the improvements of gardening and planting. If, as is said, he first taught his countrymen how to inoculate, and propagate some curious and foreign fruits, he was certainly the author of improvements and benefits in use- ful culture; but if he introduced, as is also said, the art and practice of cutting trees and groves into regular forms and figures, no English gardener, nor, perhaps, any man of taste in the scenery of embellished Nature, will think himself, as far as the eye is consulted, under any obligations to the memory of Matius. See Columel. de Re Rust. 1. 12. c. 44. Plin. Hist. 1. 12. 2. 14 Carystus was situated in Eubaea, (Negroponte) and is now called Garisto. It was from this place that the Romans are said to have brought the stone from which they made a sort of incombustible cloth, in which they wrapped the bodies of the dead, and thereby preserved their ashes from intermixture with those of the funeral pile. LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PUNY. 291 ceived by a polished marble basin, its descent being secretly so managed as always to keep the basin full, without running over. Here when I take a repast, I make a table of the mar- gin of the basin for the heavier and more substantial dishes, the lighter being made to swim about in the form of little ships and aquatic birds. Opposite is a fountain which is in- cessantly sending forth and taking back its contents, for the water which is sent up to a height falls back upon itself, there being two openings, through one of which it is thrown out, and through the other absorbed again. Opposite the seat or alcove before mentioned, a summer house stands which reflects as much beauty upon the alcove as it borrows from it. It dazzles with its polished marble, and with its projecting doors opens into a lawn of vivid green. From its upper and lower windows the eye is greeted with other verdant scenes. Connected with this summer- house, and yet distinct from it, is a little apartment furnished with a couch to repose upon, with windows all round it, and yet sufficiently shaded and obscured by a most luxuriant vine which climbs to the top and spreads itself over the whole building. You repose here, just as if you were in a grove, only that you are not, as in a grove, liable to be inconvenienced by a shower. In this place also a fountain rises, but in the same moment disappears. In many places there are seats of marble, which like the summer-house itself, offer great relief and ac- commodation to such as are fatigued with walking. Near each seat is a little fountain. And throughout the whole hippodrome, rivulets run murmuring along, conducted by pipes, and taking whatever turn the hand of art may give them ; and by these the different green plots are severally refreshed, and sometimes the whole together. I should have avoided this particularity, for fear of being thought too minute, if I had not set out with the resolution of taking you into every corner of my house and gardens. I have not been afraid of your being weary of reading the description of a place which I am sure you would not think it wearisome to visit ; especially as you can lay down my letter, and rest as 292 LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. often as you think proper. I must also confess, that in this description I have been indulging the attachment I feel to my villa. I have an affection for a place which was either begun or completed, but principally begun, by myself. In a word, (for why should I not disclose to you my opinion, or, if you will, my error,) I consider it to be the first duty of a writer to keep his subject m view, and from time to time to ask himself what he has professed to write upon; and he maybe sure, that if he keeps close to his subject, he cannot be tedious; but most tedious, indeed, will he be, if he suffer anything to call him away, or draw him off from his subject. You see how many verses Homer and Virgil have bestowed respectively upon the description of the arms of Achilles and iEneas ; and neither of these poets can be called prolix on this subject, because he does no more than execute his professed design. You see how Aratus searches out and collects the smallest stars; and yet he is not chargeable with being circumstantial to excess. For this is not the diffusiveness of the writer, but of the sub- ject itself. In the same manner (to compare small things with great) in striving to lay before your eyes my entire villa, if I take care not to wander or deviate from my subject, it is not of the size of my letter which describes, but of the villa which is described, that you are to complain. But I will return to the point from which I set out with this digression; lest I should fall under the censure of my own rules. You have before you the reasons why I prefer my Tuscan villa to those which I possess at Tusculum, Tiber, and Praeneste. 15 For in addition to what I have related concerning it, I enjoy here a deeper, solider, and securer leisure ; no calls of public business ; nothing near me to summon me from my quiet. All is calm and still around me ; which character of the place operates like a more genial climate or clearer atmosphere in rendering the situation salubrious. Here I am at the top of my strength in mind and body ; the one I keep in exercise by 15 These seem to be now called Frascati, Tivoli, and Palestrina. All in the Campagna di Roma, at no great distance from Rome. LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. 293 study ; the other by hunting. ISfor does any place agree better with my family. Certainly, hitherto, (if it be not too like boasting to talk so,) I have not lost one of all those whom I brought with me hither, and may heaven continue to me this subject of self-gratulation, and this honour to my villa. Farewell. Such is the celebrated letter of Pliny describing to his friend the arrangements of his country house, the plan of his garden, and the general aspect of the surrounding scenery. If there is any thing in the letter to entitle it to distinct com- mendation, it is the stamp it bears of great good-nature, and a disposition to be pleased and contented. Neither a genuine taste for the picturesque, nor the delicacy of sentiment and feeling, which usually accompanies it, is discernible in the composition ; and perhaps, it was hardly reasonable to ex- pect to be listened to with untired attention by one's best friend, through such a circumstantial and prolix detail of matters appertaining only to one's own bodily comfort. The products of the intellect are interchanged with mutual de- light ; and there is always in the traffic of intelligent minds an interest in each other's gratification, that renders self-love the source and spring of a common enjoyment. But in the letter last produced, that the writer was occupied with a sub- ject too exclusive in its nature, to justify the prolixity and minuteness of his specifications can hardly be denied, what- ever sympathy his friend might be supposed to feel in his happiness. If the modern reader peruses the description with interest, it is on account of the opportunity it furnishes, of bringing into comparison the modes and habits of ordinary life prevailing at distant junctures, between which ages have elapsed, empires have flourished and decayed, generations have come and gone forgetting and forgotten, and an unseen hand has been conducting the silent march of change and progression. Our wonder is somewhat excited to find a Roman so polished 294 LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. as Pliny, in the midst of an original scenery so superb as that of Italy, with its purple valleys, its blue sky and mountain distances, maintaining in all its puerile absurdity the mon- strous system of coercing nature, and crossing her bold and beautiful designs with artificial dispositions, ludicrous imita- tions, and mathematical proportions. The truth may be, that there is implanted in the minds of men a desire of achieving what is difficult. It is difficulty that provokes enterprise, and thus furnishes the means by which it is itself overcome : it is an early and natural stimulus to exertion, and thence it hap- pens that the arts which are attainable only with effort, and are most elaborate, are the first objects of human assiduity. Architecture and sculpture, and the imitative arts, have been the study of early and almost barbarous periods, and to some of these little has been added by modern refinement. But difficulty is sometimes valued only for its own sake, and be- comes the aim rather than the incentive ; so that to accom- plish a thing because it is difficult is often the ultimate object, and has been one of the main causes of those departures from Nature, and those affectations in the science of ornamental culture, which have prevailed during so many centuries in defiance of Nature's dictates and suggestions. The following letter is affecting, and very creditable to the sensibilities and moral structure of Pliny's mind. It is ob- servable, indeed, that the expression of amiable and affec- tionate feelings is that province of letter-writing, in which the pen of this pleasing and instructive author is most success- fully employed. The young lady whose death he deplores is presented to us in so interesting a light, that, although we cannot sympathize with the writer in lamenting the decease of one who died so many centuries ago, yet a sentiment of regret crosses the mind in reflecting, that the person whose portrait is here so attractively set forth died in ignorance of that which consecrates a Christian's death. It appears that the young person depicted in this letter had all that a heathen could possess of what was fair and modest, dutiful and pure. LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. 295 Just pressing with her light footsteps the threshold of an earthly paradise, and in full progress towards the completion of her hopes in an honourable and happy marriage, she was hurried away in a few brief moments from human converse, admiration of friends, and parental love, to become a clod of the valley. These things, it is true, are of every day's occur- rence, but there are some things so substantially mournful, and touch so powerfully the inmost chords of vital feeling, that happen as often as they may, they never fail to interest the heart and stir its best emotions ; and even at this distance from the event, the rupture of ties, and those agonizing bereave- ments, which make a prominent part of the history of almost every family, where love and concord prevail, are made too painfully present to the mind by the recital given us in this letter, not to find an echo in the bosom of the reader. One would be apt to think, that there was nothing that we needed less to be reminded of than death, and yet there is nothing, in general, further from our thoughts; we are obliged, therefore, to this amiable heathen writer, not for making it known, but for making it duly felt ; not for proving, but for realizing the notorious truth, that in the midst of life we are in death ; and that the flower of the field is the most appropriate emblem of our brief existence on earth. TO MARCELLINUS. I write this to you in a state of great sadness. The younger daughter of my friend Fundanus is dead; than whom a young- person more agreeable and amiable, more worthy of a long life, I was going to say of immortality, I never have seen. She had not yet completed her fourteenth year ; but had the discretion of age, and the propriety of a matron, without losing any of the modesty of the virgin, or of the sweetness that belongs to tender age. How affectionately was she wont to hang on her father's neck ! With how much kindness and modesty would she caress us her father's friends ! How at- tached to all who had the care or instruction of her ! With 296 LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. what application and intelligence did she cultivate her ac- quaintance with books. How sparingly and guardedly did she take her recreations and amusements. With what for- bearance, patience, and fortitude did she support her last illness! To the directions of her physicians she was obedient; and while she did all in her power to infuse courage and comfort into her sister and parent, her own body, which had lost its strength, seemed to be supported by the vigour of her mind. This inward strength remained to her to the last verge of her existence, unbroken by the duration of her malady, or by the dread of death : all which occasioned her loss to be the more regretted and lamented. O sad and bitter event! more sad as taking place just when it did; for it happened when she was on the point of being united to a young man of . the greatest merit, after the day of the nuptials had been fixed, and we had been invited to attend them. It is impossible to express in words what a wound my mind received, when I heard Fundanus himself (as grief is sure to accumulate mo- tives to sorrow,) ordering the money he had destined to the purchase of clothes, pearls, and gems to be laid out in spices, unguents, and perfumes for the funeral. Fundanus is a learned and wise man, and from early life has devoted himself to studies of the most elevating kind ; but all he has gathered from lectures or books to corroborate his mind, is dislodged from his bosom by this great misfortune; and all his other virtues are absorbed by his filial affection. You will pardon, you will even praise him, when you take into consideration the greatness of his misfortune. He has lost a daughter who resembled him, no less in character than in countenance and expression, and bore altogether such a likeness to her parent as was really marvellous. If you think proper to send letters to him of condolence in this his extreme sorrow, so excusable when all circumstances are considered, let me remind you not to mix reproof with your consolation, or to treat him with any severity, but on the contrary, with softness and sympathy. Indeed, a con- siderable time must elapse before his mind will give access LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. 297 to any consolatory arguments. For as a fresh wound dreads the hands of the surgeon, but after a short respite submits with patience ; and at length, asks for the healing hand ; so the recent anguish of the mind rejects and avoids all attempts to administer comfort, but after a little time is desirous of it, and readily acquiesces in the relief, if applied with gentle- ness. The mind of this pleasing letter-writer seems to have been of the most humane and gentle cast ; nor is it easy to shew under the Christian dispensation, any model of a man of greater urbanity, or one in whose manners a more engaging flow of good humour, candour, sympathy, and kindness seems to have prevailed, if his familiar letters, continued through a course of years, can be considered as reflecting the real dis- position of the writer. He appears to have followed Cicero in many particulars, and, among others, in the adoption of his freedman as his most intimate, cherished, and confidential friend ; and his friendship for this person has all the appear- ance of being grounded on a perfect reciprocity of esteem. It is thus he writes concerning him to his friend Paulinus. TO PAULINUS. I know the humanity with which you treat your servants, and am emboldened thereby to make to you an explicit avowal of the indulgence with which I treat my own. I have ever ill my n\ind that verse of Homer, in which he characterises Ulysses thus: 7rarrjp S' wg r^TTiog rjev. 16 And I am no less pleased with the term used in our own lan- guage to express the same paternal principle, — paterfamilias. 16 Odyss. B. 47. He was as a father mild. This fatherly mode of govern- ing a state, we must, in justice to the maxims of some of the wisest heathens, admit to be not unfrequently found in the remains of their political writings. 298 LETTERS OF THE YOUNGER PLINY. But if my disposition were rougher and harder than it happens to be, the sickness of my freedman Zosimus is of a character greatly to affect me ; and I consider him now in his present circumstances as in a peculiar degree entitled to kind and humane treatment. He is a person of great integrity, very assiduous in his duties to me, well informed, and possessed of talent as a comedian, which is in a manner his profession, and in which he makes a considerable figure ; for he speaks with emphasis, justness, propriety, and grace. He plays well upon the harp, better than you would expect from a comedian. And such is the correctness with which he reads orations, histories, and poems, that you would think he had devoted himself entirely to the attainment of this art. I have been the more particular in giving you this account, that you may judge how valuable are the services which are rendered me by this individual. The interest I take in him, endeared by the long affection which has subsisted between us, is much increased by his present danger. Nature has so ordered it, that nothing adds so much to our affection, as the fear of losing the object of it;— a sentiment which this man has made me experience more than once. For some years ago in the midst of an animated recitation, he spit blood ; on which account I sent him to Egypt, from which place he lately returned confirmed in health. Having since that time upon Thus in the Cyropaed. lib. viii. Crysantas is made to express himself thus : rroWaicig /xev drj, a) avdpeg, kcli aXXore Karsvorjca on apxw ff oi kcli Tifirjv dovvat dvvarai, prjtopa 8e , from Jerusalem to the different cities of Europe for the purpose. But this being a very expensive method, it has been discon- tinued ; and the money is sent to Amsterdam, where it is received by a rich Jewish merchant, who transmits it to the Austrian consul at Beyrout, by whom it is conveyed to Jerusalem . The average amount is said to be 7000 ducats, or 14,000 dollars,=2800/. See Narr. of a Mission of Enq. to the Jews from the Ch. of Scotland, 1839. The messengers of the churches for collecting contributions are called a7rov, in 2 Cor. viii. 23. TO THE TIME OF LIBANIUS. 413 you may be more fervent in your prayers for my empire to the most potent God, the Creator of all things, who has conde- scended to crown me with his own unsullied hand. Those who are tormented with cares and anxieties have their minds clogged and fettered, so that they cannot so much as lift up their hands in prayer ; whereas those who are free, and un- shackled with care, have cheerful hearts to offer up their sup- plications to God, who is able to make the state as happy and prosperous as I wish it to be ; which prayers it is your duty to offer up, that when I shall have brought the Persian war to a happy conclusion, I may dwell in your holy city of Jerusalem ; which these many years I have been desirous of seeing inha- bited by you, restored by my labours ; and may therein unite with you in giving glory to God. The above singular epistle has been suspected to have been a forgery, on account of some extraordinary expressions it contains, and particularly the declaration that he had arrested the informers against them with his own hands, and thrust them into prison. But it is certain that in the chamber of justice established by Julian, the favourites and informers about the court of Constantius were proceeded against with the greatest rigour. And from many sources we learn that Julian sent for some of the leading Jews, to enquire of them why they did not sacrifice as the law of Moses directed ; to which enquiry they answered, that they were not permitted to sacrifice in any place but Jerusalem ; and that the temple being destroyed, they were obliged to forbear that part of their worship : upon which he promised to rebuild their temple. And, says Lard- ner, " we still have a letter of Julian inscribed ' To the com- munity of the Jews/ which, however extraordinary, must be reckoned genuine ; for Sozomen expressly says, that ' Julian wrote to the patriarchs and rulers of the Jews, and to their whole nation, desiring them to pray for him, and for the pros- perity of his reign. '" 414 FROM THE TIME OF PHILOSTRATUS Gibbon, in a note to the passage wherein he notices this public epistle of Julian to the Jews, observes, that " Aldus has branded it with an u yvriaiog, but adds that this stigma is justly removed by the subsequent editors, Octavius and Spanheim." And Warburton thinks that what Gregory Na- zianzen, in his second invective, tells us of the conference that followed this letter, plainly shews it to be genuine ; for Julian assured the leaders of the Jews, that he had discovered from their sacred books, that the time of their restoration was at hand. " It is not a mere curiosity," says the bishop of Glou- cester, " to enquire what prophecy it was that Julian perverted ; because it tends to confirm the truth of Nazianzen's relation. I have sometimes thought it might possibly be the words of the Septuagint in Dan. ix. 27, SuiteAho. ^o^o-srat £7rt rr\v epYifitoGiv (the ambiguity of which expression Julian took the advantage of against the helenistic Jews, who probably knew no more of the original than himself), signifying ' the tribute shall be given to the desolate,' instead of ' the consummation shall be poured upon the desolate;' for the letter in question tells us he had remitted their tribute, and, by so doing, we see, he was for passing himself upon them for a second Cyrus." Alypius, whose humanity, says Gibbon, was tempered by severe justice and manly fortitude, had an extraordinary com- mission from Julian to rebuild the temple, and the diligence of Alypius obtained the strenuous support of the governor of Palestine. The work was begun, and prosecuted with the greatest enthusiasm. The men forgot their avarice, and the women their delicacy. Spades and pickaxes of silver were provided by the vanity of the rich, and the rubbish was trans- ported in mantles of silk and purple. And now was exhibited one of the most remarkable and best attested miracles men- tioned in history; an earthquake, a whirlwind, and a fiery eruption, which overturned and scattered the new foundations of the temple." Ammianus Marcellinus, commended by Gibbon as a phi- losophic soldier, who loved the virtues without adopting the prejudices of his master, has recorded in his judicious and TO THE TIME OF LIBANIUS. 415 candid history of his own times, the extraordinary obstacles which interrupted the restoration of the temple of Jerusalem. Lardner has declared his suspicion of the miracle, grounding that suspicion chiefly on the silence of Jerome, Prudentius, and Orosius; but for the miracle there is, besides the testimony of Ammianus Marcellinus, a heathen, the following affirmative authorities, brought together in Whitby's general Preface (p. 28) ; Zemuch David, a Jew, who confesses that Julian was divinitus impeditus ; Gregory Nazianzen, and Chrysostom, among the Greeks ; St. Ambrose and Ruffinus among the Latins, who flourished at the very time of the alleged fact ; Theodoret and Sozomen, orthodox historians ; Philostorgius, an Arian ; Socrates, a favourer of the Novatians, who wrote the story within fifty years after the event, and whilst the eyewitnesses of the fact were yet surviving. The whole ac- count is fully given by Dr. Warburton, who has, says Bishop Newton, set the evidence in the clearest light, and refuted all objections, to the triumph of faith, and the confusion of infidelity. TO AMERIUS. I did not read your letter in which you informed me of the death of your wife, and expressed the extreme affliction which this loss has occasioned you, without tears. The thing itself is very affecting — a young wife, modest, the delight of her husband, and the mother of pious children, snatched away before her time, like a torch just set in a blaze and immediately extin- guished. Though the loss is peculiarly yours, it almost as affectingly touches myself. Least of all did my excellent friend seem to deserve such a stroke of affliction ; a man full of know- ledge, and one of my friends the most valued by me. If I were writing to another man on the same subject, I should think it necessary to use many words in shewing him that what he now suffers is the common lot of human beings ; that it must be patiently borne; that we gain nothing by indulging our grief; and, in short, should make use of all those ordinary arguments which seem best adapted to mitigate the sufferings 416 FROM THE TIME OF PHILOSTRATUS of an inexperienced person. But as I consider that I am addressing one who is in the practice of giving counsel to others, I am ashamed of employing arguments, which are used to improve and instruct the ignorant. Waving, there- fore, all such topics of consolation, I will relate a fable, or it may be a true story, to you, perhaps, not unknown, though I believe not known to many, by the sole use of which, as a sort of Nepenthes, you may find a no less effectual remedy for your grief, than the cup which the Spartan dame is said on a similar occasion to have given to Telemachus. 16 The story is, that Democritus of Abdera, finding that nothing he could say could afford any solace to the mind of Darius, who was mourning the loss of his beautiful wife, promised to restore her to life, if he, the king, would, on his part, supply that which was necessary to be done preparatory to the undertak- ing. Darius desired him to spare no expense, but to take every necessary step toward the performance of his promise. Soon afterwards Democritus told the king that things were ready for the performance of the work ; one thing only was wanting, and that he knew not how to procure, but Darius, as sovereign of all Asia, would, perhaps, find no difficulty in providing it. On his enquiry what that great thing was, which it was for a king only to know how to per- form, Democritus is said to have replied, " if you will write on the tomb of your wife the names of three persons who had entirely escaped all affliction, she will forthwith be restored to life." Darius being perplexed, and unable to name any one that had suffered no affliction, Democritus, laughing, thus addressed him, " Are you not ashamed, O most unreason- able of mortals, thus to give way to grief, as if you were the only one in the world who had been exposed to calamity, while you are unable to point out a single individual who has not endured some domestic loss or misfortune?" 17 Darius, a barbarian, and untutored man, required to be instructed by 16 Odyss. 1. iv. v. 220. 17 La Bletterie considers this story of Democritus and Darius as a sort of philosophical novel. The story, he says, is no where found. TO THE TIME OF LIBAN1US. 417 such lessons as these ; but you, who are a Greek, and have been instituted in sound learning, are expected to govern yourself; otherwise a discredit would be cast upon reason itself, if it should appear to be unable to mitigate sorrow as effectually as time. EPISTLE, OR EDICT, FORBIDDING THE CHRISTIANS TO TEACH POLITE LITERATURE. We consider true learning to consist not in words, nor in the harmony of polished language, but in the sound constitution .of a well regulated mind, and right conceptions of good and evil, of the beautiful and the base. Whosoever, therefore, has other views, and teaches other notions to his hearers, is as far from being a learned, as he is from being a good man. If there is a variance between the mind and the tongue, even in small and trifling things, it is evil as far as it extends ; but if in things of great importance there is a discordancy between what a man thinks, and what he teaches, does he not resemble the vendor of adulterated food. It is not the conduct of respectable men, but of knaves. Those, therefore, who teach what in their real opinions they deem to be false and wicked, are deceptious and ensnaring in what they recommend. All who undertake the office of teachers, whatever may be the subject matter, ought to be characterized by the strictest probity and integrity, and to be incapable of the unworthy practice of disseminating opinions, which are at variance with those which they mentally hold ; and, above all others, such integrity of proceeding is becoming in those who are engaged in the profession of teaching and instructing the young, and expounding the writings of the ancients, whether they are rhetoricians or grammarians, but especially if they are sophists, for they desire to be considered as qualified to teach not only how to speak, but how to live, and profess to give lessons in political philosophy. Whether this be so or not, I shall not at present consider. I give due commendation to those who hold out the promise of such good things, but I should com- E E 418 FROM THE TIME OF PHILOSTRATUS mend them much more if they did not belie and contradict themselves, by thinking one thing, and teaching their scholars another. What ! Did not the gods conduct the studious labours of Homer, and Hesiod, and also of Demosthenes, and Herodotus, and Thucydides, and Isocrates, and Lysias ? Did not some of these consider themselves devoted to Mercury, and others to the Muses ? It is absurd, therefore, for those who give lectures on their works, to despise the gods whom they honoured. I am not so unreasonable as to hold that these teachers ought to change their minds for the sake of the youths they instruct, but I give them their choice, either to forbear teaching what they do not deem to be right and good, or, if they choose to teach, let them first persuade their scho- lars to think as they do of Homer and Hesiod, and those whom they expound ; and let them not, while they charge them with impiety, folly, and error, in respect of the objects of their worship, seek to gain a subsistence out of their writings ; and by receiving a reward for their teaching, confess themselves to be influenced by the most sordid motives, and to be acting contrary to their consciences for a few drachms. 18 Hitherto there have, I allow, been many causes to prevent their coming to the sacred ceremonies; and the dangers to which they have been every where exposed were an excuse for their dissembling their real sentiments concerning the gods ; but since the gods have granted us liberty, it seems to me to be wicked to inculcate doctrines which they do not deem to be right and just. If they think the writers whom they interpret are really ~ 8 La Bletterie observes upon this passage, that Julian well knew by his own experience that masters, when they explained to their scholars the an- cient authors, never failed to insist on the weakness and folly of paganism. He was sensible how much a Christian master can contribute to the progress of religion, when he interprets profane authors with the spirit of a Christian, and equally avails himself of the truth and the falsehood which he finds there, in order to conduct his pupils to God and Jesus Christ, This is what Julian wished to prevent. But instead of discovering his true motives, he employs the most lamentable pretext that can be ; so that this piece of eloquence is a master-piece of sophistry. TO THE TIME OF LIBANIUS. 419 wise, let them zealously imitate their piety towards the gods. But if they think these excellent men to have been in great error, let them go to the churches of the Galileans, and there expound Matthew and Luke, in obedience to whom you pro- claim that sacrifices are to be abstained from. I would your ears and tongues were, as you express it, rege- nerated, in those things in which I wish that myself, and all who in sentiment and practice are my friends, may participate. To masters and scholars, let this be the general law. Let none who are desirous of instruction be prevented from resort- ing to what school they choose. It would be as unjust to exclude children, who are yet ignorant whither to go for in- struction, from the best sources, as it would be to drive them by fear, and against their wills, to the religious rites of their country. And though it might be right to cure men of such madness even against their will, yet let indulgence be exercised towards all who are under such infatuation ; for the ignorant should, in my opinion, not be punished, but instructed. No sensible man can peruse the above letter, or edict, with- out pronouncing it to be a puerile and contemptible piece of sophistry. It was evidently very absurd to charge the Christian teachers with inconsistency in imputing weakness and folly to paganism, and at the same time proposing to their pupils some of the works of pagan writers as the repositories of noble sentiments, and models of fine composition : this was very different from proposing them generally for adoption or imita- tion, or as authorities in religion, or pure morality. The edict is marked throughout with as much imbecility of argument as a purpose so ungenerous and paltry would naturally suggest. The heathens themselves despised it. ^mmianus, Julian's own historian, has censured it with severity ; and the Christian teachers in general gave up their chairs, rather than teach under the restrictions imposed by the edict. Jerome, in his Chronicle, says that Prohseresius, the Athenian sophist, shut up his school, though the emperor had granted to him a 420 FROM THE TIME OF PHILOSTRATITS special license to teach ; and Augustine records the same of Victorinus, who had taught rhetoric with great applause at Rome. 10 In a letter to a friend he thus pleasingly describes a little farm, of which he makes him a present. It does not appear to whom the letter was written. I present you with a little farm in Bithynia, which was a gift to me from my grandmother, as some return for your affectionate attachment to me, — not large enough, indeed, to give you a reputation for wealth or a brilliant fortune, but which will appear to be by no means without its attractions, when I shall have laid before you its particular advantages. I know I may venture, in the face of all your learning and elegance, to bring the lightest topics in a playful manner before you. To begin then. The farm is distant from the sea not more than twenty stadia, and neither trader nor the noisy vulgarity of sailors disturbs the quiet of the place ; and yet it is not destitute of the favours of the sea-god, for it can always supply a fresh and gasping fish. You have but to ascend a little hillock near the house, and thence you command a view of the Propontis and its islands, and also the city named from a noble prince. 20 In proceeding thither you do not tread on moss and sea weed, nor are you in the smallest degree annoyed by the nameless things which are thrown upon the shore and sands; but you walk upon a fragrant surface of ivy, thyme, and odoriferous plants. It is delightful to recline here in quiet with one's book, and ever and anon to look off and enjoy the prospect of the ocean, and of the vessels riding upon it. It was to me, when a very young man, a charming retreat. It is well supplied with springs, a plea- sant bath, garden, and orchard. When I grew up I still re- 19 See the invectives poured by Gregory Naz. upon this edict : Tig ~Epfir}Q