LIFE AND WRITINGS OF PLINY.

death. Commending his memory to Pliny’s attentive care, Drusus conjured him to rescue it from the decaying effect of oblivion. Next to these came his three books entitled ‘The Student’Original: "Studiosus." This work has perished., divided, on account of their great size, into six volumes. In these he gave instructions for the training of an orator, from the cradle to his entrance into public life. In the latter years of Nero’s reign, he wrote eight books, ‘On Difficulties in the Latin Language’Original: "De Dubia Sermone." A few scattered fragments of it still survive.; that was a period when any kind of study that was even slightly free-spoken, or of an elevated style, would have been rendered dangerous by the tyranny then exercised. His next work was his ‘Continuation of the History of Aufidius Bassus’ in thirty-one books; after which came his ‘Natural History’ in thirty-seven books, a work remarkable for its comprehensiveness and learning, and not less varied than Nature herself.

You will wonder how a man so occupied with business could possibly find time to write such a number of volumes, many of them on subjects extremely difficult to treat. You will be even more astonished when you learn that for some time he pleaded at the bar as an advocate, that he was only in his fifty-sixth year at the time of his death, and that the intervening time was equally encroached upon and frittered away by the weightiest duties of business and the marks of favor shown to him by princes. His genius, however, was truly incredible, his zeal indefatigable, and his power of application wonderful in the extreme. At the festival of the VulcanaliaAugust 23rd., he began to sit up to a late hour by candlelight—not for the purpose of consulting the starsFor astrological omens.—but with the object of pursuing his studies. In the winter, he would set to work at the seventh hour of the night, or the eighth at the very latest, often indeed at the sixthAt midwinter, this hour would correspond to our midnight.. By nature, he had the faculty of being able to fall asleep in a moment; indeed, slumber would sometimes overtake him in his studies and then leave him just as suddenly. Before daybreak, he was in the habit of attending the Emperor Vespasian—for he, too, was one who made excellent use of his nights—and then betook him-