LIFE AND WRITINGS OF PLINY.

self to the duties with which he was charged. On returning home, he devoted all the time that remained to study. Taking an early and light repast, easy of digestion, in the summer time, if he had any leisure to spare, he would lie down in the sun while some book was read to him, he himself making notes and extracts in the meanwhile; for it was his habit never to read anything without making extracts, it being a maxim of his that there is no book so bad but that some good may be extracted from it.

After thus enjoying the sunshine, he generally took a cold bath; after which he would sit down to a slight repast and then take a short nap. On awakening, as though another day had now commenced, he would study till the hour for the evening meal, during which some book was generally read to him, he making comments on it in a cursory manner. I remember, on one occasion, a friend of his interrupting the reader, who had given the wrong pronunciation to some words, and making him go over the passage again. "You understood him, didn't you?" said my uncle. "Yes," said the other. "Why, then, did you make him go over it again? Through this interruption of yours, we have lost more than ten lines." So thrifty a manager was he of his time!

In summer, he rose from the evening meal by daylight; and, in winter, during the first hour of the nightAt midwinter, this would be between six and seven in the evening., just as though there had been some law that made it compulsory on him to do so. This is how he lived in the midst of his employments and the bustle of the city. When in retirement in the country, the time spent in the bath was the only portion that was not allotted by him to study. When I say in the bath, I mean while he was in the water; for while his body was being scraped with the strigil and rubbed, he either had some book read to him or else would dictate himself. While upon a journey, as though relieved from every other care, he devoted himself to study and nothing else. By his side was his secretary, with a book and tablets; and, in the winter time, the secretary's hands were protected by gloves, that the severity of the weather might not deprive his master for a single moment of his services. It was for this reason also that, when at Rome, he would never move about except in a litter. I remember that—