gion was destined to be tried as silver is tried, and to pass through the furnace of affliction to that bright ascendancy in which it was finally to come forth; to owe its prevalence to its discomfitures; and to mount upwards in contradiction to the mass and momentum of the passions, prejudices, and depravity of the world. The opposition of Trajan was of no detriment to the progress of the great cause; but his condemnation of its primitive professors, and the cruel martyrdoms to which he gave the imperial sanction, have left a stain upon his memory not to be effaced by the splendour of his Dacian victories, or saved from execration by any political necessities, or any plausible precedents of government.

With these specimens the English reader will, perhaps, be able to form an estimate of the merit of Pliny's letters. Cicero's appear to have been Pliny's model. Thus he writes to Regulus,-Est mihi cum cicerone æmulatio; nec sum contentus eloquentia sæculi nostri. Cicero had an advantage in the weight of his matter, as well as in the vigour and compass of his diction; and in his day the latin language was at its highest point of perfection. Pliny, however, can hardly be said to have been excelled by Cicero in the light and playful properties of the familiar epistle, in the sprightly commerce of scholarship, or in those epistolæ umbratica which are the substitute for easy and friendly conversation. His letter-writing is referred to by Erasmus as a good example of the stylus negligentiunculus, or what he afterwards better expresses by negligentia deligens, since he allows the style of Pliny's letters to be acute, elegant, and, though in a domestic idiom, yet sufficiently chaste and polished.

In his first letter, which seems to be meant as a sort of preface, he enters into the wish expressed by his friend, that his letters should be collected for publication.

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CHAPTER XVI.

LETTER WRITING FROM THE TIME OF PLINY TO THE TIME OF PHILOSTRATUS.

THERE are many proofs of a prevailing relish among the latter Romans, for the graces of epistolary writing. It continued to be generally regarded as a convenient channel for the intercourse of taste, wit, and learning, as well as for the commerce of friendship, business, and domestic intercourse. Not many specimens, however, from the time of Pliny to the reign of Septimius Severus have come down to us to attest the success with which the practice was cultivated during that interval, about a century in duration.

Philostratus, who assumed so much credit as a judge in this matter, and who wrote the life of Apollonius Tyaneus, has mentioned him as one of the best composers of epistles. We have a few of the letters ascribed to him transmitted to us. He was by profession a Pythagorean philosopher, born at Tyana, a city in Cappadocia, about the beginning of the Christian æra. There is much to convict him of being a gross impostor. The task of transcribing and adorning the narrative was assigned by the Empress Julia, the wife of Septimius Severus, to the Sophist Philostratus, and the office of imparting embellishment to the story was so liberally understood by Philostratus, that he appears to have given the utmost freedom to his pen in the execution of it. There is, indeed, so much of the extravagance of invention and fiction in all that regards this character, that some have even doubted whether there ever was such a person: but the collateral evidence concerning him, coupled with the narrative of Philostratus, so substantiates this fact, that we cannot reasonably dispute that the subject of the inflated account of Philostratus did exist,

and that he was a philosopher of the Pythagorean sect, who visited most parts of the civilized world, as a teacher and lecturer in the most abstruse sciences, and a very successful pretender to supernatural powers. Such, indeed, was the homage he attracted, and the success with which he practised his arts of imposition, that he was not only regarded, in his life-time, as an extraordinary being, but long after his death he continued to be worshipped as a god. Some epistles, and his "Apology to Domitian," are all that remain of his writings. The epistles have, in general, a brevity and freshness in their style and sentiments, which give them at least the air of being genuine. A few shall be produced as specimens.

APOLLONIUS TO HISTIÆUS HIS BROTHER.

How surprising it is, that when other mortals think me to be equal to a God, and some to be really a God, my own country, for whose sake I first sought celebrity, should be to this hour ignorant of what my claims really are. It is not, as I perceive, fully known and admitted, even by my own brothers, that I am superior to men in general, in my life and my discourses. Could you think so meanly of my understanding as to suppose me not to have known from the first, those things respecting my country and kinsmen, which are so plain that not even the most ignorant require to be taught them. Nor need I be told how correct and noble it is, to look upon the whole world as one's country, and all men as brothers and friends, since all derive their existence from God, are of one and the same nature, and possess in common the same speech and affections. Whencesoever any one may come, or wheresoever he may be born, whether barbarian or Greek, still he is man. But yet there are certain affinities of a special and appropriate kind which attract men to their several homes and kindred; feelings that will have their influence, however we may reason on the subject. Thus the Ulysses of Homer preferred Ithaca to the immortality proffered him by the goddess. And I see the same law prevailing among the brute

creation. For a bird does not find repose out of its own proper nest. And a fish, if forcibly turned in a contrary direction to its destined course, will not yield the point, but will return to it. The wild beast will not, though satiated with food, consent to lodge out of its proper resting place. Man has been, indeed, so constituted by nature, as to aspire to the appellation of wise; and although all the rest of the earth were to supply him with whatever else he wanted, yet no other but his own land could shew him the monuments of his ancestors.

THE SAME TO HIS BROTHER.

If philosophy be, in truth, the most excellent and precious of all things, and we have in good faith and sincerity become philosophers, no one can justly suspect me of having sacrificed my affection for my brothers to a base and ungenerous motive. I say this, because it appears that this suspicion supposes me to be influenced by a regard to money, when even before I took upon me to sustain the character of a philosopher, I had begun to look upon riches with contempt. So that it would have been more just and reasonable to impute my silence to some other cause. I am anxious to avoid two consequences, either to seem to be too self-important by writing the truth, or meanly to flatter by disguising it. To appear in either of these lights to one's brothers and friends, is equally to be deprecated. Perhaps fortune may permit. me, when I shall have visited my friends at Rhodes, to come from thence to you at the end of the spring.

TO EUPHRATES.

I DECLARE myself a friend to the philosophers, whereas for the sophists and grammarians, and whatever miserable kinds of persons like these there may be, I have no regard, nor ever shall have. With the sophists and grammarians you have no concern yourself unless you are one of them; with the other you have a great concern, for their precepts are everything to

you. Control, therefore, your affections, and labour to acqui wisdom, nor allow yourself to regard the wise and philosoph cal with invidious sentiments; for remember, that old age an death are at hand.

TO THE SAME.

YOUR children will want but little if they are the true childre of a philosopher. It is not, therefore, a worthy object of so licitude to acquire for them more than what is sufficien especially if there is any sacrifice of honour accompanyin the acquisition. But if the thing is done, and wealth ha been acquired, then the next thing to be thought of is to b careful to distribute a portion of this accumulation to others And to remember that you have a country and friends.

TO THE SAME.

Of the discourses of Epicurus, that which he has written concerning pleasure stands in no need of any defender either from the garden or the school, for what he says on that subject is admitted to be most true in the stoa; but if you wish for a contradiction of the dogmas and discipline of the school of Chysippus, it is written for you in royal characters. Euphrates has again and again accepted what Epicurus would never accept.

TO THE SAME.

I ENQUIRED of some rich men whether there was any limit to their thirst of accumulation, and the answer was, there was none. I further asked what was the cause of this craving. They laid the blame on the unsatisfactoriness of riches. I said to them, Blame not riches, but yourselves, O miserable men, who have become wealthy without experience.

TO THE NOBLES OF THE CITY OF CESAREA.

In the first place is to be considered, the need which all mortals have of the assistance of the gods in all their undertak