PLINY THE YOUNGER. pointed in me, and that their indirect designs against me may be defeated. I have, from my youth, been familiar with toils and with dangers. I was faithful to your interest, my countrymen, when I served you for no reward but that of honour. It is not my design to betray you now that you have conferred upon me a place of profit. You have committed to my conduct the war against Jugurtha. The Patricians are of fended at this. But where would be the wisdom of giving such a command to one of their honourable body? a person of illustrious birth, of ancient family, of innumerable statues, but-of no experience! What service would his long line of dead ancestors, or his multitude of motionless statues, do his country in the day of battle? What could such a general do, but in his trepidation and inexperience have recourse to some inferior commander for direction in difficulties to which he was not himself equal? Thus your Patrician general would, in fact, have a general over him; so that the acting commander would still be a Plebeian. So true is this, my countrymen, that I have myself known those who have been chosen consuls begin then to read the history of their own country, of which till that time they were totally ignorant; that is, they first obtained the employment, and then bethought themselves of the qualifications necessary for the proper discharge of it. I submit to your judgment, Romans, on which side the advantage lies, when a comparison is made between Patrician haughtiness and Plebeian experience. The very actions which they have only read, I have partly seen, and partly myself achieved. What they know by reading, I know by action. They are pleased to slight my mean birth; I despise their mean characters. Want of birth and fortune is the objection against me; want of personal worth against them. But are not all men of the same species? What can make a difference between one man and another, but the endowments of the mind? For my part, I shall always look upon the bravest man as the noblest man. Suppose it were enquired of the fathers of such Patricians as Albinus and Bestia, whether, if they had their choice, they would desire sons of their character, or of mine; what would they answer but that they should wish the worthiest to be their sons? If the Patricians have reason despise me, let them likewise despise their ancestors, whose nobility was the fruit of their virtue. Do they envy the honours bestowed upon me? let them envy likewise my labours, my abstinence, and the dangers I have undergone for my country, by which I have acquired them. But those worthless to 15 men lead such a life of inactivity as if they despised any honours they can bestow, while they aspire to honours as if they had deserved them by the most industrious virtue. They lay claim to the rewards of activity for their having enjoyed the pleasures of luxury yet none can be more lavish than they are in praise of their ancestors: and they imagine they honour themselves by celebrating their forefathers; whereas they do the very contrary: for, as much as their ancestors were distinguished for their virtues, so much are they disgraced by their vices. The glory of ancestors casts a light, indeed, upon their posterity; but only serves to show what the descendants are. It alike exhibits to public view their degeneracy and their worth. I own I cannot boast of the deeds of my forefathers; but I hope I may answer the cavils of the Patricians by standing up in defence of what I have myself done. Observe now, my countrymen, the injustice of the Patricians. They arrogate to themselves honours on account of the exploits done by their forefathers; whilst they will not allow me the due praise for performing the very same sort of actions in my own person. He has no statues, they cry, of his family. He can trace no venerable line of ancestors. What then? Is it matter of more praise to disgrace one's illustrious ancestors than to become illustrious by one's own behaviour? What if I can show no statues of my family? I can show the standards, the armour, and the trappings which I have myself taken from the vanquished; I can show the scars of those wounds which I have received by facing the enemies of my country. These are my statues. These are the honours I boast of. Not left me by inheritance, as theirs: but earned by toil, by abstinence, by valour; amidst clouds of dust and seas of blood: scenes of action, where these effeminate Patricians, who endeavour by indirect means to depreciate me in your esteem, have never dared to show their faces. PLINY THE YOUNGER (Caius Plinius Cæcilius Secundus), born at Comum, A.D. 61 or 62, died about A.D. 116. "Pliny wrote and published a great number of books: but nothing has escaped the wreck of time, except the books of Epistles, and the Panegyric upon Trajan,' which has ever been considered as a masterpiece. His letters seem to have been insidered as writing his own memoirs. Every epistle tended for the public; and in them he may be con is a kind of historical sketch, in which we have a view of him in some striking attitude, either of active or contemplative life."-Chalmers's Dict., 64. See the Letters of Pliny the Younger, trans. by J. D. Lewis, Camb. and Lond., 1879, p. 8vo. know the bent of your present attention is directed towards the eloquence of the bar; but I would not for that reason advise you never to quit the style of dispute and contention. As land is improved by sowing with various seeds, so is the mind by exercising it with different studies. I would recommend it to you, therefore, sometimes to single out a fine passage of history; sometimes to exercise yourself in the epistolary style, and sometimes the poetical. For it fre quently happens that the pleading one has occasion to make use not only of historical, but even poetical descriptions; as by the epistolary manner of writing you will ac quire a close and easy expression. It will be extremely proper also to unbend your mind with poetry: when I say so, I do not mean that species of it which turns upon subjects of great length (for that is fit only for persons of much leisure), but those little pieces of the epigrammatic kind, which serve as proper reliefs to, and are consistent with, employments of every sort. They commonly go under the title of Poetical Amusements; but these amusements have sometimes gained as much reputation to their authors as works of a more serious nature. In this manner the greatest men, as well as the greatest orators, used either to exercise or amuse themselves, or rather, indeed, did both. It is surprising how much the mind is entertained and enlivened by these little poetical compositions, as they turn upon subjects of gallantry, satire, tenderness, politeness, and every thing, in short, that concerns life and the affairs of the world. Besides, the same advantage attends these as every other sort of poems, that we turn from them to prose with so much the more pleasure after having experienced the difficulty of being constrained and fettered by numbers. And now, perhaps, I have troubled you upon this subject longer than you desired; however, there is one thing which I have omitted: i have not told you what kind of authors you should read; though indeed that was sufficiently implied when I mentioned what subjects I would recommend for your compositions. You will remember, that the most approved writers of each sort are to be carefully chosen; for, as it has been well observed, "Though we should read much, we should not read many books." Who these authors are is so clearly settled, and so gen To TuscUS: ON A COURSE OF STUDY. You desire my sentiments concerning the method of study you should pursue in that retirement to which you have long since withdrawn. In the first place, then, I look upon it as a very advantageous practice (and it is what many recommend) to translate either from Greek into Latin, or from Latin into Greek. By this means you will furnish yourself with noble and proper expressions, with variety of beautiful figures, and an ease and strength of style. Besides, by imitating the most approved authors, you will find your imagination heated, and fall insensibly into a similar turn of thought; at the same time that those things which you may possibly have overlooked in a common way of reading, cannot escape you in translating: and this method will open your understanding and improve your judgment. It may not be amiss after you have read an author, in order to make yourself master of his subject and argument, from his reader to turn, as it were, his rival, and attempt something of your own in the same way; and then make an impartial comparison between your performance and his, in order to see in what point either you or he most happily succeeded. It will be a matter of very pleasing congratulation to yourself, if you shall find in some things that you have the advantage of him, as it will be a great mortification if he should rise above you in all. You may sometimes venture in these little essays to try your strength upon the most shining passages of a distinguished author. The attempt, indeed, will be something bold; but as it is a contention which passes in secret, it cannot be taxed with presumption. Not but that we have seen instances of persons who have publicly entered this sort of lists with great success, and while they did not despair of overtaking, have gloriously advanced before, those whom they thought it sufficient honour to follow. After you have thus finished a composition, you must lay it aside till it is no longer fresh in your memory, and then take it up in order to revise and correct it. You will find several things to retain, but still more to reject; you will add a new thought here, and alter another there. It is a laborious and tedious task, I own, thus to re-in-erally known, that I need not point them flame the mind after the first heat is over, to recover an impulse when its force has been checked and spent ; in a word, to interweave new parts into the texture of a composition without disturbing or confounding the original plan; but the advantage attending this method will overbalance the difficulty. I out to you: besides, I have already extended this letter to such an immoderate length, that I have interrupted, I fear, too long those studies I have been recommending. I will here resign you, therefore, to your papers, which you will now resume; and either pursue the studies you were before engaged RICHARD DE BURY. in, or enter upon some of those which I have advised. Farewell. RICHARD DE BURY, born at Bury St. Edmunds, 1287, became Bishop of Durham 1333, and died 1345. "Richard de Bury, otherwise called Richard Aungervylle, is said to have alone possessed more books than all the bishops of England together. Besides the fixed libraries which he had formed in his several palaces, the floor of his common apartment was so covered with books that those who entered could not with due reverence approach his presence.... Petrarch says that he had once a conversation with Aungervylle concerning the Island Thule, whom he calls Virum ardentis ingenii. Petrarch, Epist., i. 3."— Warton's Hist. of Eng. Puet., ed. 1840, i. cxv., cxvi. ON BOOKS. The desirable treasure of wisdom and knowledge, which all men covet from the impulse of nature, infinitely surpasses all the riches of the world; in comparison with which precious stones are vile, silver is clay, and purified gold grains of sand; in the splendour of which the sun and moon grow dim to the sight; in the admirable sweetness of which, honey and manna are bitter to the taste. The value of wisdom decreaseth not with time; it hath an ever flourishing virtue that cleanseth its possession from every venom. O celestial gift of Divine liberality, descending from the Father of Light to raise up the rational soul even to heaven! Thou art the celestial alimony of intellect, of which whosoever eateth shall yet hunger, and whoso drinketh shall yet thirst; a harmony rejoicing the soul of the sorrowful, and never in any way discomposing the hearer. Thou art the moderator and the rule of morals, operating according to which none err. By thee kings reign and law-givers decree justly. Through thee, rusticity of nature being cast off, wits and tongues being polished, and the thorns of vice utterly eradicated, the summit of honour is reached, and they become fathers of their country and companions of princes, who, without thee, might have forged their lances into spades and ploughshares, or perhaps have fed swine with the prodigal son. Where, then, most potent, most longed-for treasure, art thou concealed? and where shall the thirsty soul find thee? Undoubtedly, indeed, thou hast placed thy desirable tabernacle in books, where the Most High, the Light of light, the Book of life, hath established thee. There then all who ask receive, all who seek find thee, to those who knock thou openest quickly. | 17 In books Cherubim expand their wings, that the soul of the student may ascend and look around from pole to pole, from the rising to the setting sun, from the north and from the south. In them the Most High incomprehensible God himself is contained and worshipped. In them the nature of celestial, terrestrial, and infernal beings is laid open. In them the laws by which every polity is governed are decreed, the officers of the celestial hierarchy are distinguished, and tyrannies of such demons are described as the ideas of Plato never surpassed, and the chair of Crato never sustained. In books we find the dead as it were living; in books we foresee things to come; in books warlike affairs are methodized; the rights of peace proceed from books. All things are corrupted and decay with time. Satan never ceases to devour those whom he generates, insomuch that the glory of the world would be lost in oblivion if God had not provided mortals with a remedy in books. Alexander the ruler of the world, Julius the invader of the world and of the city, the first who in unity of person assumed the empire, arms, and arts, the faithful Fabricius, the rigid Cato, would at this day have been without a memorial if the aid of books had failed them. Towers are razed to the earth, cities overthrown, triumphal arches mouldered to dust; nor can the king or pope be founded upon whom the privilege of a lasting name can be conferred more easily than by books. A book made renders succession to the author; for as long as the book exists, the author remaining úðúva Toç, immortal, cannot perish. As Ptolemy witnesseth in the prologue of Almazett, he (he says) is not dead who gave life to science. What learned scribe, therefore, who draws out things new and old from an infinite treasury of books, will limit their price by any other thing whatsoever of another kind? Truth, overcoming all things, which ranks above kings, wine, and women, to honour which above friends obtains the benefit of sanctity, which is the way that deviates not, and the life without end, to which the holy Boetius attributes a threefold existence, in the mind, in the voice, and in writing, appears to abide most usefully and fructify most productively of advantage in books. For the truth of the voice perishes with the sound; truth latent in the mind is hidden wisdom and invisible treasure; but the truth which illuminates books, desires to manifest itself to every disciplinable sense, to the sight when read, to the hearing when heard it, moreover, in a manner commends itself to the touch, when submitting to be transcribed, collated, corrected, and preserved. Truth confined to the mind, though it may be the possession of a noble soul, while it wants a companion and is not judged of, either by the sight or the hearing, appears to be inconsistent with pleasure. But the truth of the voice is open to the hearing only, and latent to the sight (which shows as many differences of things fixed upon by a most subtle motion, beginning and ending as it were simultaneously). But the truth written in a book, being not fluetuating, but permanent, shows itself openly to the sight passing through the spiritual ways of the eyes, as the porches and halls of common sense and imagination; it enters the chamber of intellect, reposes itself upon the couch of memory, and there congenerates the eternal truth of the mind. Lastly, let us consider how great a commodity of doctrine exists in books; how easily, how secretly, how safely, they expose the nakedness of human ignorance without putting it to shame. These are the masters that instruct us without rods and ferules, without hard words and anger, without clothes or money. If you approach them, they are not asleep; if investigating you interrogate them, they conceal nothing; if you mistake them, they never grumble; if you are ignorant, they cannot laugh at you. Translated by J. B. Înglis, Lond., 1832, 8vo. FRANCESCO PETRARCH, born at Arezzo, Tuscany, 1304, died at Arquà, 1374. "I cannot conclude these remarks without making a few observations on the Latin writings of Petrarch. It appears that, both by himself and by his contemporaries, these were far more highly valued than his compositions in the vernacular language. Posterity, the supreme court of literary appeal, has not only reversed the judgment, but, according to its general practice, reversed it with costs, and condemned the unfortunate works to pay, not only for their own inferiority, but also for the injustice of those who have given them an unmerited preference. . . He has aspired to emulate the philosophical eloquence of Cicero, as well as the poetical majesty of Virgil. His essay on the Remedies of Good and Evil Fertune is a singular work in a colloquial form, and a most scholastic style. It seems to be framed upon the model of the Tusculan Questions,-with what success those who have read it may easily determine. It consists of a series of dialogues: in each of these a person is introduced who has experienced some happy or some adverse event: he gravely states his case; and a reasoner, or rather Reason personified, confutes him: a task not very difficult, since the disciple defends his position only by pertinaciously repeating it, in almost the same words, at the end of every argu ment of his antagonist."-LORD MACAULAY: Criticisms on the Principal Italian Writers, No. II., Petrarch, in Knight's Quarterly Mag.. April, 1824, and his works, complete, 1866, vii. 629. PETRARCH'S DEDICATION TO Azzo DA CORREGGIO OF HIS TREATISE ON THE REMEDIES OF GOOD AND BAD FORTUNE. When I consider the instability of human affairs, and the variations of fortune, I find nothing more uncertain or restless than the life of man. Nature has given to animals an excellent remedy under disasters, which is the ignorance of them. We seem better treated in intelligence, foresight, and memory. No doubt these are admirable presents; but they often annoy more than they assist us. A prey to unuseful or distressing cares, we are tormented by the present, the past, and the future; and, as if we feared we should not be miserable enough, we join to the evil we suffer the remembrance of a former distress, and the apprehension of some future calamity. This is the Cerberus with three heads we combat without ceasing. Our life might be gay and happy if we would; but we eagerly seek subjects of affliction to render it irksome and melancholy. We pass the first years of this life in the shades of ignorance, the succeeding ones in pain and labour, the latter part in grief and remorse, and the whole in error: nor do we suffer ourselves to possess one bright day without a cloud. Let us examine this matter with sincerity, and we shall agree that our distresses chiefly arise from ourselves. It is virtue alone which can render us superior to Fortune; we quit her standard, and the combat is no longer equal. Fortune mocks us; she turns us on her wheel: she raises and abases us at her pleasure, but her power is founded on our weakness. This is an old-rooted evil, but it is not incurable: there is nothing a firm and elevated mind cannot accomplish. The discourse of the wise and the study of good books are the best remedies I know of; but to these we must join the consent of the soul, without which the best advice will be useless. What gratitude do we not owe to those great men who, though dead many ages before us, live with us by their works, discourse with us, are our masters and guides, and serve us as pilots in the navigation of life, where our vessel is agitated without ceasing by the storms of our passions! It is here that true philosophy brings us to a safe port, by a sure and easy passage: not like that of the schools, which, raising us on its airy and deceitful wings, and causing us to hover on the clouds of frivolous dispute, lets us fall without any light or instruction in the same place where she took us up. Dear friend, I do not attempt to exhort you to the study I deem so FRANCESCO PETRARCH. This important. Nature has given you a taste 19 hy death the greatest part of your friends; the rest, according to custom, deserted you in calamity. To these misfortunes was added a violent disease which attacked you when destitute of all succours, at a distance from your country and family, in a strange land invested by the troops of your enemies; so that those two or three friends whom fortune had left you could not come near to relieve you. In a word, you have experienced every hardship but imprisonment and death. But what do I say? You have felt all the horrors of the former, when your faithful wife and children were shut up by your enemies; and even death followed you, and took one of | those children, for whose loss you would willingly have sacrificed your own. In you have been united the fortunes of Pompey and Marius; but you were neither arrogant in prosperity as the one, nor discouraged in adversity as the other. You have supported both in a manner that has made you loved by your friends and admired by your enemies. There is a peculiar charm in the serene and tranquil air of virtue which enlightens all around it, in the midst of the darkest scenes and the greatest calamities. My ancient friendship for you has caused me to quit everything for you to perform a work in which, as in a glass, you may adjust and prepare your soul for all events; and be able to say, as Æneas did to the Sibyl, 'Nothing of this is new to me; I have foreseen and am prepared for it all." I am sensible that in the disorders of the mind, as well as those of the body, discourses are not thought the most efficacious remedies; but I am persuaded also that the malady of the soul ought to be cured by spiritual applica tions. If we see a friend in distress and give him all the consolation we are able, we perform the duties of friendship, which pays more attention to the disposition of the heart than the value of the gift. A small present may be the testimony of a great love. There is no good I do not wish you, and this is all I can offer toward it. I wish this little treatise may be of use to you. If it should not answer my hopes, I shall, however, be secure of pardon from your friendship. It presents you with the four great passions: Hope and Joy, the daughters of Prosperity; Fear and Grief, the daughters of Adversity, who attack the soul and launch at it all their arrows. Reason commands in the citadel to repulse them: your penetration will easily perceive which side will obtain the victory. From the translation in Mrs. Dobson's Life of Petrarch, from the French of the Abbe de Sade. |