Page:A Brief Outline of the Histories of Libraries.djvu/110

104 books, here they are before us! You could read the writings of Homer, Hippocrates, Aristotle, Pindar, Virgil, Cicero, and others, and at the same time feast your eyes upon the counterfeit presentment of each one. Again I say, a most beautiful custom, and why, Most Illustrious Friend, do we to-day not imitate it, under your leadership?

This idea seems to have originated with the Romans—not every good thing, after all, has come from the Greeks! Pliny is of this opinion. "Nothing," he says, speaking in his most happy vein, "is more delightful than to have knowledge of the face and bearing of the authors one reads. Asinius Pollio, at Rome,