Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/27

 with his talent as a writer, and the immense treasury which he opens to us of Latin terms and forms of expression: these, from the very abundance of the subjects upon which he treats, render his work one of the richest repositories of the Roman language. Wherever he finds it possible to give expression to general ideas or to philosophical views, his language assumes considerable energy and vivacity, and his thoughts present to us a certain novelty and boldness which tend in a very great degree to relieve the dryness of his enumerations, and, with the majority of his readers, excuse the insufficiency of his scientific indications. He is always noble and serious, full of the love of justice and virtue, detestation of cruelty and baseness, of which he had such frightful instances before his eyes, and contempt for that unbridled luxury which in his time had so deeply corrupted the Roman people. For these great merits Pliny cannot be too highly praised, and despite the faults which we are obliged to admit in him when viewed as a naturalist, we are bound to regard him as one of the most meritorious of the Roman writers, and among those most worthy to be reckoned in the number of the classics who wrote after the reign of Augustus,"