Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/43

 Book I.] DEDICATION. 9 painting and sculpture, of wliom jou will find an account in these volumes, whose works, although they are so perfect that we are neyer satisfied with, admiring them, are inscribed with a temporary title such as " Apelles, or Polycletus, was doiDg this ; " implyiQg that the work was only commenced and still imperfect, and that the artist might benefit by the criticisms that were made on it and alter any part that required it, if he had not been prevented by death. It is also a great mark of their modesty, that they inscribed their works as if they were the last which they had executed, and as still in hand at the time of their death. I think there are but three works of art which are inscribed positively with the words " such a one executed this ; " of these I shall give an account in the proper place. In these cases it appears, that the artist felt the most perfect satisfaction ^^'iih. his work, and hence these pieces have excited the envy of every one. I, indeed, freely admit, that much may be added to my works ; not only to this, but to all which I have published. By this admission I hope to escape from the carping critics", and I have the more reason to say this, because I hear that there are certain Stoics and Logicians', and also Epi- cureans (from the Grrammarians"* I expected as much), who are big with something against the little work I published on Grrammar^ ; and that they have been carrying these abortions for ten years together — a longer pregnancy this than the elephant's^. But I well know, that even a woman once -v^Tote against Theophrastus, a man so eminent for his eloquence that he obtained his name, Avhich signifies the opus significaret, verum adhuc pendere, velut imperfectvun." Lemaire, i, 26. 2 " Homeroinastigse." 3 " Dialectici." By tkis tenn our aiithor probably meant to designate those critics who were disposed to dwell upon minute verbal distinctions ; " dialecticarum captionum amantes," according to Hardouin ; Lem. i. 28. bissima." Alexandre in Lemau'e, i. 28. 5 Pliny the younger, in one of his letters (iii. 5), where he enumerates all his uncle's pubhcations, informs us, that he wTote " a piece of criticism in eight books, concerning ambiguity of expression." Melmoth's Phny, i. 136. ^ The ancients had very exaggerated notions respecting the period of the elephant's pregnancy ; om' author, in a subsequent part of liis work (viii. 10), says, "Decern Minis gestarevulgusexistimat; Aristotcles biennio."
 * " Pendenti titulo ; " as Hardouin explains it, " qui nondum absolutum
 * " Quod argutiarum amantissimi, et quod aemulatio inter illos acer-