Page:The Voyage Of Italy Or A Compleat Journey through Italy, The Second Part.pdf/198

 alive, would but be Pliny the Sixth; for he hath printed six great volumes of the natures of all things in nature; each Volume being as big as all Plinies Works. They shewed me here two or three hundred Manuscripts, all of this mans own hand-writing, and all of them Notes out of the best Authors; out of which Notes he compiled his six great Volumes which are now in print. Seeing these Manuscripts I asked whether the man had lived three hundred years, or no, as its said Joannes de Temporibus In Charles the Greats time did: but it was answered me, that he lived onely fourscore and three: a short age for such a long Work: but it sheweth us how far a man may travel in Sciences in his life time, if he rise but betimes, and spur on all his life time with obstinate labour. Certainly had he wrote before Salomons time, Salomon would have changed his saying, and instead of sending the slothful man to learn of the Pismire how to labour, he would haue sent him