The Letters of Pliny the Consul Volume N . 1; With Occasional Remarks (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1757 Excerpt: ...contingency: be it therefore as it may, we have in the mean while obtained by this method an election of such magistrates as best deserved the honor. For it was with us as with those sort of judges who are named upon the spot, we were taken before we had time to be biassed, and therefore determined impartially. I have given you this detail, not only as a piece of news; but because I am glad to seize every opportunity of speaking of the republic; a subject, which as we have fewer occasions of mentioning than our ancestors, so we ought to be more careful not to let any of them slip. In good earnest, I am tired with repeating over and over the same compliments, How d' ye do? and / hope you are well. Why should our letters for ever turn upon trivial and domestic concerns? It is true, indeed, the direction of the public weal is in the hands of a single person, who, for the general good, takes upon himself solely to ease us of the care and weight of government; but still that bountiful source of power permits, by a very generous dispensation, some streams to flow down to us: and of these we may not only taste ourselves; but thus, as it were, administer them to our absent friends. Farewel. LETTER XXL To Priscu?. IHave just received an account of the death pf poor Martial, which much concerns me. He was a man of an acute and lively genius, and his writings abound with an agreeable spirit of wit and satire, conducted at the same time by great candor and good-nature. When he left Rome I made him a present to defray the charges of his journey, which I gave him, not only as a testimony of my friendship, but in return for the verses with which he had complimented me. It was the custom of the antients to distinguish those poets with honorable and pecuniary rewards, who h...