Pliny  has  also  done  a  great  service  in  preserving  a  memorial
of  the  literary  tone  and  habits  of  his  time.  Even  in  that
age  of  fertile  production  and  too  enthusiastic  appreciation,
PUny,  like  Seneca  and  Statins,  has  a  feeling  that  the  love
for  things  of  the  mind  was  waning.^  And  he  deemed  it
an  almost  religious  duty,  as  Symmachus  and  Sidonius  did
more  than  three  centuries  after  him,  to  arouse  the  flaggmg
interest  in  letters,  and   to  reward   even    third-rate   literary

^  Plin.  Ep,  iiL  18,  5 ;  yiii  12,  litem-      L ;  Prooem.P«^(m.88 ;  ofl  Sidon.  ApolL
mm  senesoentiom  redactor;  Stat  Siin.      Ep,  viiL  8 ;  ii  14  ;  yii  15 ;  ii  10,  1.
Digitized  by  CjOOQIC


164  SOCIAL  LIFE  book  ii

effort  with  exuberant  praise.  He  avows  that  it  is  a  matter
of  duty  to  admire  and  venerate  any  performance  in  a  field
so  difl&cult  as  that  of  letters.^  Yet  Pliny  was  not  by  any
means  devoid  of  critical  honesty  and  acumen.  He  could
be  a  severe  judge  of  his  own  style.  He  expects  ccmdid
criticism  from  his  friends,  and  receives  it  with  gratitude  and
good  temper.'  This  is  to  him,  indeed,  the  practical  purpose  of
readings  before  final  publication.  He  made  emendations  and
excisions  in  the  Histories  of  Tacitus,  which  the  great  author
had  submitted  for  his  revision.*^  In  his  correspondence  with
Tacitus,  there  is  a  curious  mixture  of  vanity  along  with  a  clear
recognition  of  his  friend's  immense  superiority  of  genius,  and
a  sure  prescience  of  his  immortal  fame.  He  is  proud  to  hear
their  names  coupled  as  chiefs  of  contemporary  literature,^
and  he  cherishes  the  hope  that,  united  by  loyal  friendship
in  life,  they  will  go  down  together  to  a  remote  future.
