“Seu magna sacer et superbus umbra Nescis Tartaron, et procul nocentum Audis verbera, pallidumque visa Matris lampade respicis Neronem.” But its interest for us, besides the Lucretian description, which is itself not improved by _docti_, consists in the long eulogy of Lucan himself, and the repeated, and therefore not probably conventional, advice to him not to be afraid of Virgil— “Bætin Mantua provocare noli;” and after some time— “Quin majus loquor; ipsa te Latinis Æneis venerabitur canentem.” It would be clear from this, if we did not know it from the evidence of his original work, that Statius was not on the side of the satirists, that he had no objection to the Spanish _ampulla_. Footnote 348: No one of his contemporaries, except Juvenal (_v. supra_, p. 255), ever does mention Statius. It is indeed usually said that no classical author does so, with the same exception. Footnote 349: P. 216. Footnote 350: _Et docti furor arduus Lucreti._ _Genethliacon Lucani, Sylv._, ii. 7. 76. The, in all ways very delightful, Epistles[351] of the younger Pliny are not least delightful in the line of literary criticism. [Sidenote: _Pliny the Younger: Criticism on the Letters._] Pliny was a confirmed man of letters. In no member of the most interesting group of late Flavian and early Antonine writers do we see more clearly the “bookish” tone which so largely pervaded Roman society. He even, on the celebrated occasion[352] when he tells Tacitus with modest pride that he had bagged three wild boars, _et quidem pulcherrimos_, admits that he sat at the nets with a pencil and a notebook, thus anticipating the action of Kingsley’s Lancelot Smith when he took St Francis de Sales to a meet. He takes an intelligent pride in his uncle’s literary work, and if he is a little wrong in doubting Martial’s power of “lasting” in the letter which he writes after his death,[353] let us remember that Martial had paid him a very pretty compliment (which he quotes and which we have quoted[354]), and that it would not have done to be too certain of the fact of this coming to Prince Posterity. The very first letter[355] admits a particular critical care in composition, and the second gives further particulars thereof. He had never taken such care as with the book that he sends to Arrian. He had tried to follow Demosthenes and Calvus, but few, _quos æquus amavit_ (this allusiveness would have been reprehended by some of our modern critics), can really catch up such masters. The matter was good, and he had sometimes ventured to extract special ornaments from the “perfume-bottles”[356] of Cicero. But Arrian must give him a careful revision, for the booksellers tell him that the thing is already popular. He has many of the technical phrases which half attract and half repel modern readers, because they are so difficult to adjust.