17) about a recitation by Calpurnius Piso, a third (vi. 15) on a thin jest by Javolenus Priscus at another recitation by a descendant of Propertius (who began “Prisce jubes,” and was interrupted by Javolenus, _Ego vero non jubeo_), may be glanced at rather than discussed. Footnote 363: There is another interesting critical remark at the end of the famous description of the villa (v.6): “I think it the first duty of a writer to _read his own title_, and constantly ask himself what he sat down to write, and to be sure that if he sticks to his subject he will never be too long, but will be hopelessly so if he drags other matters in.” Footnote 364: _Non pati occidere, quibus æternitas debeatur._ Footnote 365: This, of course, is the old invidious distinction between tragedy and comedy revived in other material. Cf. the curious passage in Tacitus (_Ann._, xiii. 31) in which he, for his part, glances disdainfully at those who think “beams and foundation-stones” (Nero’s amphitheatre) worth mentioning. such things should be kept for journals (_diurnis urbis actis_): it is for the dignity of the Roman people that only illustrious matters should find place in Annals. The two thoughts are characteristic of the two men. Footnote 366: _Vi, amaritudine, instantia._ Perhaps there is no better document of Pliny’s literary criticism, both in its strength and in its weakness, than vi. 17. He writes in a state of _indignatiuncula_ (let us translate “mild wrath”), which he can only relieve by working it off in a letter to his friend Restitutus. He has been at one of the eternal recitations, where the book recited was not so usual; indeed, it was _absolutissimus_—quite “A per se,” as our ancestors would have said. But one or two of the audience (clever[367] fellows, as they and a few others thought) listened to it as if they were deaf mutes. They did not open their lips: they did not clap: they did not even rise from their seats save when they were tired of sitting. What is the good of such gravity, such wisdom, nay, such laziness, arrogance, _sinisterity_ (a good word!), or, to cut things short, madness, which leads men to spend a whole day [the terrors of recitation were obviously not exaggerated by the satirists] in offending and making an enemy of a man whom you have visited as a friend? Are you clever? Do not show envy: the envier is the lesser. Nay, whether you can yourself do as well, or less well, all the same praise him, whether he be inferior or superior or equal. Your superior, because, if he is not praiseworthy, still less are you; your equal or inferior, because the better he is, in that case, the better you are. Pliny, for his part, is wont to venerate and admire anybody who does anything in literature. It is a difficult thing, sir, an arduous, a fastidious, and it has a knack of bringing scorn on those who scorn it.[368] Restitutus will surely agree: he is the most amiable and considerate of judges.