XXXVII. Pliny makes but a poor figure, in the eye of the inferior class of literary people, who look upon him as no better than an artful impostor, that filled his natural history with improbable tales. This has been occasioned principally, by some authors who are a kind of secret-mongers, and who deal in the marvellous, and have, in order to give a sanction to their writings, quoted the authority of Pliny, to justify many of the wonderful tales they relate; but these have not only quoted Pliny for what he never said, but have also had the effrontery to make use of his name, to patronize stories which he point-blank contemns and reprobates. Pliny frequently makes mention of the wonderful secrets, or strange operations of magic, but he always does it with derision and contempt; and treats the authors of them as mountebanks and impostors. I have always said, and I won’t retract my assertion; that you will not find in all Pliny, mention made of any secret of the portentous kind (and he relates many of that sort) which he does not reprobate as a ridiculous tale, and an absurd fiction, generally invented by those who call themselves magicians. Now what is the practice of the dealers in these kinds of secrets? Why they say, that they extracted the relations they give of them from the works of Pliny, but fraudulently conceal that Pliny, made a joke of them. How many silly people have been led to imagine, that there are those that can make themselves invisible whenever they please, and that the great secret of doing this, consists in carrying about them, what they call the sun-flower-stone, together with the plant that bears the same name. This wonderful receipt, may be seen in Pliny (lib. 37. cap. 10.) but you will also find there annexed to it, by Pliny, the strongest censure that can be expressed; for he says, that an extravagance of this kind is a clear proof, of the assurance and want of modesty in those who are called magicians, and shews plainly, to what a degree they are capable of lying. _Magorum impudentiæ, vel manifestissimum in hos quosque_, (that is the sun-flower-stone) _exemplum est_. He expresses himself to the same effect, in every other part of his writings where he speaks of magicians. In his thirtieth book, cap. 1. in one short sentence only, he condemns the whole farago of magical operations, and calls magic the most deceitful and fallacious of all arts, _fraudulentissima artium_. XXXVIII. Even of the lesser sort of secrets, which do not border upon the incredible, such as medicinal ones commonly are, he speaks with so much circumspection, that he scarce ever says any thing affirmatively respecting them. He always, or nearly always, speaks doubtfully of them, and uses the terms, it is so said, or it is so believed; _dicunt_, _tradunt_, &c. and very often, he names the author who makes mention of them.