But we need not have recourse to Plato’s commonwealth, for instances of men who have led these useful lives. It was thus that the greatest part of mankind lived during near four thousand years; and that not only the Israelites, but the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans, that is to say, nations the most civilized, and most renowned for arms and wisdom. They all inculcate the regard which ought to be paid to agriculture, and the breeding of cattle: one of which (without saying any thing of hemp and flax so necessary for our clothing) supplies us by corn, fruits, and pulse, with not only a plentiful but delicious nourishment; and the other, besides its supply of exquisite meats to cover our tables, almost alone gives life to manufactures and trade, by the skins and stuffs it furnishes. Princes are commonly desirous, and their interest certainly requires it, that the peasant who, in a literal sense, sustains the heat and burden of the day, and pays so great a proportion of the national taxes, should meet with favour and encouragement. But the kind and good intentions of princes are too often defeated by the insatiable and merciless avarice of those who are appointed to collect their revenues. History has transmitted to us a fine saying of Tiberius on this head. A prefect of Egypt having augmented the annual tribute of the province, and, doubtless, with the view of making his court to the emperor, remitted to him a much larger sum than was customary; that prince, who, in the beginning of his reign, thought, or at least spoke justly, answered, “that it was his design not to flay, but to shear his sheep.”(381) Chapter VI. Of The Fertility Of Egypt. Under this head, I shall treat only of some plants peculiar to Egypt, and of the abundance of corn which it produced. Papyrus. This is a plant, from the root of which shoot out a great many triangular stalks, to the height of six or seven cubits. The ancients writ at first upon palm leaves;(382) next, on the inside of the bark of trees, from whence the word _liber_, or book, is derived; after that, upon tables covered over with wax, on which the characters were impressed with an instrument called Stylus, sharp-pointed at one end to write with, and flat at the other, to efface what had been written; which gave occasion to the following expression of Horace: Sæpe stylum vertas, iterum quæ digna legi sint Scripturus: _Sat._ lib. i. x. ver. 72. Oft turn your style, if you desire to write Things that will bear a second reading—— The meaning of which is, that a good performance is not to be expected without many erasures and corrections. At last the use of paper(383) was introduced, and this was made of the bark of Papyrus, divided into thin flakes or leaves, which were very proper for writing; and this Papyrus was likewise called Byblus. Nondum flumineas Memphis contexere byblos Noverat. Lucan.