ROMANTIC INCIDENTS IN THE LIVES OF NATURALISTS. THE FIERY DEATH; OR, THE LAST HOURS OF PLINY. T has been well said of the admirable letters of Pliny the Younger, that each epistle is a kind of historical sketch, while the whole abound with anecdotes of the characters and incidents of the times. Hence their attractiveness to the general reader, who pardons the too apparent vanity of the writer for the sake of the pleasure he affords. Of all these letters, there are none so valuable as those which speak of his illustrious uncle and adopted father, Pliny the Elder, or the Naturalist, as he has been designated. It is to these we are indebted for almost all that is known respecting the private habits and literary labours of this extraordinary man, whose "Natural History" -the only one of his works which has survived |