6. C. Plinius to his friend Cornelius Tacitus &c.
1. YOu will laugh, and laugh and welcome.
2. I, the Plinie whom you know, have caught three Boars, and those indeed very fair ones.
3. You your self, say you? I my self: yet not so that I did quite forsake my leisure and quiet.
4. I sate by the toyles.
5. I had by me not a hunting-spear, or a lance, but a poitrell, and a table-book.
6. I did meditate something, and noted it down, that I might carry away, if empty hands, yet my table-book full.
7. You have no reason to sleight this kind of studying.
8. It is a wonder to see, how the mind is raised up by this stirring, and motion of the body.
9. Besides, the woods on all sides, and the solitude, and that very silence which is to be observed in hunting, are great en∣citements to meditation.
10. And therefore when you shall go on hunting, you shall, by my advice, carry a table-book, as well as a bread-basket and a flaggon with you.
11. You shall find, that Diana doth not more wander in the mountains than Minerva. Farewell.