our 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:

Saepe stylum vertas, iterum quae 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
with