applied with caution, may both correct and enlarge his practice. Celsus is justly esteemed one of the most valuable amongst the ancients. He is so often quoted, with approbation, by our best writers in physic, and so much admired by the learned world for propriety, ease, and elegance, that it is a needless attempt in these days to draw his character. However, he is so little mentioned by the ancients, that our curiosity cannot be gratified with any particulars of his life; nor can we even determine what was his profession, if it does not appear from his writings. Quintilian often mentions a treatise of his upon rhetoric, which though he hardly ever quotes, but where he differs from him, he allows to be composed with accuracy. But whatever he thought of his oratory, he gives an honourable testimony to the extent of his learning. For to persuade his student of eloquence to make himself master of all the sciences, after mentioning the greatest geniuses that ever appeared in Greece or Rome, as Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Cato the censor, Varro, and Cicero, he adds, “Why should I name any more instances? when even Cornelius Celsus, a man of a moderate share of genius, has not only composed treatises on all these arts, but has also left precepts of the military art, agriculture, and medicine. The bare attempt requires us to believe he understood all these subjects: but to give perfection to so great a work is a difficult task, to which no man was ever found equal[A].” [A] Fab. Quintilian, lib. xii. c. 11. Some have complained of the partiality, or jealousy of the rhetorician, who allows Celsus only a moderate share of genius. Others esteem it no diminution to be placed in a rank below the writers above named. Without doubt, this would do him very great honour: but if we even take the character literally, still we are to consider Quintilian as having every where in view the perfection of oratory. Now this, it should appear, Celsus hardly affected, by his confining the orator to questions in dispute[B]; which in great measure excludes the descriptive and moving parts of the art: therefore Quintilian’s man of middling genius may be a perfect writer in the instructive manner, though he want the qualifications for the bar or the forum. But to do Celsus some farther honour, may it not be supposed, that had Quintilian been as competent a judge of his medical, as of his rhetorical writings, he would not have stiled him, _Vir mediocri ingenio_. I have made bold to hazard this observation from an opinion, that none but a physician can form a just idea of the excellence of this work; much less could any but a physician be the author of it. Celsus the physician might very well write on agriculture, &c. but it by no means follows, that Celsus, not versed in the practice of physic, could have written accurately on diseases. If then this notion be just, it may reasonably be concluded, that his medical writings were the most perfect, as being the fruit of his principal and particular studies. [B] Id. lib. iii. c. 5. Columella (_De re rustica_) often quotes him with great deference to his authority; he equals him to the most learned writers on husbandry; and when he is correcting a vulgar error, expresses his surprise that Cornelius Celsus could be misled, “who was not only skilled in agriculture, but took in the whole compass of natural knowledge[C].” I shall not recite all the passages, where he mentions Celsus, but cannot...