At the end of his work Macaulay has written: "A most stupid worthless performance, below the lowest trash of an English circulating library." Achilles Tatius he disposes of with the words "Detestable trash;" and the Aethiopics of Heliodorus, which he appears to have finished on Easter-day, 1837, he pronounces "The best of the Greek Romances, which is not saying much for it."] It was discovered at Florence, little more than a hundred years ago, by an English envoy.
Nothing so detestable ever came from the Minerva Press.

I have read Theocritus again, and like him better than ever.
As to Latin, I made a heroic attempt on Pliny's Natural History; but I stuck after getting through about a quarter of it.

I have read Ammianus Marcellinus, the worst written book in ancient Latin.

The style would disgrace a monk of the tenth century; but Marcellinus has many of the substantial qualities of a good historian.

I have gone through the Augustan history, and much other trash relating to the lower empire; curious as illustrating the state of society, but utterly worthless as composition.