And all that he did on his own part was, to supply an introduction prefixed to the new book from the ample collection of prefaces for future works which he had beside him; to impart a certain popular character, inasmuch as he interwove Roman examples and references, and sometimes digressed to subjects irrelevant but more familiar to the writer and the reader, such as the treatment of the deportment of the orator in the -De Officiis-; and to exhibit that sort of bungling, which a man of letters, who has not attained to philosophic thinking or even to philosophic knowledge and who works rapidly and boldly, shows in the reproduction of dialectic trains of thought.
In this way no doubt a multitude of thick tomes might very quickly come into existence--"They are copies," wrote the author himself to a friend who wondered at his fertility; "they give me little trouble, for I supply only the words and these I have in abundance." Against this nothing further could be said; but any one who seeks classical productions in works so written can only be advised to study in literary matters a becoming silence.
Professional Sciences.
Latin Philology Varro Of the sciences only a single one manifested vigorous life, that of Latin philology.

The scheme of linguistic and antiquarian research within the domain of the Latin race, planned by Silo, was carried out especially by his disciple Varro on the grandest scale.
There appeared comprehensive elaborations of the whole stores of the language, more especially the extensive grammatical commentaries of Figulus and the great work of Varro -De Lingua Latina-; monographs on grammar and the history of the language, such as Varro's writings on the usage of the Latin language, on synonyms, on the age of the letters, on the origin of the Latin tongue; scholia on the older literature, especially on Plautus; works of literary history, biographies of poets, investigations into the earlier drama, into the scenic division of the comedies of Plautus, and into their genuineness.

Latin archaeology, which embraced the whole older history and the ritual law apart from practical jurisprudence, was comprehended in Varro's "Antiquities of Things Human and Divine," which was and for all times remained the fundamental treatise on the subject (published between 687 and 709).

The first portion, "Of Things Human," described the primeval age of Rome, the divisions of city and country, the sciences of the years, months, and days, lastly, the public transactions at home and in war; in the second half, "Of Things Divine," the state- theology, the nature and significance of the colleges of experts, of the holy places, of the religious festivals, of sacrificial and votive gifts, and lastly of the gods themselves were summarily unfolded.

Moreover, besides a number of monographs-- e.g.on the descent of the Roman people, on the Roman gentes descended from Troy, on the tribes--there was added, as a larger and more independent supplement, the treatise "Of the Life of the Roman People"-- a remarkable attempt at a history of Roman manners, which sketched a picture of the state of domestic life, finance, and culture in the regal, the early republican, the Hannibalic, and the most recent period.