Note 90 — Chapter III · ANCESTRY OF SHAKESPEARE’S ROMAN PLAYS

De Quincey says: “Nor do I believe Wordsworth would much have lamented on his own account if all books had perished, except the entire body of English poetry and Plutarch’s Lives.... I do not mean to insinuate that Wordsworth was at all in the dark about the inaccuracy or want of authentic weight attaching to Plutarch as historian, but his business with Plutarch was not for purposes of research; he was satisfied with his fine moral effects.” So too one of Plutarch’s latest editors, Mr. Holden, says in a similar sense: “Plutarch has no idea of historic criticism.... He thought far less of finding out and relating what actually occurred than of edifying his readers and promoting virtue.”