THE LIFE OF PLUTARCH.

THE LIFE OF PLUTARCH.

In 1683, appeared the first volume of a translation of Plutarch’s Lives, executed by several hands. Among the persons engaged in this undertaking, Mr Malone enumerates “Richard Duke, and Knightly Chetwood, Fellows of Trinity College, in Cambridge; Paul Rycaut, Esq.; Thomas Creech, of Wadham College, Oxford, the translator of Horace, &c.; Edward Brown, M.D. author of Travels in Germany, &c.; Dr Adam Littleton, author of the Latin Dictionary; John Caryl, Esq. I believe the friend of Pope; Mr Joseph Arrowsmith; Thomas Rymer, Esq.; Dr William Oldys; John Evelyn, Esq.; and Mr Somers, afterwards Lord Somers, who translated the Life of Alcibiades, though his name is not prefixed to it. Beside the persons here enumerated, twenty-nine others were engaged in this work: so that the total number of the translators was forty-one. Dryden translated none of the Lives.”

Dryden was induced to honour this work, so creditable to those who had undertaken it, with a Dedication, and Life of Plutarch. The Dedication is addressed to the great Duke of Ormond, whom Dryden had celebrated, in “Absalom and Achitophel,” under the name of Barzillai. The reader will find some account of that nobleman, in the note upon that passage, Vol. IX. p. 294. It is doing no injustice to the other great qualities of Ormond, to say, that his generous and unwearied protection of Dryden will not be the soonest forgotten. The poet’s feelings towards this noble family were expressed in the preface to the “Fables,” his last great work.

The publication and translation of “Plutarch’s Lives” was not completed until 1686, when the last volume appeared. The following remarkable advertisement was prefixed to the work; which, from internal evidence, Mr Malone ascribes to our author, although bearing the name, and written in the character, of Jacob Tonson, the publisher of the work.

“You have here the first volume of “Plutarch’s Lives” turned from the Greek into English; and give me leave to say, the first attempt of doing it from the originals. You may expect the remainder in four more, one after another, as fast as they may conveniently be dispatched from the press. It is not my business, or pretence, to judge of a work of this quality; neither do I take upon me to recommend it to the world, any farther than under the office of a fair and careful publisher, and in discharge of a trust deposited in my hands for the service of my country, and for a common good. I am not yet so insensible of the authority and reputation of so great a name, as not to consult the honour of the author, together with the benefit and satisfaction of the bookseller, as well as of the reader, in this undertaking. In order to which ends, I have, with all possible respect and industry, besought, solicited, and obtained, the assistance of persons equal to the enterprize, and not only critics in the tongue, but men of known fame and abilities for style and ornament; but I shall rather refer you to the learned and ingenious translators of this first part, (whose names you will find in the next page,) as a specimen of what you may promise yourself from the rest.

“After this right done to the Greek author, I shall not need to say what profit and delight will accrue to the English reader from this version, when he shall see this illustrious piece in his own mother tongue, and the very spirit of the original transfused into the traduction; and in one word, “Plutarch’s Worthies” made yet more famous, by a translation that gives a farther lustre even to Plutarch himself.

“Now as to the bookseller’s part, I must justify myself, that I have done all that to me belonged; that is to say, I have been punctually faithful to all my commissions toward the correctness and decency of the work; and I have said to myself, that which I now say to the public,—It is impossible but a book that comes into the world with so many circumstances of dignity, usefulness, and esteem, must turn to account.”

TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF ORMOND, &c.

MY LORD,

Lucretius, endeavouring to prove from the principles of his philosophy, that the world had a casual beginning from the concourse of atoms, and that men, as well as the rest of animals, were produced from the vital heat and moisture of their mother earth, from the same principles is bound to answer this objection,—why men are not daily formed after the same manner; which he tells us, is, because the kindly warmth and procreative faculty of the ground is now worn out; the sun is a disabled lover; and the earth is past her teeming time.

Though religion has informed us better of our origin, yet it appears plainly, that not only the bodies, but the souls of men, have decreased from the vigour of the first ages; that we are not more short of the stature and strength of those gigantic heroes, than we are of their understanding and their wit. To let pass those happy patriarchs who were striplings at fourscore, and had afterwards seven or eight hundred years before them to beget sons and daughters, and to consider man in reference only to his mind, and that no higher than the age of Socrates, how vast a difference is there betwixt the productions of those souls, and these of ours? How much better Plato, Aristotle, and the rest of the philosophers understood nature; Thucydides and Herodotus adorned history; Sophocles, Euripides, and Menander advanced poetry, than those dwarfs of wit and learning who succeeded them in after times? That age was most famous amongst the Greeks which ended with the death of Alexander; amongst the Romans, learning seemed again to revive and flourish in the century which produced Cicero, Varro, Sallust, Livy, Lucretius, and Virgil: and after a short interval of years, wherein nature seemed to take a breathing time for a second birth, there sprung up under the Vespasians, and those excellent princes who succeeded them, a race of memorable wits, such as were the two Plinies, Tacitus, and Suetonius; and, as if Greece was emulous of the Roman learning, under the same favourable constellation was born the famous philosopher and historian, Plutarch; than whom antiquity has never produced a man more generally knowing, or more virtuous; and no succeeding age has equalled him.

His Lives, both in his own esteem and that of others, accounted the noblest of his works, have been long since rendered into English; but as that translation was only from the French,⁠[1] so it suffered this double disadvantage; first, that it was but a copy of a copy, and that too but lamely taken from the Greek original; secondly, that the English language was then unpolished, and far from the perfection which it has since attained; so that the first version is not only ungrammatical and ungraceful, but in many places almost unintelligible. For which reasons, and lest so useful a piece of history should lie oppressed under the rubbish of antiquated words, some ingenious and learned gentlemen have undertaken this task; and what would have been the labour of one man’s life, will, by the several endeavours of many, be accomplished in the compass of a year. How far they have succeeded in this laudable attempt, to me it belongs not to determine, who am too much a party to be a judge. But I have the honour to be commissioned from the translators of this volume to inscribe their labours and my own, with all humility, to your Grace’s name and patronage; and never was any man more ambitious of an employment of which he was so little worthy. Fortune has at last gratified that earnest desire I have always had to shew my devotion to your Grace, though I despair of paying you my acknowledgments. And of all other opportunities, I have happened on the most favourable to myself, who, having never been able to produce any thing of my own, which could be worthy of your view, am supplied by the assistance of my friends, and honoured with the presentation of their labours. The author they have translated, has been long familiar to you, who have been conversant in all sorts of history both ancient and modern, and have formed the idea of your most noble life from the instructions and examples contained in them, both in the management of public affairs, and in the private offices of virtue; in the enjoyment of your better fortune, and sustaining of your worse; in habituating yourself to an easy greatness; in repelling your enemies, in succouring your friends; and in all traverses of fortune, in every colour of your life, maintaining an inviolable fidelity to your Sovereign. It is long since that I have learned to forget the art of praising, but here the heart dictates to the pen; and I appeal to your enemies, (if so much generosity and good nature can have left you any,) whether they are not conscious to themselves that I have not flattered.

It is an age, indeed, which is only fit for satire, and the sharpest I have shall never be wanting to lance its villainies, and its ingratitude to the government. There are few men in it, who are capable of supporting the weight of a just and deserved commendation; but amongst those few there must always stand excepted the illustrious names of Ormond and of Ossory; a father and a son only worthy of each other. Never was one soul more fully infused into another’s breast; never was so strong an impression made of virtue as that of your Grace’s into him; but though the stamp was deep, the subject which received it was of too fine a composition to be durable. Were not priority of time and nature in the case, it might have been doubted which of you had been most excellent; but heaven snatched away the copy, to make the original more precious. I dare trust myself no farther on this subject; for after years of mourning, my sorrow is yet so green upon me, that I am ready to tax Providence for the loss of that heroic son: three nations had a general concernment in his death, but I had one so very particular, that all my hopes are almost dead with him; and I have lost so much, that I am past the danger of a second shipwreck. But he sleeps with an unenvied commendation; and has left your Grace the sad legacy of all those glories which he derived from you: an accession which you wanted not, who were so rich before in your own virtues, and that high reputation which is the product of them.

A long descent of noble ancestors was not necessary to have made you great, but heaven threw it in as overplus when you were born. What you have done and suffered for two royal masters has been enough to render you illustrious; so that you may safely wave the nobility of your birth, and rely on your actions for your fame. You have cancelled the debt which you owed to your progenitors, and reflect more brightness on their memory than you received from them.

Your native country, which Providence gave you not leave to preserve under one king, it has given you opportunity under another to restore. You could not save it from the chastisement which was due to its rebellion, but you raised it from ruin after its repentance; so that the trophies of war were the portion of the conqueror, but the triumphs of peace were reserved for the vanquished. The misfortunes of Ireland were owing to itself, but its happiness and restoration to your Grace. The rebellion against a lawful prince was punished by an usurping tyrant, but the fruits of his victory were the rewards of a loyal subject. How much that noble kingdom has flourished under your Grace’s government, both the inhabitants and the crown are sensible: the riches of Ireland are increased by it, and the revenues of England are augmented. That which was a charge and burden of the government, is rendered an advantage and support; the trade and interest of both countries are united in a mutual benefit; they conspire to make each other happy; the dependance of the one is an improvement of its commerce, the pre-eminence of the other is not impaired by the intercourse, and common necessities are supplied by both. Ireland is no more a scion, to suck the nourishment from the mother tree; neither is it overtopped, or hindered from growth by the superior branches; but the roots of England diving, if I may dare to say it, underneath the seas, rise at a just distance on the neighbouring shore, and there shoot up, and bear a product scarce inferior to the trunk from whence they sprung.

I may raise the commendation higher, and yet not fear to offend the truth; Ireland is a better penitent than England. The crime of rebellion was common to both countries, but the repentance of one island has been steady; that of the other, to its shame, has suffered a relapse; which shews the conversions of their rebels to have been real, that of ours to have been but counterfeit. The sons of guilty fathers there have made amends for the disloyalty of their families; but here the descendants of pardoned rebels have only waited their time to copy the wickedness of their parents, and, if possible, to outdo it. They disdain to hold their patrimonies by acts of grace and of indemnity; and by maintaining their old treasonable principles, make it apparent that they are still speculative traitors; for whether they are zealous sectaries, or prophane republicans, (of which two sorts they are principally composed,) both our reformers of church and state pretend to a power superior to kingship. The fanatics derive their authority from the Bible, and plead religion to be antecedent to any secular obligation; by virtue of which argument, taking it for granted that their own worship is only true, they arrogate to themselves the right of disposing the temporal power according to their pleasure,—as that which is subordinate to the spiritual; so that the same reasons and scriptures which are urged by popes for the deposition of princes, are produced by sectaries for altering the succession. The episcopal reformation has manumized kings from the usurpation of Rome, for it preaches obedience and resignation to the lawful secular power; but the pretended reformation of our schismatics, is to set up themselves in the papal chair, and to make their princes only their trustees; so that, whether they or the Pope were uppermost in England, the royal authority were equally depressed: the prison of our kings would be the same; the gaolers only would be altered. The broad republicans are generally men of atheistic principles, nominal Christians, who are beholding to the font only, that they are so called; otherwise Hobbists in their politics and morals. Every church is obliged to them that they own themselves of none, because their lives are too scandalous for any. Some of the sectaries are so proud, that they think they cannot sin; those commonwealth men are so wicked, that they conclude there is no sin. Lewdness, rioting, cheating, and debauchery, are their work-a-day practice; their more solemn crimes are unnatural lusts, and horrid murders.⁠[2] Yet these are the patrons of the nonconformists; these are the swords and bucklers of God’s cause, if His cause be that of separatists and rebels. It is not but these associates know each other at the bottom as well as Simeon knew Levi: the republicans are satisfied that the schismatics are hypocrites, and the schismatics are assured that the republicans are atheists; but their common principles of government are the chains that link them; for both hold kings to be creatures of their own making, and by inference to be at their own disposing; with this difference, notwithstanding, that the canting party face their pretences with a call from God, the debauched party with a commission from the people. So that if ever this ill-contrived and equivocal association should get uppermost, they would infallibly contend for the supreme right; and as it was formerly on their money, so now it would be in their interest; “God with us” would be set up on one side, and “The Commonwealth of England” on the other.⁠[3] But I the less wonder at the mixture of these two natures, because two savage beasts of different species and sexes shut up together, will forget their enmity, to satisfy their common lust; and it is no matter what kind of monster is produced betwixt them, so the brutal appetite be served. I more admire at a third party, who were loyal when rebellion was uppermost, and have turned rebels, (at least in principle,) since loyalty has been triumphant. Those of them whose services have not been rewarded, have some pretence for discontent; and yet they give the world to understand, that their honour was not their principle, but their interest. If they are old royalists, it is a sign their virtue is worn out, and will bear no longer; if sons to royalists, they have probably been grafted on whig stocks, and grown out of kind,—like China oranges in Portugal; their mother’s part has prevailed in them, and they are degenerated from the loyalty of their fathers.

But if they are such, as many of them evidently are, whose service has been not only fully but lavishly recompensed with honours and preferment, theirs is an ingratitude without parallel; they have destroyed their former merits, disowned the cause for which they fought, belied their youth, dishonoured their age; they have wrought themselves out of present enjoyments for imaginary hopes, and can never be trusted by their new friends, because they have betrayed their old. The greater and the stronger ties which some of them have had, are the deeper brands of their apostacy; for archangels were the first and most glorious of the whole creation; they were the morning work of God, and had the first impressions of his image, what creatures could be made; they were of kin to eternity itself, and wanting only that accession to be deities. Their fall was therefore more opprobrious than that of man, because they had no clay for their excuse; though I hope and wish the latter part of the allegory may not hold, and that repentance may be yet allowed them. But I delight not to dwell on so sad an object; let this part of the landscape be cast into shadows, that the heightenings of the other may appear more beautiful. For, as contraries, the nearer they are placed are brighter, and the Venus is illustrated by the neighbourhood of the lazar, so the unblemished loyalty of your Grace will shine more clearly, when set in competition with their stains.

When the malady which had seized the nobler parts of Britain threw itself out into the limbs, and the first sores of it appeared in Scotland, yet no effects of it reached your province; Ireland stood untainted with that pest; the care of the physician prevented the disease, and preserved the country from infection. When that ulcer was rather stopped than cured, (for the causes of it still remained,) and that dangerous symptoms appeared in England; when the royal authority was here trodden under foot; when one plot was prosecuted openly, and another secretly fomented, yet even then was Ireland free from our contagion. And if some venomous creatures were produced in that nation, yet it appeared they could not live there; they shed their poison without effect; they despaired of being successfully wicked in their own country, and transported their evidence to another, where they knew it was vendible; where accusation was a trade, where forgeries were countenanced, where perjuries were rewarded, where swearing went for proof, and where the merchandize of death was gainful. That their testimony was at least discredited, proceeded not from its incoherence, for they were known by their own party when they first appeared; but their folly was then managed by the cunning of their tutors; they had still been believed had they still followed their instructors; but when their witness fell foul upon their friends, then they were proclaimed villains, discarded and disowned by those who sent for them; they seemed then first to be discovered for what they had been known too well before; they were decried as inventors of what only they betrayed; nay their very wit was magnified, lest, being taken for fools, they might be thought too simple to forge an accusation.⁠[4] Some of them still continue here detested by both sides, believed by neither; (for even their betters are at last uncased;) and some of them have received their hire in their own country. For perjury, which is malice to mankind, is always accompanied with other crimes; and though not punishable by our laws with death, yet draws a train of vices after it. The robber, the murderer, and the sodomite, have often hung up the foresworn villain; and what one sin took on trust, another sin has paid. These travelling locusts are at length swallowed up in their own Red Sea. Ireland, as well as England, is delivered from that flying plague; for the sword of justice in your Grace’s hand, like the rod of Moses, is stretched out against them; and the third part of his Majesty’s dominions is owing for its peace to your loyalty and vigilance.

But what Plutarch can this age produce, to immortalize a life so noble? May some excellent historian at length be found, some writer not unworthy of his subject; but may his employment be long deferred! May many happy years continue you to this nation and your own; may your praises be celebrated late, that we may enjoy you living rather than adore you dead! And since yet there is not risen up amongst us any historian who is equal to so great an undertaking, let us hope that Providence has not assigned the workman, because his employment is to be long delayed; because it has reserved your Grace for farther proofs of your unwearied duty, and a farther enjoyment of your fortune; in which, though no man has been less envied, because no other has more nobly used it, yet some droppings of the age’s venom have been shed upon you. The supporters of the crown are placed too near it, to be exempted from the storm which was breaking over it. It is true, you stood involved in your own virtue, and the malice of your libellers could not sink through all those folds to reach you. Your innocence has defended you from their attacks, and your pen has so nobly vindicated that innocence, that it stands in need of no other second. The difference is as plainly seen betwixt sophistry and truth, as it is betwixt the style of a gentleman and the clumsy stiffness of a pedant. Of all historians, God deliver us from bigots; and of all bigots, from our sectaries! Truth is never to be expected from authors whose understandings are warped with enthusiasm; for they judge all actions, and their causes, by their own perverse principles, and a crooked line can never be the measure of a straight one. Mr Hobbes was used to say,—that a man was always against reason, when reason was against a man:—so these authors are for obscuring truth, because truth would discover them. They are not historians of an action, but lawyers of a party; they are retained by their principles, and bribed by their interests; their narrations are an opening of their cause; and in the front of their histories there ought to be written the prologue of a pleading,—“I am for the plaintiff,” or “I am for the defendant.”

We have already seen large volumes of state collections, and church legends, stuffed with detected forgeries in some parts, and gaping with omissions of truth in others; not penned, I suppose, with so vain a hope as to cheat posterity, but to advance some design in the present age; for these legerdemain authors are for telling stories to keep their trick undiscovered, and to make their conveyance the more clean. What calumny your Grace may expect from such writers, is already evident: but it will fare with them as it does with ill painters; a picture so unlike in all its features and proportions, reflects not on the original, but on the artist; for malice will make a piece more unresembling than ignorance; and he who studies the life, yet bungles, may draw some faint imitation of it, but he who purposely avoids nature, must fall into grotesque, and make no likeness. For my own part, I am of the former sort, and therefore presume not to offer my unskilfulness for so excellent a design as is your illustrious life. To pray for its prosperity and continuance is my duty, as it is my ambition to appear on all occasions,

Your Grace’s most obedient and devoted servant,

John Dryden.

THE LIFE OF PLUTARCH.

I know not by what fate it comes to pass, that historians, who give immortality to others, are so ill requited by posterity, that their actions and their fortunes are usually forgotten; neither themselves encouraged while they live, nor their memory preserved entire to future ages. It is the ingratitude of mankind to their greatest benefactors, that they who teach us wisdom by the surest ways, (setting before us what we ought to shun or to pursue, by the examples of the most famous men whom they record, and by the experience of their faults and virtues,) should generally live poor and unregarded; as if they were born only for the public, and had no interest in their own well-being, but were to be lighted up like tapers, and to waste themselves for the benefit of others. But this is a complaint too general, and the custom has been too long established to be remedied; neither does it wholly reach our author. He was born in an age which was sensible of his virtue, and found a Trajan to reward him, as Aristotle did an Alexander. But the historians who succeeded him, have either been too envious, or too careless of his reputation; none of them, not even his own countrymen, having given us any particular account of him; or if they have, yet their works are not transmitted to us: so that we are forced to glean from Plutarch what he has scattered in his writings concerning himself and his original; which (excepting that little memorial that Suidas, and some few others, have left concerning him,) is all we can collect relating to this great philosopher and historian.

He was born at Chæronea, a small city of Bæotia, in Greece, between Attica and Phosis, and reaching to both seas. The climate not much befriended by the heavens, for the air is thick and foggy; and consequently the inhabitants partaking of its influence, gross feeders and fat-witted, brawny and unthinking,—just the constitution of heroes, cut out for the executive and brutal business of war; but so stupid in the designing part, that in all the revolutions of Greece they were never masters, but only in those few years when they were led by Epaminondas, or Pelopidas. Yet this foggy air, this country of fat wethers, as Juvenal calls it, produced three wits, which were comparable to any three Athenians; Pindar, Epaminondas, and our Plutarch; to whom we may add a fourth, Sextus Chæronensis, the preceptor of the learned Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and the nephew of our author.

Chæronea, if we may give credit to Pausanias, in the ninth book of his description of Greece, was anciently called Arnè, from Arnè, the daughter of Æolus; but being situated to the west of Parnassus in that lowland country, the natural unwholesomeness of the air was augmented by the evening vapours cast upon it from that mountain, which our late travellers describe to be full of moisture and marshy ground inclosed in the inequality of its ascents; and being also exposed to the winds which blew from that quarter, the town was perpetually unhealthful; for which reason, says my author, Chæron, the son of Apollo and Thero, made it be rebuilt, and turned it towards the rising sun, from whence the town became healthful, and consequently populous; in memory of which benefit it afterwards retained his name. But as etymologies are uncertain, and the Greeks, above all nations, given to fabulous derivations of names, especially when they tend to the honour of their country, I think we may be reasonably content to take the denomination of the town from its delightful or cheerful standing, as the word Chæron sufficiently implies.

But to lose no time in these grammatical etymologies, which are commonly uncertain guesses, it is agreed that Plutarch was here born; the year uncertain; but without dispute in the reign of Claudius.

Joh. Gerrard Vossius has assigned his birth in the latter end of that Emperor; some other writers of his life have left it undecided whether then, or in the beginning of Nero’s empire; but the most accurate Rualdus (as I find it in the Paris edition of Plutarch’s Works) has manifestly proved him to be born in the middle time of Claudius, or somewhat lower; for Plutarch, in the inscription at Delphos, (of which more hereafter,) remembers, that Ammonius, his master, disputed with him and his brother Lamprias concerning it, when Nero made his progress into Greece, which was in his twelfth year; and the question disputed could not be managed with so much learning as it was, by mere boys; therefore he was then sixteen, or rather eighteen years of age.

Xylander has observed, that Plutarch himself, in the Life of Pericles, and that of Antony, has mentioned both Nero and Domitian as his contemporaries. He has also left it on record in his Symposiacks, that his family was ancient in Chæronea, and that for many descents, they had borne the most considerable offices in that petty commonwealth; the chiefest of which was known by the name of Archon amongst the Grecians, by that of Prætor Urbis among the Romans, and the dignity and power was not much different from that of our lord mayor of London. His great-grandfather, Nicarchus, perhaps enjoyed that office in the division of the empire betwixt Augustus Cæsar and Mark Antony; and when the civil wars ensued betwixt them, Chæronea was so hardly used by Antony’s lieutenant or commissary there, that all the citizens, without exception, were servilely employed to carry on their shoulders a certain proportion of corn from Chæronea to the coast over against the island of Antycira, with the scourge held over them, if at any time they were remiss. Which duty, after once performing, being enjoined the second time with the same severity, just as they were preparing for their journey, the welcome news arrived that Mark Antony had lost the battle of Actium;⁠[5] whereupon both the officers and soldiers belonging to him in Chæronea immediately fled for their own safety; and the provisions, thus collected, were distributed among the inhabitants of the city.

This Nicarchus, the great-grandfather of Plutarch, among other sons, had Lamprias, a man eminent for his learning, and a philosopher, of whom Plutarch has made frequent mention in his Symposiacks, or Table Conversations; and amongst the rest there is this observation of him,—that he disputed best, and unravelled the difficulties of philosophy with most success, when he was at supper, and well warmed with wine. These table entertainments were part of the education of those times, their discourses being commonly the canvassing and solution of some question, either philosophical or philological, always instructive, and usually pleasant; for the cups went round with the debate, and men were merry and wise together, according to the proverb. The father of Plutarch is also mentioned in those discourses, whom our author represents as arguing of several points in philosophy; but his name is no where to be found in any part of the works remaining to us. But yet he speaks of him as a man not ignorant in learning and poetry, as may appear by what he says, when he is introduced disputing in the Symposiacks; where also his prudence and humanity are commended in this following relation: “Being yet very young,” says Plutarch, “I was joined in commission with another in an embassy to the Proconsul, and my colleague, falling sick, was forced to stay behind; so that the whole business was transacted by me alone. At my return, when I was to give account to the commonwealth of my proceedings, my father, rising from his seat, openly enjoined me not to name myself in the singular number,—I did thus, or thus I said to the Proconsul,—but, thus we did, and thus we said, always associating my companion with me, though absent in the management.” This was done to observe, as I suppose, the point of good manners with his colleague; that of respect to the government of the city, who had commissioned both, to avoid envy; and perhaps more especially, to take off the forwardness of a pert young minister, commonly too apt to overvalue his own services, and to quote himself on every inconsiderable occasion.

The father of Plutarch had many children besides him; Timon and Lamprias, his brothers, were bred up with him, all three instructed in the liberal sciences, and in all parts of philosophy. It is manifest from our author, that they lived together in great friendliness, and in great veneration to their grandfather and father. What affection Plutarch bore in particular to his brother Timon, may be gathered from these words of his: “As for myself, though fortune on several occasions has been favourable to me, I have no obligation so great to her as the kindness and entire friendship which my brother Timon has always borne, and still bears me; and this is so evident, that it cannot but be noted by every one of our acquaintance.” Lamprias, the youngest of the three, is introduced by him in his “Morals,” as one of a sweet and pleasant conversation, inclined to mirth and raillery; or, as we say in English, a well-humoured man, and a good companion.

The whole family being thus addicted to philosophy, it is no wonder if our author was initiated betimes in study, to which he was naturally inclined; in pursuit of which he was so happy to fall into good hands at first, being recommended to the care of Ammonius, an Egyptian, who, having taught philosophy with great reputation at Alexandria, and from thence travelling into Greece, settled himself at last in Athens, where he was well received, and generally respected. At the end of Themistocles his life, Plutarch relates, that being young, he was a pensioner in the house of this Ammonius; and in his Symposiacks he brings him in disputing with his scholars, and giving them instruction: for the custom of those times was very much different from these of ours, where the greatest part of our youth is spent in learning the words of dead languages. The Grecians, who thought all barbarians but themselves, despised the use of foreign tongues; so that the first elements of their breeding was the knowledge of nature, and the accommodation of that knowledge, by moral precepts, to the service of the public, and the private offices of virtue: the masters employing one part of their time in reading to, and discoursing with, their scholars, and the rest in appointing them their several exercises either in oratory or philosophy, and setting them to declaim and to dispute amongst themselves. By this liberal sort of education, study was so far from being a burden to them, that in a short time it became a habit; and philosophical questions and criticisms of humanity were their usual recreations at their meals. Boys lived then as the better sort of men do now; and their conversation was so well-bred and manly, that they did not plunge out of their depth into the world, when they grew up, but slid easily into it, and found no alteration in their company. Amongst the rest, the reading and quotations of poets were not forgotten at their suppers, and in their walks; but Homer, Euripides, and Sophocles, were the entertainment of their hours of freedom. Rods and ferulas were not used by Ammonius, as being properly the punishment of slaves, and not the correction of ingenuous freeborn men; at least to be only exercised by parents, who had the power of life and death over their own children; as appears by the example of this Ammonius, thus related by our author:

“Our master,” says he, “one time perceiving, at his afternoon lecture, that some of his scholars had eaten more largely than became the moderation of students, immediately commanded one of his freedmen to take his own son, and scourge him in our sight: because, said the philosopher, my young gentleman could not eat his dinner without poignant sauce, or vinegar; and at the same time he cast his eye on all of us; so that every criminal was given to understand, that he had a share in the reprehension, and that the punishment was as well deserved by all the rest, had the philosopher not known that it exceeded his commission to inflict it.”

Plutarch, therefore, having the assistance of such a master, in few years advanced to admiration in knowledge; and that without first travelling into foreign parts, or acquiring any foreign tongue; though the Roman language at that time was not only vulgar in Rome itself, but generally through the extent of that vast empire, and in Greece, which was a member of it, as our author has remarked towards the end of his Platonic Questions. For, like a true philosopher, who minded things, not words, he strove not even to cultivate his mother tongue with any great exactness; and himself confesses, in the beginning of Demosthenes his life, that during his abode in Italy, and at Rome, he had neither the leisure to study, nor so much as to exercise the Roman language, (I suppose he means to write in it, rather than to speak it,) as well by reason of the affairs he managed, as that he might acquit himself to those who were desirous to be instructed by him in philosophy: insomuch, that till the declination of his age, he began not to be conversant in Latin books; in reading of which it happened somewhat oddly to him, that he learnt not the knowledge of things by words, but by the understanding and use he had of things, attained to the knowledge of words which signified them: just as Adam (setting aside Divine illumination) called the creatures by their proper names, by first understanding of their natures. But for the delicacies of the tongue, the turns of the expressions, the figures and connections of words, in which consist the beauty of that language, he plainly tells us, that though he much admired them, yet they required too great labour for a man in age, and plunged in business, to attain perfectly; which compliment I should be willing to believe from a philosopher, if I did not consider that Dion Cassius, nay even Herodian and Appian after him, as well as Polybius before him, by writing the Roman History in the Greek language, had shewn as manifest a contempt of Latin, in respect of the other, as Frenchmen now do of English, which they disdain to speak while they live among us; but, with great advantage to their trivial conceptions, drawing the discourse into their own language, have learned to despise our better thoughts, which must come deformed and lame in conversation to them, as being transmitted in a tongue of which we are not masters. This is to arrogate a superiority in nature over us, as undoubtedly the Grecians did over their conquerors, by establishing their language for a standard; it being become so much a mode to speak and write Greek in Tully’s time, that with some indignation I have read his Epistles to Atticus, in which he desires to have his own consulship written by his friend in the Grecian language, which he afterwards performed himself; a vain attempt, in my opinion, for any man to endeavour to excel in a tongue which he was not born to speak. This, though it be digression, yet deserves to be considered at more leisure; for the honour of our wit and writings, which are of a more solid make than that of our neighbours, is concerned in it.

But to return to Plutarch. As it was his good fortune to be moulded first by masters the most excellent in their kind, so it was his own virtue to suck in with an incredible desire, and earnest application of mind, their wise instructions; and it was also his prudence so to manage his health by moderation of diet and bodily exercise, as to preserve his parts without decay to a great old age; to be lively and vigorous to the last, and to preserve himself to his own enjoyments, and to the profit of mankind: which was not difficult for him to perform, having received from nature a constitution capable of labour, and from the domestic example of his parents a sparing sobriety of diet, a temperance in other pleasures, and, above all, an habitude of commanding his passions in order to his health. Thus principled and grounded, he considered with himself, that a larger communication with learned men was necessary for his accomplishment; and therefore, having a soul insatiable of knowledge, and being ambitious to excel in all kinds of science, he took up a resolution to travel. Egypt was at that time, as formerly it had been, famous for learning; and probably the mysteriousness of their doctrine might tempt him, as it had done Pythagoras and others, to converse with the priesthood of that country, which appears to have been particularly his business by the treatise of “Isis and Osiris,” which he has left us; in which he shews himself not meanly versed in the ancient theology and philosophy of those wise men. From Egypt returning into Greece, he visited in his way all the academies or schools of the several philosophers, and gathered from them many of those observations with which he has enriched posterity.

Besides this, he applied himself with extreme diligence to collect not only all books which were excellent in their kind, and already published, but also all sayings and discourses of wise men, which he had heard in conversation, or which he had received from others by tradition; as likewise the records and public instruments preserved in cities which he had visited in his travels, and which he afterwards scattered through his works. To which purpose he took a particular journey to Sparta, to search the archives of that famous commonwealth, to understand thoroughly the model of their ancient government, their legislators, their kings, and their Ephori; digesting all their memorable deeds and sayings with so much care, that he has not omitted those even of their women, or their private soldiers; together with their customs, their decrees, their ceremonies, and the manner of their public and private living, both in peace and war. The same methods he also took in divers other commonwealths, as his Lives, and his Greek and Roman Questions, sufficiently testify. Without these helps, it had been impossible for him to leave in writing so many particular observations of men and manners, and as impossible to have gathered them without conversation and commerce with the learned antiquaries of his time. To these he added a curious collection of ancient statues, medals, inscriptions, and paintings, as also of proverbial sayings, epigrams, epitaphs, apophthegms, and other ornaments of history, that he might leave nothing unswept behind him. And as he was continually in company with men of learning, in all professions, so his memory was always on the stretch to receive and lodge their discourses; and his judgment perpetually employed in separating his notions, and distinguishing which were fit to be preserved, and which to be rejected.

By benefit of this, in little time he enlarged his knowledge to a great extent in every science. Himself, in the beginning of the treatise which he has composed of Content and Peace of Mind, makes mention of those collections, or common places, which he had long since drawn together for his own particular occasions; and it is from this rich cabinet that he has taken out those excellent pieces which he has distributed to posterity, and which give us occasion to deplore the loss of the residue, which either the injury of time, or the negligence of copiers, have denied to us. On this account, though we need not doubt to give him this general commendation, that he was ignorant of no sort of learning, yet we may justly add this farther,—that whoever will consider through the whole body of his works, either the design, the method, or the contexture of his discourses, whether historical or moral, or questions of natural philosophy, or solutions of problems mathematical; whether he arraigns the opinions of other sects, or establishes the doctrines of his own; in all these kinds there will be found both the harmony of order, and the beauty of easiness: his reasons so solid and convincing, his inductions so pleasant and agreeable to all sorts of readers, that it must be acknowledged he was master of every subject which he treated, and treated none but what were improvable to the benefit of instruction. For we may perceive in his writings the desire he had to imprint his precepts in the souls of his readers, and to lodge morality in families, nay even to exalt it to the thrones of sovereign princes, and to make it the rule and measure of their government. Finding that there were many sects of philosophers then in vogue, he searched into the foundation of all their principles and opinions; and not content with this disquisition, he traced them to their several fountains; so that the Pythagorean, Epicurean, Stoic, and Peripatetic philosophy, were familiar to him. And though it may be easily observed, that he was chiefly inclined to follow Plato, whose memory he so much reverenced, that annually he celebrated his birth-day, and also that of Socrates; yet he modestly contained himself within the bounds of the latter academy, and was content, like Cicero, only to propound and weigh opinions, leaving the judgment of his readers free, without presuming to decide dogmatically. Yet it is to be confessed, that in the midst of this moderation, he opposed the two extremes of the Epicurean and Stoic sects; both which he has judiciously combated in several of his treatises, and both upon the same account,—because they pretend too much to certainty in their dogmas, and to impose them with too great arrogance; which he, who, following the Academists, doubted more and pretended less, was no way able to support. The Pyrrhonians, or grosser sort of Sceptics, who bring all certainty in question, and startle even at the notions of common sense, appeared as absurd to him on the other side; for there is a kind of positiveness in granting nothing to be more likely on one part than on another, which his Academy avoided by inclining the balance to that hand where the most weighty reasons, and probability of truth, were visible. The moral philosophy, therefore, was his chiefest aim, because the principles of it admitted of less doubt; and because they were most conducing to the benefit of human life. For, after the example of Socrates, he had found, that the speculations of natural philosophy were more delightful than solid and profitable; that they were abstruse and thorny, and much of sophism in the solution of appearances:—that the mathematics, indeed, could reward his pains with many demonstrations, but though they made him wiser, they made him not more virtuous, and therefore attained not the end of happiness: for which reason, though he had far advanced in that study, yet he made it but his recreation, not his business. Some problem of it was his usual divertisement at supper, which he mingled also with pleasant and more light discourses; for he was no sour philosopher, but passed his time as merrily as he could, with reference to virtue. He forgot not to be pleasant while he instructed, and entertained his friends with so much cheerfulness and good humour, that his learning was not nauseous to them; neither were they afraid of his company another time. He was not so austere as to despise riches, but, being in possession of a large fortune, he lived, though not splendidly, yet plentifully; and suffered not his friends to want that part of his estate which he thought superfluous to a philosopher.

The religion he professed, to speak the worst of it, was heathen. I say, the religion he professed; for it is no way probable that so great a philosopher, and so wise a man, should believe the superstitions and fopperies of Paganism; but that he accommodated himself to the use and received customs of his country. He was indeed a priest of Apollo, as himself acknowledges; but that proves him not to have been a Polytheist.

I have ever thought, that the wise men in all ages have not much differed in their opinions of religion; I mean, as it is grounded on human reason: for reason, as far as it is right, must be the same in all men; and truth being but one, they must consequently think in the same train. Thus it is not to be doubted but the religion of Socrates, Plato, and Plutarch, was not different in the main; who doubtless believed the identity of one Supreme Intellectual Being, which we call God. But because they who have written the Life of Plutarch in other languages, are contented barely to assert that our author believed one God, without quoting those passages of his which would clear the point, I will give you two of them, amongst many, in his “Morals.” The first is in his book of the Cessation of Oracles; where arguing against the Stoics, (in behalf of the Platonists,) who disputed against the plurality of worlds with this argument,—“That if there were many worlds, how then could it come to pass that there was one only Fate, and one Providence to guide them all? (for it was granted by the Platonists that there was but one;) and why should not many Jupiters or gods be necessary for government of many worlds?” To this Plutarch answers,—“That this their captious question was but trifling; for where is the necessity of supposing many Jupiters for this plurality of worlds, when one excellent Being, endued with mind and reason, such as he is, whom we acknowledge to be the Father and Lord of all things, is sufficient to direct and rule these worlds; whereas if there were more Supreme Agents, their decrees must still be the more absurd and contradictious to one another.” I pretend not this passage to be translated word for word, but it is the sense of the whole, though the order of the sentence be inverted. The other is more plain; it is in his comment on the word ei, or those two letters inscribed on the gates of the temple at Delphos; where, having given the several opinions concerning it, as first, that ἐι signifies if, because all the questions which were made to Apollo began with If; as suppose they asked,—If the Grecians should overcome the Persians,—If such a marriage should come to pass, &c.; and afterwards, that ἐι might signify thou art; as the second person of the present tense of ἐιμὶ, intimating thereby the being or perpetuity of being belonging to Apollo, as a god (in the same sense that God expressed himself to Moses,—I am hath sent thee;) Plutarch subjoins, (as inclining to this latter opinion,) these following words:—“ἐι ἔν (says he) signifies, thou art one, for there are not many deities, but only one:” Continues, “I mean not one in the aggregate sense, as we say—one army, or one body of men, constituted of many individuals, but that which is, must of necessity be one; and to be, implies to be one. One is that which is a simple being, uncompounded, or free from mixture; therefore, to be one in this sense, is only consistent with a nature pure in itself, and not capable of alteration or decay.”

That he was no Christian, is manifest; yet he is no where found to have spoken with contumely of our religion, like the other writers of his age, and those who succeeded him. Theodoret says of him, “That he had heard of our holy gospel, and inserted many of our sacred mysteries in his works;” which we may easily believe, (because the Christian churches were then spread in Greece, and Pliny the younger was at the same time conversant amongst them in Asia,) though that part of our author’s works is not now extant, from whence Theodoret might gather those passages. But we need not wonder that a philosopher was not easy to embrace the divine mysteries of our faith. A modern God, as our Saviour was to him, was of hard digestion to a man, who probably despised the vanities and fabulous relations of all the old. Besides, a crucified Saviour of mankind; a doctrine attested by illiterate disciples; the author of it a Jew, whose nation at that time was despicable, and his doctrine but an innovation among that despised people, to which the learned of his own country gave no credit, and which the magistrates of his nation punished with an ignominious death; the scene of his miracles acted in an obscure corner of the world; his being from eternity, yet born in time; his resurrection and ascension; these, and many more particulars, might easily choke the faith of a philosopher, who believed no more than what he could deduce from the principles of nature; and that too with a doubtful academical assent, or rather an inclination to assent to probability, which he judged was wanting in this new religion. These circumstances considered, though they plead not an absolute invincible ignorance in his behalf, yet they amount at least to a degree of it: for either he thought them not worth weighing, or rejected them when weighed; and in both cases he must of necessity be ignorant, because he could not know without revelation, and the revelation was not to him.

But leaving the soul of Plutarch, with our charitable wishes, to his Maker, we can only trace the rest of his opinions in religion from his philosophy, which we have said in the general to be Platonic; though it cannot also be denied, that there was a tincture in it of the Electic sect, which was begun by Potamon under the empire of Augustus, and which selected from all the other sects what seemed most probable in their opinions, not adhering singularly to any of them, nor rejecting every thing. I will only touch his belief of spirits. In his two Treatises of Oracles, the one concerning the reason of their cessation, the other, inquiring why they were not given in verse, as in former times, he seems to assert the Pythagorean doctrine of transmigration of souls. We have formerly shewn, that he owned the unity of a Godhead, whom, according to his attributes, he calls by several names; as Jupiter, from his almighty power; Apollo, from his wisdom, and so of the rest; but, under him, he places those beings whom he styles Genii, or Demons, of a middle nature betwixt divine and human: for he thinks it absurd, that there should be no mean betwixt the two extremes of an immortal and a mortal being; that there cannot be in nature so vast a flaw, without some intermedial kind of life, partaking of them both. As, therefore, we find the intercourse betwixt the soul and body to be made by the animal spirits, so, betwixt divinity and humanity, there is this species of demons, who, having first been men, and following the strict rules of virtue, had purged off the grossness and feculency of their earthly being, are exalted into these Genii, and are from thence either raised higher into an ethereal life, if they still continue virtuous, or tumbled down again into mortal bodies, and sinking into flesh, after they have lost that purity which constituted their glorious being. And this sort of Genii are those, who, as our author imagines, presided over oracles; spirits which have so much of their terrestrial principles remaining in them, as to be subject to passions and inclinations; usually beneficent, sometimes malevolent, to mankind, according as they refine themselves, or gather dross, and are declining into mortal bodies. The cessation, or rather the decrease of oracles, (for some of them were still remaining in Plutarch’s time,) he attributes either to the death of those demons, (as appears by the story of the Egyptian Thamus, who was commanded to declare that the great god Pan was dead,) or to their forsaking of those places where they formerly gave out their oracles, from whence they were driven by stronger genii into banishment for a certain revolution of ages. Of this last nature was the war of the giants against the gods; the dispossession of Saturn by Jupiter; the banishment of Apollo from heaven; the fall of Vulcan, and many others; all which, according to our author, were the battles of these Genii, or Demons, amongst themselves. But supposing, as Plutarch evidently does, that these spirits administered, under the Supreme Being, the affairs of men, taking care of the virtuous, punishing the bad, and sometimes communicating with the best, (as particularly the genius of Socrates always warned him of approaching dangers, and taught him to avoid them,) I cannot but wonder, that every one who has hitherto written Plutarch’s life, and particularly Rualdus, the most knowing of them all, should so confidently affirm, that these oracles were given by bad spirits, according to Plutarch. As Christians, indeed, we may think them so; but that Plutarch so thought, it is a most apparent falsehood. It is enough to convince a reasonable man, that our author, in his old age, (and that then he doted not we may see by the Treatise he has written, that old men ought to have the management of public affairs,) I say, that then he initiated himself in the sacred rites of Delphos, and died, for aught we know, Apollo’s priest. Now, it is not to be imagined that he thought the god he served a cacodemon, or, as we call him, a devil. Nothing could be farther from the opinion and practice of this holy philosopher than so gross an impiety. The story of the Pythias, or Priestess of Apollo, which he relates immediately before the ending of that Treatise concerning the Cessation of Oracles, confirms my assertion, rather than shakes it; for it is there delivered, “That going with great reluctation into the sacred place to be inspired, she came out foaming at the mouth, her eyes gogling, her breast heaving, her voice undistinguishable and shrill, as if she had an earthquake within her, labouring for vent; and, in short, that thus tormented with the god, whom she was not able to support, she died distracted in few days after.” For he had said before, “that the divineress ought to have no perturbations of mind, or impure passions, at the time when she was to consult the oracle; and if she had, she was no more fit to be inspired, than an instrument untuned to render an harmonious sound.” And he gives us to suspect, by what he says at the close of this relation, “that this Pythias had not lived chastely for some time before it.” So that her death appears more like a punishment inflicted for loose living by some holy power, than the mere malignancy of a spirit delighted naturally in mischief.—There is another observation, which indeed comes nearer to their purpose, which I will digress so far as to relate, because it somewhat appertains to our own country:—“There are many islands (says he) which lie scattered about Britain, after the manner of our Sporades. They are unpeopled, and some of them are called the Islands of the Heroes, or the Genii. One Demetrius was sent by the emperor [who, by computation of the time, must either be Caligula or Claudius] to discover those parts; and arriving at one of the islands, next adjoining to the fore-mentioned, which was inhabited by some few Britons, (but those held sacred and inviolable by all their countrymen,) immediately after his arrival, the air grew black and troubled, strange apparitions were seen, the winds raised a tempest, and fiery spouts, or whirlwinds, appeared dancing towards the earth. When these prodigies were ceased, the islanders informed him, that some one of the aërial beings, superior to our nature, then ceased to live. For as a taper, while yet burning, affords a pleasant harmless light, but is noisome and offensive when extinguished, so those heroes shine benignly on us, and do us good, but at their death turn all things topsyturvy; raise up tempests, and infect the air with pestilential vapours.” By those holy and inviolable men, there is no question but he means our Druids, who were nearest to the Pythagoreans of any sect; and this opinion of the Genii might probably be one of theirs. Yet it proves not that all demons were thus malicious; only those who were to be condemned hereafter into human bodies, for their misdemeanours in their aërial being.

But it is time to leave a subject so very fanciful, and so little reasonable as this. I am apt to imagine the natural vapours arising in the cave where the temple afterwards was built, might work upon the spirits of those who entered the holy place, (as they did on the shepherd Coretas, who first found it out by accident,) and incline them to enthusiasm and prophetic madness: that, as the strength of those vapours diminished, (which were generally in caverns, as that of Mopsus, of Trophonius, and this of Delphos,) so the inspiration decreased by the same measures; that they happened to be stronger when they killed the Pythias, who being conscious of this, was so unwilling to enter; that the oracles ceased to be given in verse, when poets ceased to be the priests; and that the genius of Socrates (whom he confessed never to have seen, but only to have heard inwardly, and unperceived by others) was no more than the strength of his imagination; or, to speak in the language of a Christian Platonist, his guardian angel.

I pretend not to an exactness of method in this Life, which I am forced to collect by patches from several authors, and therefore without much regard to the connection of times which are so uncertain.

I will, in the next place, speak of his marriage. His wife’s name, her parentage, and dowry, are no where mentioned by him, or any other, nor in what part of his age he married; though it is probable in the flower of it. But Rualdus has ingeniously gathered, from a convincing circumstance, that she was called Timoxena; because Plutarch, in a consolatory letter to her, occasioned by the death of their daughter, in her infancy, uses these words:—“Your Timoxena is deprived, by death, of small enjoyments; for the things she knew were of small moment, and she could be delighted only with trifles.” Now, it appears by the letter, that the name of this daughter was the same with her mother’s; therefore it could be no other than Timoxena. Her knowledge, her conjugal virtues, her abhorrency from the vanities of her sex, and from superstition, her gravity in behaviour, and her constancy in supporting the loss of children, are likewise celebrated by our author. No other wife of Plutarch is found mentioned, and therefore we may conclude he had no more, by the same reason for which we judge that he had no other master than Ammonius; because it is evident he was so grateful in his nature, that he would have preserved their memory.

The number of his children was at least five, so many being mentioned by him. Four of them were sons; of the other sex only Timoxena, who died at two years old, as is manifest from the epistle above mentioned. The French translator, Amiot, from whom our old English translation of the “Lives” was made, supposes him to have had another daughter, where he speaks of his son-in-law, Crato. But the word γαμβρὸς, which Plutarch there uses, is of a larger signification; for it may as well be expounded father-in-law, his wife’s brother, or his sister’s husband, as Budæus notes: this I the rather mention, because the same Amiot is tasked for an infinite number of mistakes by his own countrymen of the present age, which is enough to recommend this translation of our author into the English tongue, being not from any copy, but from the Greek original. Two other sons of Plutarch were already deceased before Timoxena; his eldest, Autobulus, mentioned in his Symposiacks, and another, whose name is not recorded. The youngest was called Charon, who also died in his infancy. The two remaining are supposed to have survived him: the name of one was Plutarch, after his own; and that of the other Lamprias, so called in memory of his grandfather. This was he, of all his children, who seems to have inherited his father’s philosophy; and to him we owe the Table, or Catalogue, of Plutarch’s writings, and perhaps also the Apophthegms. His nephew, but whether by his brother or sister remains uncertain, was Sextus Chæroneus, who was much honoured by that learned emperor, Marcus Aurelius, and who taught him the Greek tongue, and the principles of philosophy. This emperor professing Stoicism, (as appears by his writings,) inclines us to believe, that our Sextus Chæroneus was of the Stoic sect; and consequently, that the world has generally been mistaken in supposing him to have been the same man with Sextus Empiricus, the sceptic, whom Suidas plainly tells us to have been an African. Now, Empiricus could not but be a sceptic, for he opposes all dogmatists, and particularly them. But I heard it first observed by an ingenious and learned old gentleman, lately deceased, that many of Mr Hobbes his seeming new opinions, are gathered from those which Sextus Empiricus exposed. The book is extant, and I refer the curious to it, not pretending to arraign or to excuse him.

Some think the famous critic, Longinus, was of Plutarch’s family, descended from a sister of his; but the proofs are so weak, that I will not insert them: they may both of them rely on their proper merits, and stand not in want of a relation to each other.

It is needless to insist on his behaviour in his family. His love to his wife, his indulgence to his children, his care of their education, are all manifest in that part of his works, which is called his “Morals.” Other parts of his disposition have been touched already; as, that he was courteous and humane to all men, free from inconstancy, anger, and the desire of revenge; which qualities of his, as they have been praised by the authority of other writers, may also be recommended from his own testimony of himself:—“I had rather (says he) be forgotten in the memory of men, and that it should be said, there neither is, nor was, a man called Plutarch, than they should report,—this Plutarch was unconstant, changeable in his temper, prone to anger and revenge on the least occasions.”—What he was to his slaves, you may believe from this; that, in general, he accuses those masters of extreme hardness and injustice, who use men like oxen, sell them in their age when they can drudge no longer. “A man (says he) of a merciful disposition, ought not to retrench the fodder from his cattle, nor the provender from his horses, when they can work no longer, but to cherish them when worn out and old.” Yet Plutarch, though he knew how to moderate his anger, was not, on the contrary, subject to an insensibility of wrongs; not so remiss in exacting duty, or so tame in suffering the disobedience of his servants, that he could not correct, when they deserved it; as is manifest from the following story, which Aulus Gellius had from the mouth of Taurus the philosopher, concerning him: “Plutarch had a certain slave, a saucy, stubborn, kind of fellow; in a word, one of those pragmatical servants, who never make a fault, but they give a reason for it. His justifications one time would not serve his turn, but his master commanded him to be stripped, and that the law should be laid on his backside. He no sooner felt the smart, but he muttered that he was unjustly punished, and that he had done nothing to deserve the scourge. At last he began to bawl out louder; and leaving off his groaning, his sighs, and his lamentations, to argue the matter with more shew of reason; and, as under such a master he musts needs have gained a smattering of learning, he cried out, that Plutarch was not the philosopher he pretended himself to be; that he had heard him waging war against all the passions, and maintaining, that anger was unbecoming a wise man; nay, that he had written a particular treatise in commendation of clemency: that therefore he contradicted his precepts by his practices, since, abandoning himself over to his choler, he exercised such inhuman cruelty on the body of his fellow-creature. “How is this, Mr Varlet, (answered Plutarch,) by what signs and tokens can you prove I am in passion? Is it by my countenance, my voice, the colour of my face, by my words, or by my gestures, that you have discovered this my fury? I am not of opinion that my eyes sparkle, that I foam at mouth, that I gnash my teeth, or that my voice is more vehement, or that my colour is either more pale or more red than at other times; that I either shake or stamp with madness; that I say or do any thing unbecoming a philosopher. These, if you know them not, are the symptoms of a man in rage. In the mean, (turning to the officer who scourged him,) while he and I dispute this matter, mind you your business on his back.”

His love to his friends, and his gratitude to his benefactors, are every where observable in his dedications of his several works; and the particular treatises he has written to them on several occasions, are all suitable either to the characters of the men, or to their present condition, and the circumstances under which they were. His love to his country is from hence conspicuous, that he professes to have written the life of Lucullus, and to have preserved the memory of his actions, because of the favours he conferred on the city of Chæronea; which, though his country received so long before, yet he thought it appertained to him to repay them, and took an interest in their acknowledgment: as also, that he vindicated the Bæotians from the calumnies of Herodotus, the historian, in his book concerning the malignity of that author. In which it is observable, that his zeal to his country transported him too far; for Herodotus had said no more of them than what was generally held to be true in all ages, concerning the grossness of their wits, their voracity, and those other national vices which we have already noted on this account; therefore, Petrarch has accused our author of the same malignity for which he taxed Herodotus. But they may both stand acquitted on different accounts: Herodotus for having given a true character of the Thebans, and Plutarch for endeavouring to palliate the vices of a people from whom he was descended. The rest of his manners, without entering into particulars, were unblameable, if we excuse a little proneness to superstition, and regulating his actions by his dreams. But how far this will bear an accusation, I determine not; though Tully has endeavoured to shew the vanity of dreams in his “Treatise of Divinations,” whither I refer the curious.

On what occasion he repaired to Rome, at what time of his age he came thither, how long he dwelt there, how often he was there, and in what year he returned to his own country, are all uncertain. This we know, that when Nero was in Greece, which was in his eleventh and twelfth years, our author was at Delphos, under Ammonius, his master, as appears by the disputation then managed, concerning the inscription of the two letters, e, i. Nero not living long afterwards, it is almost indisputable that he came not to Rome in all his reign. It is improbable that he would undertake the voyage during the troublesome times of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius: and we are not certain that he lived in Rome in the empire of Vespasian. Yet we may guess, that the mildness of this emperor’s dominion, his fame, and the virtues of his son Titus, assumed into the empire afterwards by his father, might induce Plutarch, amongst other considerations, to take this journey in his time. It is argued from the following story, related by himself, that he was at Rome either in the joint reign of the two Vespasians, or at least in that of the survivor Titus. He says, then, in his last book concerning Curiosity,—“Reasoning, or rather reading once at Rome, Arulenus Rusticus, the same man whom afterwards Domitian put to death out of envy to his glory, stood hearkening to me amongst my auditors. It so happened, that a soldier, having letters for him from the emperor, [who was either Titus or his father Vespasian, as Rualdus thinks,] broke through the crowd, to deliver him those letters from the emperor. Observing this, I made a pause in my dissertation, that Rusticus might have the leisure to read the mandate which was sent him; but he absolutely refused to do it, neither would he be entreated to break the seals, till I had wholly made an end of my speech, and dismissed the company.” Now I suppose the stress of the argument, to prove that this emperor was not Domitian, lies only in this clause, “whom Domitian afterwards put to death;” but I think it rather leaves it doubtful; for they might be Domitian’s letters which he then received, and consequently he might not come to Rome till the reign of that emperor. This Rusticus was not only a learned, but a good man. He had been tribune of the people under Nero, was prætor in the time of Vitellius, and sent ambassador to the forces raised under the name of Vespasian, to persuade them to a peace. What offices he bore afterwards, we know not; but the cause of his death, besides the envy of Domitian to his fame, was, a certain book, or some Commentaries of his, wherein he had praised too much the sanctity of Thrasea Pætus, whom Nero had murdered; and the praise of a good citizen was insupportable to the tyrant; being, I suppose, exasperated farther by some reflections of Rusticus, who could not commend Thrasea, but at the same time he must inveigh against the oppressor of the Roman liberty.

That Plutarch was married in his own country, and that before he came to Rome, is probable. That the fame of him was come before him, by reason of some part of his works already published, is also credible, because he had so great resort of the Roman nobility to hear him read immediately, as we believe, upon his coming: that he was invited thither by the correspondence he had with Sossius Senecio, might be one reason of his undertaking that journey, is almost undeniable.⁠[6] It likewise appears he was divers times at Rome; and perhaps, before he came to inhabit there, might make acquaintance with this worthy man, Senecio, to whom he dedicated almost all these Lives of Greeks and Romans. I say almost all, because one of them, namely, that of Aratus, is inscribed in most express words to Polycrates, the Sicyonian, the great grandson of the said Aratus. This worthy patron and friend of Plutarch, Senecio, was four time consul; the first time in the short reign of Cocceius Nerva, a virtuous and a learned emperor; which opinion I rather follow than that of Aurelius Cassiodorus, who puts back his consulship into the last of Domitian, because it is not probable that vicious tyrant should exalt to that dignity a man of virtue. This year falls in with the year of Christ, ninety-nine.

But the great inducement of our author to this journey was certainly the desire he had to lay in materials for his Roman Lives: that was the design which he had formed early, and on which he had resolved to build his fame. Accordingly, we have observed, that he had travelled over Greece, to peruse the archives of every city, that he might be able to write properly not only the lives of his Grecian worthies, but the laws, the customs, the rites, and ceremonies of every place; which that he might treat with the same mastery of skill, when he came to draw his parallels of the Romans, he took the invitation of his friends, and particularly of our Sossius Senecio, to visit this mistress of the world, this imperial city of Rome; and, by the favour of many great and learned men then living, to search the records of the capitol, and the libraries, which might furnish him with instruments for so noble an undertaking. But that this may not seem to be my own bare opinion, or that of any modern author whom I follow, Plutarch himself has delivered it as his motive, in the Life of Demosthenes. The words are these: “Whosoever designs to write an history, (which it is impossible to form to any excellency from those materials that are ready at hand, or to take from common report, while he sits lazily at home in his own study, but must of necessity be gathered from foreign observations, and the scattered writings of various authors,) it concerns him to take up his habitation in some renowned and populous city, where he may command all sorts of books, and be acquainted also with such particulars as have escaped the pens of writers, and are only extant in the memories of men. Let him enquire diligently, and weigh judiciously, what he hears and reads, lest he publish a lame work, and be destitute of those helps which are required to its perfection.” It is then most probable, that he passed his days at Rome in reading philosophy of all kinds to the Roman nobility, who frequented his house, and heard him as if there were somewhat more than human in his words; and his nights, which were his only hours of private study, in searching and examining records concerning Rome. Not but that he was entrusted also with the management of public affairs in the empire, during his residence in the metropolis; which may be made out by what Suidas relates of him:—“Plutarch,” says he, “lived in the time of Trajan, and also before his reign. That emperor bestowed on him the dignity of consul; [though the Greek, I suppose, will bear, that he made him consul with himself, at least transferred that honour on him:] an edict was also made in favour of him, that the magistrates or officers of Illyria should do nothing in that province without the knowledge and approbation of Plutarch.” Now it is my particular guess, (for I have not read it any where,) that Plutarch had the affairs of Illyria, now called Sclavonia, recommended to him, because Trajan, we know, had wars on that side the empire with Decebalus, king of Dacia; after whose defeat and death, the province of Illyria might stand in need of Plutarch’s wisdom to compose and civilize it. But this is only hinted as what possibly might be the reason of our philosopher’s superintendency in those quarters, which the French author of his life seems to wonder at, as having no relation either to Chæronea or Greece.

When he was first made known to Trajan, is like the rest uncertain; or by what means, whether by Senecio, or any other, he was introduced to his acquaintance; but it is most likely that Trajan, then a private man, was one of his auditors, amongst others of the nobility of Rome. It is also thought, this wise emperor made use of him in all his councils; and that the happiness which attended him in his undertakings, together with the administration of the government, which in all his reign was just and regular, proceeded from the instructions which were given him by Plutarch. Johannes Sarisberiensis, who lived above six hundred years ago, has transcribed a letter, written, as he supposed, by our author to that emperor. Whence he had it, is not known, nor the original in Greek to be produced; but it passed for genuine in that age, and if not Plutarch’s, is at least worthy of him, and what might well be supposed a man of his character would write; for which reason I have here translated it.

PLUTARCH TO TRAJAN.

“I am satisfied that your modesty sought not the empire, which yet you have always studied to deserve by the excellency of your manners; and by so much the more are you esteemed worthy of this honour, by how much you are free from the ambition of desiring it. I therefore congratulate both your virtue and my own good fortune, if at least your future government shall prove answerable to your former merit; otherwise you have involved yourself in dangers, and I shall infallibly be subject to the censures of detracting tongues; because Rome will never support an emperor unworthy of her, and the faults of the scholar will be upbraided to the master. Thus Seneca is reproached, and his fame still suffers, for the vices of Nero. The miscarriages of Quintilian’s scholars have been thrown on him; and even Socrates himself is not free from the imputation of remissness on the account of his pupil, Alcibiades. But you will certainly administer all things as becomes you, if you still continue what you are; if you recede not from yourself, if you begin at home, and lay the foundation of government on the command of your own passions; if you make virtue the scope of all your actions, they will all proceed in harmony and order. I have set before you the force of laws and civil constitutions of your predecessors, which if you imitate and obey, Plutarch is then your guide of living; if otherwise, let this present letter be my testimony against you, that you shall not ruin the Roman empire under the pretence of the counsel and authority of Plutarch.”⁠[7]

It may be conjectured, and with some show of probability, from hence, that our author not only collected his materials, but also made a rough draft of many of these parallel Lives at Rome; and that he read them to Trajan for his instruction in government; and so much the rather I believe it, because all historians agree that this emperor, though naturally prudent and inclined to virtue, had more of the soldier than the scholar in his education, before he had the happiness to know Plutarch; for which reason the Roman Lives, and the inspection into ancient laws, might be of necessary use to his direction.

And now for the time of our author’s abode in the imperial city: if he came so early as Vespasian, and departed not till Trajan’s death, as is generally thought, he might continue in Italy near forty years. This is more certain, because gathered from himself,—that his Lives were almost the latest of his works; and therefore we may well conclude, that having modelled, but not finished them at Rome, he afterwards resumed the work in his own country; which perfecting in his old age, he dedicated to his friend Senecio still living, as appears by what he has written in the proem to his Lives.

The desire of visiting his own country, so natural to all men, and the approaches of old age, (for he could not be much less than sixty,) and perhaps also the death of Trajan, prevailed with him at last to leave Italy; or, if you will have it in his own words, “he was not willing his little city should be one the less by his absence.” After his return, he was, by the unanimous consent of his citizens, chosen Archon, or chief magistrate of Chæronea, and not long after admitted himself in the number of Apollo’s priests; in both which employments he seems to have continued till his death, of which we have no particular account, either as to the manner of it, or the year; only it is evident that he lived to a great old age,⁠[8] always continuing his studies. That he died a natural death, is only presumed, because any violent accident to so famous a man would have been recorded; and in whatsoever reign he deceased, the days of tyranny were overpassed, and there was then a golden series of emperors, every one emulating his predecessor’s virtues.

Thus I have collected from Plutarch himself, and from the best authors, what was most remarkable concerning him; in performing which, I have laboured under so many uncertainties, that I have not been able to satisfy my own curiosity, any more than that of others. It is the life of a philosopher, not varied with accidents to divert the reader; more pleasant for himself to live, than for an historian to describe. Those works of his, which are irrecoverably lost, are named in the catalogue made by his son, Lamprias, which you will find in the Paris edition, dedicated to King Louis the Thirteenth. But it is a small comfort to a merchant to peruse his bill of freight, when he is certain his ship is cast away; moved by the like reason, I have omitted that ungrateful task. Yet that the reader may not be imposed on in those which yet remain, it is but reasonable to let him know, that the Lives of Hannibal and Scipio, though they pass with the ignorant for genuine, are only the forgery of Donato Acciaiolo, a Florentine. He pretends to have translated them from a Greek manuscript, which none of the learned have ever seen, either before or since. But the cheat is more manifest from this reason, which is undeniable; that Plutarch did indeed write the Life of Scipio; but he compared him not with Hannibal, but with Epaminondas; as appears by the catalogue or nomenclature of Plutarch’s Lives, drawn up by his son Lamprias, and yet extant. But to make this out more clearly, we find the Florentine, in his Life of Hannibal, thus relating the famous conference betwixt Scipio and him:—“Scipio at that time being sent ambassador from the Romans to King Antiochus, with Publius Villius, it happened then that these two great captains met together at Ephesus; and amongst other discourse, it was demanded of Hannibal by Scipio,—whom he thought to have been the greatest captain? To whom he thus answered—In the first place, Alexander of Macedon; in the second, Pyrrhus of Epyrus; and in the third, himself. To which Scipio, smiling, thus replied:—And what would you have thought, had it been your fortune to have vanquished me? To whom Hannibal:—I should then have adjudged the first place to myself. Which answer was not a little pleasing to Scipio, because by it he found himself not disesteemed, nor put into comparison with the rest; but by the delicacy and gallantry of a well-turned compliment, set like a man divine above them all.”

Now this relation is a mere compendium of the same conference, from Livy; but if we can conceive Plutarch to have written the Life of Hannibal, it is hard to believe that he should tell the same story after so different, or rather so contrary a manner, in another place. For, in the Life of Pyrrhus, he thus writes:—“Hannibal adjudged the pre-eminence to Pyrrhus above all captains, in conduct, and military skill; next to Pyrrhus he placed Scipio; and after Scipio, himself; as we have declared in the Life of Scipio.” It is not that I would excuse Plutarch, as if he never related the same thing diversly; for it is evident, that, through want of advertency, he has been often guilty of that error, of which the reader will find too frequent examples in these Lives; but in this place he cannot be charged with want of memory or care, because what he says here is relating to what he had said formerly; so that he may mistake the story, as I believe he has done, (that other of Livy being much more probable,) but we must allow him to remember what he had before written.

From hence I might take occasion to note some other lapses of our author, which yet amount not to falsification of truth, much less to partiality, or envy, (both which are manifest in his countryman Dion Cassius, who writ not long after him,) but are only the frailties of human nature; mistakes not intentional, but accidental. He was not altogether so well versed either in the Roman language, or in their coins, or in the value of them; in some customs, rites, and ceremonies, he took passages on trust from others, relating both to them and the barbarians, which the reader may particularly find recited in the animadversions of the often-praised Rualdus on our author. I will name but one, to avoid tediousness, because I particularly observed it, when I read Plutarch in the library of Trinity College, in Cambridge, to which foundation I gratefully acknowledge a great part of my education. It is, that Plutarch, in the life of Cicero, speaking of Verres, who was accused by him, and repeating a miserable jest of Tully’s, says that Verres, in the Roman language, signifies a barrow-pig, that is, one which has been gelded. But we have a better account of the signification from Varro, whom we have more reason to believe; that the male of that kind, before he is cut, is called Verres; after cutting, Majalis, which is perhaps a diminutive of Mas, though generally the reason of the etymology is given from its being a sacrifice to the goddess Maja. Yet any man, who will candidly weigh this and the like errors, may excuse Plutarch, as he would a stranger mistaking the propriety of an English word; and besides the humanity of this excuse, it is impossible in nature, that a man of so various learning, and so covetous of engrossing all, should perfectly digest such an infinity of notions in many sciences; since to be excellent in one is so great a labour.

It may now be expected, that, having written the life of an historian, I should take occasion to write somewhat concerning history itself: but I think to commend it is unnecessary, for the profit and pleasure of that study are both so very obvious, that a quick reader will be beforehand with me, and imagine faster than I can write. Besides that the post is taken up already; and few authors have travelled this way, but who have strewed it with rhetoric as they passed. For my own part, who must confess it to my shame, that I never read any thing but for pleasure, it has always been the most delightful entertainment of my life; but they who have employed the study of it as they ought, for their instruction, for the regulation of their private manners, and the management of public affairs, must agree with me, that it is the most pleasant school of wisdom. It is a familiarity with past ages, and an acquaintance with all the heroes of them; it is, if you will pardon the similitude, a prospective glass carrying your soul to a vast distance, and taking in the farthest objects of antiquity. It informs the understanding by the memory; it helps us to judge of what will happen, by shewing us the like revolutions of former times. For mankind being the same in all ages, agitated by the same passions, and moved to action by the same interests, nothing can come to pass, but some precedent of the like nature has already been produced; so that having the causes before our eyes, we cannot easily be deceived in the effects, if we have judgment enough but to draw the parallel.

God, it is true, with his divine providence overrules and guides all actions to the secret end he has ordained them; but in the way of human causes, a wise man may easily discern that there is a natural connection betwixt them; and though he cannot foresee accidents, or all things that possibly can come, he may apply examples, and by them foretell, that from the like counsels will probably succeed the like events; and thereby in all concernments, and all offices of life, be instructed in the two main points on which depend our happiness; that is, what to avoid, and what to choose.

The laws of history, in general, are truth of matter, method, and clearness of expression. The first propriety is necessary, to keep our understanding from the impositions of falsehood; for history is an argument framed from many particular examples or inductions; if these examples are not true, then those measures of life which we take from them will be false, and deceive us in their consequence. The second is grounded on the former; for if the method be confused, if the words or expressions of thought are any way obscure, then the ideas which we receive must be imperfect; and if such, we are not taught by them what to elect or what to shun. Truth, therefore, is required as the foundation of history, to inform us; disposition and perspicuity, as the manner to inform us plainly; one is the being, the other the well-being of it.

History is principally divided into these three species; Commentaries, or Annals; History, properly so called; and Biographia, or the Lives of particular men.

Commentaries, or Annals, are (as I may so call them,) naked history, or the plain relation of matter of fact, according to the succession of time, devested of all other ornaments. The springs and motives of actions are not here sought, unless they offer themselves, and are open to every man’s discernment. The method is the most natural that can be imagined, depending only on the observation of months and years, and drawing, in the order of them, whatsoever happened worthy of relation. The style is easy, simple, unforced, and unadorned with the pomp of figures; councils, guesses, politic observations, sentences, and orations, are avoided; in few words, a bare narration is its business. Of this kind the “Commentaries of Cæsar” are certainly the most admirable, and after him the “Annals of Tacitus” may have place; nay, even the prince of Greek historians, Thucydides, may almost be adopted into the number. For, though he instructs every where by sentences, though he gives the causes of actions, the councils of both parties, and makes orations where they are necessary, yet it is certain that he first designed his work a Commentary; every year writing down, like an unconcerned spectator as he was, the particular occurrences of the time, in the order as they happened; and his eighth book is wholly written after the way of Annals; though, outliving the war, he inserted in his others those ornaments which render his work the most complete and most instructive now extant.