not have been written at Rome. The same has just been proved of the treatise on Curiosity. And all the evidence we have on the subject goes to show, that, though Plutarch doubtless collected many of his materials in connexion with his lectures and travels in Italy, his Moral Essays, as well as his historical works, were chiefly the productions of his maturer years, after his retirement from the imperial city to the humble town that gave him birth.

If we endeavour to follow our philosopher into this tranquil retreat, and to trace, as we would fain do in connexion with the public history of every great man, the under-current of his private and his intellectual life, we shall find but few helps in the effort-but few data on which we may calculate any very valuable result. We have no auto-biography, such as, Tacitus informs us, many distinguished men of his own and former times dared to write, though few such have come down to us-no familiar letter of a nephew or intimate friend, like that in which the younger Pliny describes in minute detail the private life and studies of his uncle-no monument of filial affection, such as the grateful and pious Tacitus reared to the memory of his father-in-law, Agricola-no domestic portraiture, or personal sketch, or incidental allusion even, by any of his numerous contemporaries; for in those days, when there was no press to multiply copies of books at a trifling expense, and no steam-travel to bring together distant provinces, writers in general knew comparatively little of each other, and a Greek philosopher, writing in an obscure town of Boeotia, was little likely to be visited or even named by authors who for the most part basked in the sunshine of the imperial court, or at least breathed the air of the metropolis. We must therefore rest satisfied with such glimpses of his private life as are reflected here and there from his own works.

The cares of office do not seem to have worn upon him, nor the concerns of business to have consumed much of his time or strength. Placed above the pressure of want by the wealth of his family, his house was the abode of plenty, but not of extravagance. He was temperate in his diet,-almost a Pythagorean in abstinence from animal food. Yet he was no gloomy ascetic, still less an anchorite either of literature or religion. He enjoyed the good creatures of God with thankfulness, and delighted in all the sweet charities of domestic and social life. Impelled by no necessity, he studied and wrote only when and as he chose, and gave the result to the world because he felt that the world needed it, would be benefited by it, and would not soon let it die. At the same time, his voluminous works, greatly reduced in number by the lapse of time, but still second to those of no Greek author in compass or variety, and richly fraught with learning and re

*

flection, indicate, not a painfully laborious, but an eminently studious and industrious life. When the labours of each day were ended,for we doubt not his studies were daily and systematic,-he found rest and recreation in the bosom of an affectionate and happy family, for whom he cherished the most tender regard, and who seem to have been worthy of his devoted love. His wife, Timoxena, was a native of Charonea. At what time he married her, whether before or after his visit to Rome, does not appear. Six children, four sons and two daughters, were the fruit and the ornament of this marriage. Three of them, however, died before their parents,-first two of the sons, then the favourite daughter, who bore her mother's name and died in infancy. This affliction drew from the father a consolation addressed to the mother, which reflects equal honour upon both, and reveals in beautiful unison two hearts of true parental tenderness, penetrated with the sincerest grief, yet calmed by the maxims of a sound philosophy, and even animated with the hopes of a trustful piety. Of the other daughter we know not even the name. We only know that Plutarch had a son-in-law, Patrocleas, who is mentioned in the Symposiaca, (Lib. vii, Quæst. 2,) and appears as one of the speakers in the Dialogue, De Sera Numinis Vindicta.† Three out of four of the characters, in this most pure and elevated of all Plutarch's moral essays, are members of his own family, while he himself is the chief speaker. We cannot but see, or think we see, in this beautiful dialogue, if not an exact picture of discussions that had actually been held in that domestic circle, yet a true symbol of the mutual relations of its members to each other, and of the deep interest with which they studied some of the most vital and profound questions that have ever engaged the thoughts of men. In all the various relations which he sustained to his family and kindred, towards his grandfather and great-grandfather, as a son and a brother, as a husband and a father, Plutarch appears in the most amiable and attractive light. His affections were not dried up in the study, nor drawn off into the cold regions of the intellect, nor sublimated into airy abstractions, nor diffused into vague and empty generalities. He loved study, but he loved his family more. His philanthropic spirit was alive to the weal or wo of all mankind. Nay, his benevolent heart beat in lively sympathy with every living thing. "We certainly ought not," he says, in stern rebuke of the elder Cato's stoical indifference to the happiness of his servants and beasts of burden; "we certainly ought not to treat living creatures like

* Only one daughter, and five children in all, are usually ascribed to Plutarch. But this leaves out of account the son-in-law mentioned in the text.

t See Hackett's Plutarch, p. 60.

shoes or household goods, which, when worn out with use, we throw away; and were it only to learn benevolence to human kind, we should be merciful to other creatures. For my own part, I would not sell even an old ox that had laboured for me,-much less would I cast off a man grown old in my service." Yet, to show that this is not mere sickly sentimentalism, but the instinctive kindness of an affectionate heart, he concentrated upon his family circle a love which was as much more tender and fervent than this general benevolence, as they were more nearly related to him.

Before we take leave of Plutarch's private life, and proceed to view him in his relation to the times and to men and things around him, it may be well to glance at some of his leading characteristics as a writer, reserving, however, for some future occasion, as we have already intimated, a more particular examination of his works, in the state in which they have come down to us. Nothing further need be premised here, than the well-known fact that his writings are partly historical, and partly moral and philosophical. It is chiefly to the former, and especially to his Parallel Lives, that he owes his celebrity. Yet some of the Moralia are not less worthy of general acquaintance and admiration. Indeed, we think Plutarch is never so able, never so eloquent, never so much himself, as when he discourses on some high moral theme; and it is the moral element that gives to his Parallel Lives much of their peculiar power.

Heavy charges have been laid upon Plutarch as an historian. And he is certainly open to criticism, when tried by the established canons of historical composition. He is deficient in method. He follows neither the chronological nor the geographical arrangement. His narratives are anecdotical rather than historical. Like a storyteller, he rambles on from incident to incident, as one happens to suggest another, or as they are linked together in the mind of the writer by some law of moral association, or as they serve to illustrate some common trait of character in the subject. There is a want of definiteness, sometimes of accuracy, in his detail of dates and places, though he abounds in the enumeration of particulars, and excels in the selection of such incidents as suit his purpose. He does not always sift his authorities with sufficient care, approaching in this respect more nearly to the credulity of Herodotus, than to the discrimination of Thucydides. But he is not so faulty in this respect as he is often represented to be. He is careful to consult all the books within his reach; and very often specifies the authority on which he relies, and how much or how little he relies on it. When he depends on the testimony of a living witness, he is still more particular to name him, and to state whether or not he was an eye

witness. If tradition is his only voucher for a fact, he is usually frank and explicit in saying so. In writing the life of a Theseus and a Romulus, he is far indeed from resolving it all (like the recent Niebuhr school of historians) into a myth, or an eponym, that never had any historical existence; but, on the other hand, he is as far from receiving it all as a real verity. In short, he is not more credulous of legendary tales than other writers and scholars of his country; and he furnishes the reader the means of verifying his narrative to as ample an extent as Herodotus or Livy. He is said to quote two hundred and fifty writers in his Parallel Lives, of whom about eighty are writers whose works are entirely or partially lost.* A small critic, who is wholly intent on the minute accuracies of name and date, and time and place, can detect some mistakes. This is especially true of his Roman Lives, but not more true of Plutarch than of most historians or biographers who write of the men or the institutions of foreign countries. Plutarch was, indeed, under the peculiar disadvantage of not understanding very well the Latin language, which, he tells us,† he had not time to learn when he was at Rome, and of which he seems never to have acquired a perfect mastery. Yet he often refers to Latin books for authority; he also used the Greek writers on Roman history; and so far from acknowledging ignorance of Roman affairs, he says that the knowledge of Roman things, which he gained by observation and through his vernacular tongue, had aided him in acquiring the Latin language. And it is preciselyhere-in his Roman Lives-that Professor Long, with justice we think, finds the most convincing evidence of his substantial truthfulness. We quote a few lines from his Article on Plutarch in Smith's Dictionary of Biography; for no English or American scholar of our day has probably paid so much attention to Plutarch's Lives:-"On the whole, his Roman Lives do not often convey erroneous notions; if the detail is incorrect, the general impression is true. They may be read with profit by those who seek to know something of Roman affairs; and probably contain as few mistakes as most biographies which have been written by a man who is not a countryman of those whose lives he writes."

Plutarch has been accused of partiality for his countrymen. It has even been alleged that the chief motive of his Parallel Lives was a lurking and morbid desire to avenge the conquered Greeks on the conquering Romans, by showing that the time was when Greece had her great men too, and even greater than those of Rome. For ourselves, we think he may well plead not guilty to this indictment, and * Smith's Biographical Dictionary, art. Plutarchus.

† Life of Demosthenes.

an impartial verdict will pronounce his full acquittal. We have reviewed several of his biographies, with particular reference to this question; and we cannot see wherein he has not done as ample justice to the Catos, as to Aristides and Phocion; to Pompey, as to Agesilaus; to Cicero, as to Demosthenes. Nay, in this last parallel, if he has shown partiality, it is to the Roman author; if he has done injustice, it is to the lofty patriotism, the commanding genius, and the transcendent eloquence of his countryman. Plutarch does not seem to have appreciated the character or the genius of Julius Cæsar. He is more smitten with the dazzling qualities and the brilliant achievements of the young Grecian conqueror. But we discover no trace of national prejudice;-he writes here, as everywhere, like an honest, truthful, earnest man. If he is biased, it is by republican sympathies, which are more fully awakened against. the usurper and the more recent destroyer of the liberties of mankind. In neither of these, nor indeed in his other Lives, is there anything to suggest the thought that he is writing the biography of a countryman or a foreigner, still less that he cherishes a morbid thirst for vengeance on the oppressors of his race.

Plutarch loves to tell a good story. Sometimes, perhaps, he scrutinizes more narrowly the fitness of an incident to the character he would draw, or the impression he would make, than the intrinsic dignity it wears, or the historical evidence on which it rests. But what modern historian shall throw the first stone at Plutarch for this sin? Plutarch's Lives may well be called the prototype of the historical reviews of our day; and the Alisons and Macaulays, all the most attractive and popular historians of the nineteenth century, write, like Plutarch in the first century, with a constant eye to impression and picturesque effect; draw striking characters, relate entertaining anecdotes, and sacrifice the dignified repose of the ancient history to the more varied and stirring scenes of a collection of biographies. Plutarch was fully conscious of this characteristic, and did not aspire or profess to rank with the classic historians:-"We are not writing histories," he says, "but lives. Neither is it always in the most distinguished exploits that men's virtues or vices may be best discerned; frequently some unimportant action, some short saying or jest, distinguishes a person's real character more than fields of carnage, the greatest battles, and the most important sieges. As painters, therefore, in their portraits, labour the likeness in the face, particularly about the eyes, in which the peculiar turn of mind most appears; so must we be permitted to strike off the features of the soul, in order to give a real likeness of these great men, and leave

*Life of Alexander.