Chapter II: Part 2

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.

History, properly so called, may be described by the addition of those parts which are not required to Annals; and therefore there is little farther to be said concerning it; only, that the dignity and gravity of style is here necessary. That the guesses of secret causes inducing to the actions, be drawn at least from the most probable circumstances, not perverted by the malignity of the author to sinister interpretations, (of which Tacitus is accused,) but candidly laid down, and left to the judgment of the reader: That nothing of concernment be omitted; but things of trivial moment are still to be neglected, as debasing the majesty of the work: That neither partiality or prejudice appear, but that truth may every where be sacred: _Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat historicus_: That he neither incline to superstition, in giving too much credit to oracles, prophecies, divinations, and prodigies, nor to irreligion, in disclaiming the Almighty Providence; but where general opinion has prevailed of any miraculous accident or portent, he ought to relate it as such, without imposing his opinion on our belief. Next to Thucydides, in this kind, may be accounted Polybius, amongst the Grecians; Livy, though not free from superstition, nor Tacitus from ill-nature, amongst the Romans; amongst the modern Italians, Guicciardini, and Davila, if not partial; but above all men, in my opinion, the plain, sincere, unaffected, and most instructive Philip de Comines, amongst the French, though he only gives his History the humble name of Commentaries. I am sorry I cannot find in our own nation, though it has produced some commendable historians, any proper to be ranked with these. Buchanan, indeed, for the purity of his Latin, and for his learning, and for all other endowments belonging to an historian, might be placed amongst the greatest, if he had not too much leaned to prejudice, and too manifestly declared himself a party of a cause, rather than an historian of it. Excepting only that, (which I desire not to urge too far on so great a man, but only to give caution to his readers concerning it,) our isle may justly boast in him a writer comparable to any of the moderns, and excelled by few of the ancients.

Biographia, or the history of particular men’s lives, comes next to be considered; which in dignity is inferior to the other two, as being more confined in action, and treating of wars and counsels, and all other public affairs of nations, only as they relate to him whose life is written, or as his fortunes have a particular dependance on them, or connection to them. All things here are circumscribed, and driven to a point, so as to terminate in one; consequently, if the action or counsel were managed by colleagues, some part of it must be either lame or wanting, except it be supplied by the excursion of the writer. Herein, likewise, must be less of variety, for the same reason; because the fortunes and actions of one man are related, not those of many. Thus the actions and achievements of Sylla, Lucullus, and Pompey, are all of them but the successive parts of the Mithridatic war; of which we could have no perfect image, if the same hand had not given us the whole, though at several views, in their particular lives.

Yet though we allow, for the reasons above alleged, that this kind of writing is in dignity inferior to History and Annals, in pleasure and instruction it equals, or even excels, both of them. It is not only commended by ancient practice to celebrate the memory of great and worthy men, as the best thanks which posterity can pay them, but also the examples of virtue are of more vigour, when they are thus contracted into individuals. As the sunbeams, united in a burning-glass to a point, have greater force than when they are darted from a plain superficies, so the virtues and actions of one man, drawn together into a single story, strike upon our minds a stronger and more lively impression, than the scattered relations of many men, and many actions; and, by the same means that they give us pleasure, they afford us profit too. For when the understanding is intent and fixed on a single thing, it carries closer to the mark; every part of the object sinks into it; and, the soul receives it unmixed and whole. For this reason Aristotle commends the unity of action in a poem; because the mind is not capable of digesting many things at once, nor of conceiving fully any more than one idea at a time. Whatsoever distracts the pleasure, lessens it; and as the reader is more concerned at one man’s fortune than those of many, so likewise the writer is more capable of making a perfect work if he confine himself to this narrow compass. The lineaments, features, and colourings of a single picture may be hit exactly; but in a history-piece of many figures, the general design, the ordonnance or disposition of it, the relation of one figure to another, the diversity of the posture, habits, shadowings, and all the other graces conspiring to an uniformity, are of so difficult performance, that neither is the resemblance of particular persons often perfect, nor the beauty of the piece complete; for any considerable error in the parts renders the whole disagreeable and lame. Thus then, the perfection of the work, and the benefit arising from it, are both more absolute in biography than in history. All history is only the precepts of moral philosophy reduced into examples. Moral philosophy is divided into two parts, ethics and politics; the first instructs us in our private offices of virtue, the second in those which relate to the management of the commonwealth. Both of these teach by argumentation and reasoning, which rush as it were into the mind, and possess it with violence; but history rather allures than forces us to virtue. There is nothing of the tyrant in example; but it gently glides into us, is easy and pleasant in its passage, and in one word reduces into practice our speculative notions; therefore the more powerful the examples are, they are the more useful also; and, by being more known, they are more powerful. Now unity, which is defined, is in its own nature more apt to be understood than multiplicity, which in some measure participates of infinity. The reason is Aristotle’s.