10. Plutarch in his life.

West Pub. Co. (PWH); 7Jul69; R464309. BAUGHMAN, ROLAND The lives of the noble Grecians and Romans, compared together by that grave, learned philosopher and historiographer, Plutarch of Chaeronea.

That it is a cause all the world acknowledgeth, Dolor nonnullis insaniae causa fuit, et aliorum morborum insanabilium, saith Plutarch to Apollonius; a cause of madness, a cause of many other diseases, a sole cause of this mischief, Lemnius calls it.

We have no space for long extracts; but a short illustration will serve to show that Shakespeare is the best translator of Plutarch into English that we have had.

Heated by the study of ancient literature, they set up their country as their idol, and proposed to themselves the heroes of Plutarch as their examples.

I at first looked on her my self with the highest Contempt, could divert my self with her Airs for half an Hour, and afterwards take up my Plutarch with great Tranquillity of Mind; but was a little vexed to find that in less than a Month she had considerably stoln upon my Time, so that I resolved to look at her no more.

As I add my own reasons, such as they are, for or against Aristophanes, to those of Frischlinus, his defender, I must not omit one thing which he has forgot, and which, perhaps, without taking in the rest, put Plutarch out of humour, which is that perpetual farce which goes through all the comedies of Aristophanes, like the character of harlequin on the Italian theatre.

No other classic author, with, perhaps, the single exception of Aesop, has been so widely read in modern times; and the popular knowledge of the men of Greece and Rome is derived more from Plutarch than from all other ancient authors put together.

But this was at length superseded by the translation of the brothers Langhorne, which, spite of its want of vivacity, its labored periods, and formal narrative, has retained its place as the popular version of Plutarch up to the present day.