is in its own nature more apt to be understood than multiplicity, which in some measure participates of infinity. The reason is Aristotle's.

a

Biographia, or the histories of particular lives, though circumscribed in the subject, is yet more extensive in the style than the other two; for it not only comprehends them both, but has somewhat superadded, which neither of them have. The style of it is various, according to the occasion. There are proper places in it for the plainness and nakedness of narration, which is ascribed to annals; there is also room reserved for the loftiness and gravity of general history, when the actions related shall require that manner of expression. But there is withal a descent into minute circumstances, and trivial passages of life, which are natural to this way of writing, and which the dignity of the other two will not admit. There you are conducted only into the rooms of state, here you are led into the private lodgings of the hero; you see him in his undress, and are made familiar with his most private actions and conversations. You may behold a Scipio and a Lælius gathering cockleshells on the shore, Augustus playing at boundingstones with boys, and Agesilaus riding on a hobbyhorse among his children. The pageantry of life is taken away; you see the poor reasonable animal as naked as ever Nature made him; are made acquainted with his passions and his follies, and find the demi-god, a man. Plutarch himself has more than once defended this kind of relating little

passages; for in the Life of Alexander, he says thus: "In writing the lives of illustrious men, I "am not tied to the laws of history; nor does it "follow, that because an action is great, it there"fore manifests the greatness and virtue of him "who did it; but on the other side, sometimes "a word, or a casual jest, betrays a man more to our knowledge of him, than a battle fought wherein ten thousand men were slain, or sacking "of cities, or a course of victories." In another place he quotes Xenophon on the like occasion : "The sayings of great men in their familiar dis66 courses, and amidst their wine, have somewhat. "in them which is worthy to be transmitted to "posterity." Our author therefore needs no excuse, but rather deserves a commendation, when he relates, as pleasant, some sayings of his heroes, which appear (I must confess it) very cold and insipid mirth to us. For it is not his meaning to commend the jest, but to paint the man; besides, we may have lost somewhat of the idiotism of that language in which it was spoken; and where the conceit is couched in a single word, if all the significations of it are not critically understood, grace and the pleasantry are lost.

the

But in all parts of biography, whether familiar or stately, whether sublime or low, whether serious or merry, Plutarch equally excelled. If we compare him to others, Dion Cassius is not so sincere Herodian, a lover of truth, is oftentimes deceived himself with what he had falsely heard reported;

*

then the time of his Emperors exceeds not in all
above sixty years; so that his whole history will
scarce amount to three lives of Plutarch. Sueto-
nius and Tacitus may be called alike either authors
of histories, or writers of lives; but the first of
them runs too willingly into obscene descriptions,
which he teaches, while he relates; the other,
besides what has already been noted by him, often
falls into obscurity; and both of them have made
so unlucky a choice of times, that they are forced
to describe rather monsters than men ; and their
Emperors are either extravagant fools or tyrants,
and most usually both. Our author, on the con-
trary, as he was more inclined to commend than
to dispraise, has generally chosen such great men
as were famous for their several virtues; at least
such whose frailties or vices were overpoised by
their excellencies; such from whose examples we
may have more to follow than to shun. Yet, as
he was impartial, he disguised not the faults of
any man: an example of which is in the Life of
Lucullus; where, after he has told us that the
double benefit which his countrymen, the Chæro-
neans, received from him, was the chiefest motive
which he had to write his life, he afterwards rips
up his luxury, and shews how he lost, through his
mismanagement, his authority and his soldiers'
love. Then he was more happy in his digressions
than any we have named. I have always been
pleased to see him, and his imitator, Montagne,
when they strike a little out of the common road;

& suil was the phraseology of the

dest age

Our author meant

for we are sure to be the better for their wandering. The best quarry lies not always in the open field; and who would not be content to follow a good huntsman over hedges and ditches, when he knows the game will reward his pains? But if we mark him more narrowly, we may observe, that the great reason of his frequent starts is the variety of his learning; he knew so much of nature, was so vastly furnished with all the treasures of the mind, that he was uneasy to himself, and was forced, as I may say, to lay down some at every passage, and to scatter his riches as he went: like another Alexander or Adrian, he built a city, or planted a colony, in every part of his progress, and left behind him some memorial of his greatness. Sparta, and Thebes, and Athens, and Rome, the mistress of the world, he has discovered in their foundations, their institutions, their growth, their height; the decay of the three first, and the alteration of the last. You see those several people in their different laws, and policies, and forms of government, in their warriors, and senators, and demagogues. Nor are the ornaments of poetry, and the illustrations of similitudes forgotten by him; in both which he instructs, as well as pleases; or rather pleases, that he may instruct.

This last reflection leads me naturally to say somewhat in general of his style; though after having justly praised him for copiousness of learning, integrity, perspicuity, and more than all this,

1

for a certain air of goodness which appears through all his writings, it were unreasonable to be critical on his elocution. As on a tree which bears excellent fruit, we consider not the beauty of the blossoms,for if they are not pleasant to the eye, or delightful to the scent, we know at the same time that they are not the prime intention of nature, but are thrust out in order to their product; so in Plutarch, whose business was not to please the ear, but to charm and to instruct the mind, we may easily forgive the cadences of words, and the roughness of expression. Yet, for manliness of eloquence, if it abounded not in our author, it was not wanting in him. He neither studied the sublime style, nor affected the flowery. The choice of words, the numbers of periods, the turns of sentences, and those other ornaments of speech, he neither sought nor shunned; but the depth of sense, the accuracy of judgment, the disposition of the parts and contexture of the whole, in so admirable and vast a field of matter, and lastly, the copiousness and variety of words, appear shining in our author. It is, indeed, observed of him, that he keeps not always to the style of prose, but if a poetical word, which carries in it more of emphasis or signification, offer itself at any time, he refuses it not because Homer or Euripides have used it; but if this be a fault, I know not how Xenophon will stand excused. Yet neither do I compare our author with him, or

with Herodotus, in the sweetness and graces of his