a Stoick. An ingenious Frenchman' esteems, as he tells us, his person rather than his works; and values him more as the preceptor of Nero, a man ambitious of the empire, and the gallant of Agrippina, than as a teacher of morality. For my part, I dare not push the commendation so far. His courage was perhaps praiseworthy, if he endeavoured to deliver Rome from such a monster of tyranny as Nero was then beginning to appear; his ambition too was the more excusable if he found in himself an ability of governing the world, and a desire of doing good to human kind; but as to his good fortunes with the Empress, I know not what value ought to be set on a wise man for them except it be that women generally liking without judgment, it was a conquest for a philosopher, once in an age, to get the better of a fool. However, methinks there is something of awkward in the adventure: I cannot imagine without laughter, a pedant, and a Stoick, making love in a long gown; for it puts me in mind of the civilities which are used by the Cardinals and Judges in the dance of THE REHEARSAL. If Agrippina would needs be so lavish of her favours, since a sot grew nauseous to her, because he was her husband, and nothing under a wit could atone for Claudius, I am half sorry that Petronius was not 5 This remark also is made by St. Evremont, in a short Essay, entitled, "A Judgment upon Seneca, Plutarch, and Petronius." the man. We could have borne it better from his character, than from one who professed the severity of virtue, to make a cuckold of his emperor and benefactor. But let the historian answer for his own relation; only, if true, it is so much the worse that Seneca, after having abused his bed, could not let him sleep quiet in his grave. The Apocolocynthisis, or mock deification of Claudius, was too sharp and insulting on his memory; and Seneca, though he could preach forgiveness to others, did not practise it himself in that satire. Where was the patience and insensibility of a Stoick, in revenging his banishment with a libel? Where was the morality of a philosopher, in defaming and exposing of an harmless fool? And where was common humanity, in railing against the dead? But the talent of his malice is visible in other places: he censures Mæcenas, and I believe justly, for the looseness of his manners, the voluptuousness of his life, and the effeminacy of his style; but it appears that he takes pleasure in so doing, and that he never forced his nature when he spoke ill of any man. For his own style, we see what it is, and if we may be as bold with him as he has been with our old patron, we may call it a shattered eloquence, not vigorous, not united, not embodied, but broken into fragments; every part by itself pompous, but the whole confused and unharmonious. His Latin, as Monsieur St. Evremont has well observed, has nothing in it of the purity and elegance of Augustus his times; 2 Suston tee with the clipation of reports and it is of him and of his imitators that Petronius said,-pace vestrâ liceat dixisse, primi omnium eloquentiam perdidistis. The controversia sententiis vibrantibus pictæ, and the vanus sententiarum strepitus, make it evident that Seneca was taxed under the person of the old Rhetorician. What quarrel he had to the uncle and the nephew, I mean Seneca and Lucan, is not known; but Petronius plainly points them out, one for a bad orator, the other for as bad a poet. His own Essay of the Civil War is an open defiance of the PHARSALIA; and the first oration of Eumolpus as full an arraignment of Seneca's false eloquence. After all that has been said, he is certainly to be allowed a great wit, but not a good philosopher; not fit to be compared with Cicero, of whose reputation he was emulous, any more than Lucan is with Virgil. To sum up all in few words, consider a philosopher declaiming against riches, yet vastly rich himself; x Some against avarice, yet putting out his money at great tal extortion here in Britain; against honours, yet have be aiming to be Emperor; against pleasure, yet enjoying Agrippina, and in his old age married to Mentionez a beautiful young woman; and after this, let him inan be made a parallel to Plutarch. And now with the usual vanity of Dutch prefacers, I could load our author with the praises and commemorations of writers; for both ancient and modern have made honourable mention of him but to cumber pages with this kind of stuff, were to raise a distrust in common readers that : Plutarch wants them. Rualdus indeed has collected ample testimonies of them: but I will only recite the names of some, and refer you to him for the particular quotations. He reckons Gellius, Eusebius, Himerius the Sophister, Eunapius, Cyrillus of Alexandria, Theodoret, Agathias, Photius and Xiphilin, patriarchs of Constantinople, Johannes Sarisberiensis, the famous Petrarch, Petrus Victorius, and Justus Lipsius. But Theodorus Gaza, a man learned in the Latin tongue, and a great restorer of the Greek, who lived above two hundred years ago, deserves to have his suffrage set down in words at length; for the rest have only commended Plutarch more than any single author, but he has, extolled him above all together. It is said, that having this extravagant question put to him by a friend,-that if learning must suffer a general shipwreck, and he had only his choice left him of preserving one author, who should be the man he would preserve? he answered, Plutarch; and probably might give this reason, that in saving him, he should secure the best collection of them all. The Epigram of Agathias deserves also to be remembered. This author flourished about the year five hundred, in the reign of the Emperor Justinian; the verses are extant in the ANTHOLOGIA, and with the translation of them I will conclude the praises of our author; having first admonished Λ you, that they are supposed to be written on a Ουδὲ σίγ ̓ ἂν γράψαις, ο γὰρ ὅμοιον ἔχεις. Cheronean Plutarch, to thy deathless praise The following ADVERTISEMENT, prefixed to the Translation of Plutarch's LIVES, under the name and character of the bookseller who published them, (Jacob Tonson,) may from internal evidence be safely attributed to our author: "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 |