“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.
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
cockle-shells on the shore, Augustus playing at bounding-stones with
boys, and Agesilaus riding on a hobby-horse 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 therefore 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 discourses, 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, the grace and the
pleasantry are lost.
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. Suetonius 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 contrary, 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 Chæroneans,
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, Montaigne, when they strike a
little out of the common road; 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, 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 style, nor with Thucydides in the solidity
and closeness of expression; for Herodotus is acknowledged the prince
of the Ionic, the other two of the Attic eloquence. As for Plutarch,
his style is so particular, that there is none of the ancients to whom
we can properly resemble him. And the reason of this is obvious; for,
being conversant in so great variety of authors, and collecting from
all of them what he thought most excellent, out of the confusion, or
rather mixture, of all their styles, he formed his own, which, partaking
of each, was yet none of them, but a compound of them all; like the
Corinthian metal, which had in it gold, and brass, and silver, and yet
was a species by itself. Add to this, that in Plutarch’s time, and long
before it, the purity of the Greek tongue was corrupted, and the native
splendour of it had taken the tarnish of barbarism, and contracted the
filth and spots of degenerating ages: for the fall of empires always
draws after it the language and eloquence of the people; they, who labour
under misfortunes or servitude, have little leisure to cultivate their
mother tongue. To conclude; when Athens had lost her sovereignty to the
Peloponnesians, and her liberty to Philip, neither a Thucydides nor a
Demosthenes were afterwards produced by her.
I have formerly acknowledged many lapses of our author, occasioned
through his inadvertency; but he is likewise taxed with faults which
reflect on his judgment in matters of fact, and his candour in the
comparisons of his Greeks and Romans; both which are so well vindicated
by Montaigne, that I need but barely to translate him:—“First, then, he
is accused of want of judgment, in reporting things incredible; for proof
of which is alleged the story he tells of the Spartan boy, who suffered
his bowels to be torn out by a young fox which he had stolen, choosing
rather to hide him under his garment till he died, than to confess his
robbery. In the first place, this example is ill chosen, because it is
difficult to set a bound to the force of our internal faculties; it is
not defined how far our resolution may carry us to suffer. The force of
bodies may more easily be determined, than that of souls. Then of all
people, the Lacedemonians, by reason of their rigid institution, were
most hardened to undergo labours, and to suffer pains. Cicero, before
our author’s time, though then the Spartan virtue was degenerated, yet
avows to have seen himself some Lacedemonian boys, who, to make trial of
their patience, were placed before the altar of Diana, where they endured
scourging till they were all over bloody, and that not only without
crying, but even without a sigh or a groan: nay, and some of them so
ambitious of this reputation, that they willingly resigned their lives
under the hands of their tormentors.—The same may be said of another
story, which Plutarch vouches with an hundred witnesses: that in the
time of sacrifice, a burning coal by chance falling into the sleeve of a
Spartan boy, who held the censer, he suffered his arm to be scorched so
long without moving it, that the scent of it reeked up to the noses of
the assistants.
“For my own part, who have taken in so vast an idea of the Lacedemonian
magnanimity, Plutarch’s story is so far from seeming incredible to
me, that I neither think it wonderful nor uncommon; for we ought not
to measure possibilities or impossibilities by our own standard, that
is, by what we ourselves could do or suffer. These, and some other
slight examples, are made use of, to lessen the opinion of Plutarch’s
judgment.—But the common exception against his candour is, that in
his parallels of Greeks and Romans he has done too much honour to
his countrymen, in matching them with heroes with whom they were not
worthy to be compared. For instances of this, there are produced the
comparisons of Demosthenes and Cicero, Aristides and Cato, Lysander and
Sylla, Pelopidas and Marcellus, Agesilaus and Pompey. Now the ground of
this accusation is most probably the lustre of those Roman names, which
strikes on our imagination; for what proportion of glory is there betwixt
a Roman consul or proconsul of so great a commonwealth, and a simple
citizen of Athens? But he who considers the truth more nearly, and weighs
not honours with honours, but men with men, which was Plutarch’s main
design, will find in the balance of their manners, their virtues, their
endowments and abilities, that Cicero and the elder Cato were far from
having the over-weight against Demosthenes and Aristides. I might as well
complain against him in behalf of his own countrymen; for neither was
Camillus so famous as Themistocles, nor were Tiberius and Caius Gracchus
comparable to Agis and Cleomenes, in regard of dignity; much less was
the wisdom of Numa to be put in balance against that of Lycurgus, or
the modesty and temperance of Scipio against the solid philosophy and
perfect virtue of Epaminondas. Yet the disparity of victories, the
reputation, the blaze of glory, in the two last, were evidently on the
Roman side. But, as I said before, to compare them this way was the least
of Plutarch’s aim; he openly declares against it; for, speaking of the
course of Pompey’s fortune, his exploits of war, the greatness of the
armies which he commanded, the splendour and number of his triumphs,
in his comparison betwixt him and Agesilaus,—I believe, says he, that
if Xenophon were now alive, and would indulge himself the liberty to
write all he could to the advantage of his hero, Agesilaus, he would be
ashamed to put their acts in competition. In his comparison of Sylla and
Lysander, there is, says he, no manner of equality either in the number
of their victories, or in the danger of their battles; for Lysander only
gained two naval fights, &c. Now this is far from partiality to the
Grecians. He who would convince him of this vice, must shew us in what
particular judgment he has been too favourable to his countrymen; and
make it out in general, where he has failed in matching such a Greek with
such a Roman; which must be done by shewing how he could have paired
them better, and naming any other in whom the resemblance might have
been more perfect. But an equitable judge, who takes things by the same
handle which Plutarch did, will find there is no injury offered to either
party, though there be some disparity betwixt the persons; for he weighs
every circumstance by itself, and judges separately of it; not comparing
men at a lump, nor endeavouring to prove they were alike in all things,
but allowing for disproportion of quality or fortune, shewing wherein
they agreed or disagreed, and wherein one was to be preferred before the
other.”
I thought I had answered all that could reasonably be objected against
our author’s judgment; but casually casting my eye on the works of a
French gentleman,[9] deservedly famous for wit and criticism, I wondered,
amongst many commendations of Plutarch, to find this one reflection:—“As
for his comparisons, they seem truly to me very great; but I think he
might have carried them yet farther, and have penetrated more deeply
into human nature. There are folds and recesses in our minds, which
have escaped him; he judges man too much in gross, and thinks him not
so different as he is often from himself; the same person being just,
unjust, merciful, and cruel; which qualities seeming to belie each other
in him, he attributes their inconsistencies to foreign causes. In fine,
if he had described Catiline, he would have given him to us, either
prodigal or covetous: that _alieni appetens, sui profusus_, was above his
reach. He could never have reconciled those contrarieties in the same
subject, which Sallust has so well unfolded, and which Montaigne so much
better understood.”
This judgment could not have proceeded but from a man who has a nice
taste in authors; and if it be not altogether just, it is at least
delicate: but I am confident, that if he please to consider this
following passage, taken out of the Life of Sylla, he will moderate, if
not retract, his censure:
“In the rest of his manners he was unequal, irregular different from
himself: ἀνώμαλὸς τις ἔοικε, και διάφορος πρὸς ἑαυτὸν.He took many
things by rapine, he gave more; honoured men immoderately, and used
them contumeliously; was submissive to those of whom he stood in need,
insulting over those who stood in need of him; so that it was doubtful,
whether he were more formed by nature to arrogance or flattery. As to
his uncertain way of punishing, he would sometimes put men to death on
the least occasion; at other times he would pardon the greatest crimes:
so that judging him in the whole, you may conclude him to have been
naturally cruel, and prone to vengeance, but that he could remit of his
severity, when his interests required it.”
Here, methinks, our author seems to have sufficiently understood the
folds and doubles of Sylla’s disposition; for his character is full of
variety and inconsistencies. Yet in the conclusion it is to be confessed,
that Plutarch has assigned him a bloody nature; the clemency was but
artificial and assumed, the cruelty was inborn: but this cannot be said
of his rapine, and his prodigality; for here the _alieni appetens, sui
profusus_, is as plainly described, as if Plutarch had borrowed the
sense from Sallust; and, as he was a great collector, perhaps he did.
Nevertheless he judged rightly of Sylla, that naturally he was cruel,
for that quality was predominant in him; and he was oftener revengeful
than he was merciful. But this is sufficient to vindicate our author’s
judgment from being superficial; and I desire not to press the argument
more strongly against this gentleman, who has honoured our country by his
long residence amongst us.
It seems to me, I must confess, that our author has not been more hardly
treated by his enemies, in his comparing other men, than he has been
by his friends, in their comparing Seneca with him. And herein, even
Montaigne himself is scarcely to be defended; for no man more esteemed
Plutarch, no man was better acquainted with his excellencies; yet, this
notwithstanding, he has done too great an honour to Seneca, by ranking
him with our philosopher and historian; him, I say, who was so much less
a philosopher, and no historian. It is a reputation to Seneca, that any
one has offered at the comparison; the worth of his adversary makes his
defeat advantageous to him; and Plutarch might cry out, with justice,
_Qui cum victus erit, mecum certasse feretur_.
If I had been to find out a parallel for Plutarch, I should rather have
pitched on Varro, the most learned of the Romans, if at least his works
had yet remained; or Pomponius Atticus, if he had written. But the
likeness of Seneca is so little, that except the one’s being tutor to
Nero, and the other to Trajan, both of them strangers to Rome, yet raised
to the highest dignities in that city, and both philosophers, though of
several sects; (for Seneca was a Stoic, Plutarch a Platonician, at least
an Academic, that is, half Platonist, half Sceptic;) besides some such
faint resemblances as these, Seneca and Plutarch seem to have as little
relation to one another as their native countries, Spain and Greece.
If we consider them in their inclinations or humours, Plutarch was
sociable and pleasant, Seneca morose and melancholy: Plutarch a lover of
conversation, and sober feasts; Seneca reserved, uneasy to himself when
alone, to others when in company. Compare them in their manners; Plutarch
every where appears candid, Seneca often is censorious. Plutarch, out
of his natural humanity, is frequent in commending what he can; Seneca,
out of the sourness of his temper, is prone to satire, and still
searching for some occasion to vent his gall. Plutarch is pleased with
an opportunity of praising virtue; and Seneca, to speak the best of him,
is glad of a pretence to reprehend vice. Plutarch endeavours to teach
others, but refuses not to be taught himself; for he is always doubtful
and inquisitive: Seneca is altogether for teaching others, but so teaches
them, that he imposes his opinions, for he was of a sect too imperious
and dogmatical, either to be taught or contradicted; and yet Plutarch
writes like a man of a confirmed probity, Seneca like one of a weak and
staggering virtue. Plutarch seems to have vanquished vice, and to have
triumphed over it; Seneca seems only to be combating and resisting,
and that too but in his own defence: therefore Plutarch is easy in his
discourse, as one who has overcome the difficulty; Seneca is painful, as
he who still labours under it. Plutarch’s virtue is humble and civilized;
Seneca’s haughty and ill-bred: Plutarch allures you, Seneca commands you.
One would make virtue your companion, the other your tyrant. The style
of Plutarch is easy and flowing, that of Seneca precipitous and harsh:
the first is even, the second broken. The arguments of the Grecian, drawn
from reason, work themselves into your understanding, and make a deep
and lasting impression in your mind; those of the Roman, drawn from wit,
flash immediately on your imagination, but leave no durable effect: so
this tickles you by starts with his arguteness, that pleases you for
continuance with his propriety. The course of their fortunes seems also
to have partaken of their styles; for Plutarch’s was equal, smooth,
and of the same tenor,—Seneca’s was turbid, unconstant, and full of
revolutions. The life of Plutarch was unblameable, as the reader cannot
but have observed; and of all his writings, there is nothing to be noted
as having the least tendency to vice, but only that little treatise
which is entitled Ἐρωτικός, wherein he speaks too broadly of a sin to
which the eastern and southern parts of the world are most obnoxious;
but Seneca is said to have been more libertine than suited with the
gravity of a philosopher, or with the austerity of a Stoic. 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 Stoic, 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 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
Stoic, 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; and it is of him and of his imitators that Petronius said,—_pace
vestrâ liceat dixisse, primi omnium eloquentiam perdidistis_. The
_controversiæ 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; against avarice, yet putting out his money at great
extortion here in Britain; against honours, yet aiming to be emperor;
against pleasure, yet enjoying Agrippina, and in his old age married to
a beautiful young woman; and after this, let him 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 you, that they are supposed to be written on a statue
erected by the Romans to his memory:
Σεῖο πολυκλήεντα τύπον στήσαντο Χερωνεῦ
Πλούταρχε κρατερῶν ὑιέες Ἀυσονίων·
Ὅττι παραλλήλοισι βίοις Ἑλληνας ἀρίστους
Ῥώμης ἐυπολέμοις ῆρμοσας ἑνναέταις;
Ἀλλὰ τεοῦ βιοτοιο παράλληλον βίον ἄλλον
Ὀυδὲ σύγ’ ἂν γράψαις, οὐ γὰρ ὅμοιον ἔχεις.
Cheronean Plutarch, to thy deathless praise
Does martial Rome this grateful statue raise;
Because both Greece and she thy fame have shared,
(Their heroes written, and their lives compared;)
But thou thyself could’st never write thy own;
Their lives have parallels, but thine has none.