PREFACE. THE object of this volume is twofold. First, to supply wellwritten biographies of a few of the most interesting of the "noble Romans;" and secondly, to place in the reader's hands so much of the text of North's Plutarch as is necessary for a due appreciation of the use made of that work by Shakespeare. Of all the forms of prose literature, biography is one of the most instructive and interesting; and, in particular, the biographies written by Plutarch have long been justly celebrated; so that, as a natural result, they have frequently been translated into various languages, and reprinted in various forms. But a special interest must always be attached to that particular version of them which came into the hands of Shakespeare, and from which he drew much of the material for some of the most celebrated of his plays. This version, called by Warton Shakespeare's "storehouse of learned history," was made by Sir Thomas North, second son of Edward, lord North, of Kirtling; see Warton's History of English Poetry, ed. 1871, IV. 202, 280. North did not, however, make his translation from the original Greek, or even from a Latin version; but from a French version by Jaques Amyot, bishop of Auxerre, who is said (notwithstanding the statement on North's title-page) to have followed the Latin text. As a strict and accurate version it may, accordingly, have been surpassed in some points by others extant in English, as for example, by the well |