most occafioned my ruin. When I first set up shop, understanding but little of bufinefs, I unadvisedly bought an edition of your Lives; a pack of old Greeks and Romans, which coft me a great fum of money. I could never get off above twenty fets of them. I fold a few to the Universities, and fome to Eaton and Westminster; for it is reckoned a pretty book for boys and under-graduates; but, unless a man has the luck to light on a pedant, he shall not fell a fet of them in twenty years. PLUTARCH. From the merit of the fubjects, I had hoped another reception for my works. I will own indeed, that I am not always perfectly accurate in every circumstance, nor do I give fo exact and circumstantial a detail of the actions of my heroes, as may be expected from a Biographer who has confined himself to one or two characters. A zeal to preferve the memory of great men, and to extend the influence of fuch noble examples, made me undertake more than I could accomplish in the first degree of perfection: but furely the characters of my illuftrious men men are not so imperfectly sketched, that they will not stand forth to all ages as patterns of virtue, and incitements to glory. My reflections are allowed to be deep and fagacious; and what can be more useful to a reader than a wife man's judgment on a great man's conduct? In my writings you will find no rafh cenfures, no undeferved encomiums, no mean compliance with po pular opinions, no vain oftentation of critical skill, nor any affected finesse. In my parallels, which used to be admired as pieces of excellent judgment, I compare with perfect impartiality one great man with another, and each with the rule of juftice. If indeed latter ages have produced greater men and bet→ ter writers, my heroes and my works ought to give place to them. As the world has now the advantage of much better rules of morality, than the unaffifted reason of poor Pa gans could form, I do not wonder, that thofe vices, which appeared to us as mere blemishes in great characters, fhould feem most horrid deformities in the purer eyes of the prefent age: a delicacy I do not blame, but admire and commend. And I must cen fure fure you for endeavouring, if you could publish better examples, to obtrude on your countrymen fuch as were defective. I rejoice at the preference which they give to perfect, and unallayed virtue; and as I shall ever rẻtain an high veneration for the illuftrious men of every age, I should be glad you would give me fome account of those persons, who in wisdom, justice, valour, patriotism, have eclipfed my Solon, Numa, Camillus, and other boasts of Greece or Rome. BOOKSELLER. Why, master Plutarch, you are talking Greek indeed. That work which repaired the lofs I fuftained by the coftly edition of your books, was, The Lives of the Highwaymen: but I should never have grown rich, if it had not been by publishing the Lives of men that never lived. You must know, that though in all times it was poffible to have a great deal of learning and very little wifdom, yet it is only by a modern improvement in the art of writing, that a man may read all his life and have no learning or knowledge at all; which begins to be an advantage of the greatest importance. There is as natural a war between your Men of Science and Fools, as between the Cranes and the Pigmies of old. Most of our young men having deserted to the Fools, the party of the Learned is near being beaten out of the field; and I hope in a little while they will not dare to peep out of their forts and fastnesses at Oxford and Cambridge. There let them stay and study old musty Moralists, till one falls in love with the Greek, another with the Roman virtue: but our Men of the World should read our new books, which teach them to have no virtue at all. No book is fit for a gentleman's reading, which is not void of facts and of doctrines, that he may not grow a pedant in his morals or conversation. I look upon History (I mean real History) to be one of the worst kinds of study. Whatever has happened may happen again; and a well-bred man may unwarily mention a parallel instance he had met with in History, and be betrayed into the awkwardness of introducing into his difcourfe a Greek, a Roman, or even a Gothic name. But when a gentleman has spent his time in reading adventures that never occurred, ΙΟ occurred, exploits that never were atchieved, and events that not only never did, but never can happen, it is impoffible that in life or in discourse he fhould ever apply them. A fecret Hiftory, in which there is no Secret and no Hiftory, cannot tempt Indiscretion tó blab or Vanity to quote; and by this means modern converfation flows gentle and easy, unincumbered with matter and unburthened of instruction. As the present studies throw no weight or gravity into discourse and manners, the women are not afraid to read our books; which not only dispose to gallantry and coquetry, but give rules for them. Cæfar's Commentaries, and the account of Xenophon's Expedition, are not more studied by military Commanders, than our novels are by the Fair; to a different purpose indeed; for their military maxims teach to conquer, our's to yield: Those inflame the vain and idle love of Glory, These inculcate a noble contempt of Reputation. The women have greater obligations to our writers than the men. By the commerce of the world men might learn much of what they get from books; but the poor women, who in their early youth are confined and reftrained, U 2 |