Shakspeare, Swedenborg, in the fountain, through that. If one man could impart his faith to another, if I could prevail to communicate the incommunicable mysteries, you should see the breadth of your realm; that ever as you ascend your proper and native path, you receive the keys of Nature and history, and rise on the same stairs to science and to joy.' X XI PLUTARCH THE SOul Shall have society of its own rank: PLUTARCH' T is remarkable that of an author so familiar reading men, and whose history is so easily gathered from his works, no accurate memoir of his life, not even the dates of his birth and death, should have come down to us. Strange that the writer of so many illustrious biographies should wait so long for his own. It is agreed that he was born about the year 50 of the Christian era. He has been represented as having been the tutor of the Emperor Trajan, as dedicating.one of his books to him, as living long in Rome in great esteem, as having received from Trajan the consular dignity, and as having been appointed by him the governor of Greece. He was a man whose real superiority had no need of these flatteries. Meantime, the simple truth is, that he was not the tutor of Trajan, that he dedicated. no book to him, was not consul in Rome, nor governor of Greece; appears never to have been This paper was originally printed as an introduction to Plutarch's Morals, edited by Professor William W. Goodwin, and published, in 1871, by Messrs. Little, Brown & Co., through whose courtesy it is included in this edition. |