Plutarch's Lives, Volume I by Plutarch
page 15 of 561 (02%)
page 15 of 561 (02%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
former and better ages. 'Tis an idle and vain study, I confess, to those
who make it so, by doing it after a negligent manner, but to those who do it with care and observation, 'tis a study of inestimable fruit and value; and the only one, as Plato reports, the Lacedaemonians reserved to themselves. What profit shall he not reap as to the business of men, by reading the Lives of Plutarch? But withal, let my governor remember to what end his instructions are principally directed, and that he do not so much imprint in his pupil's memory the date of the ruin of Carthage, as the manners of Hannibal and Scipio; not so much where Marcellus died, as why it was unworthy of his duty that he died there. That he do not teach him so much the narrative part, as the business of history. The reading of which, in my opinion, is a thing that of all others we apply ourselves unto with the most differing and uncertain measures."[A] North, in his address to the Reader, says: "The profit of stories, and the praise of the Author, are sufficiently declared by Amiot, in his Epistle to the Reader: so that I shall not need to make many words thereof. And indeed if you will supply the defects of this translation, with your own diligence and good understanding: you shall not need to trust him, you may prove yourselves, that there is no prophane study better than Plutarch. All other learning is private, fitter for Universities than Cities, fuller of contemplation than experience, more commendable in students themselves, than profitable unto others. Whereas stories are fit for every place, reach to all persons, serve for all times, teach the living, revive the dead, so far excelling all other books, as it is better to see learning in Noblemen's lives, than to read it in Philosophers' writings." GEORGE LONG. [Footnote A: Cotton's Translation.] |
|