"'In whatsoever countrey men are bred
(I know not by what sweetnesse of it led),
They nourish in their minds a glad desire,
Unto their native homes for to retire,'

"he resolved to go back into Greece againe, there to end the rest of his
daies in rest and honour among his citizens, of whom he was honourably
welcomed home. Some judge that he left Rome after the death of Trajan,
being then of great yeares, to leade a more quiet life. So being then at
rest, he earnestly took in hand that which he had long thought of
before, to wit, the Lives, and tooke great pains with it until he had
brought his worke to perfection, as we have done at this present;
although that some Lives, as those of Scipio African, of Metellus
Numidicus, and some other are not to be found. Now himselfe confesseth
in some place, that when he began this worke, at the first it was but to
profit others; but that afterwards it was to profit himselfe, looking
upon those histories, as if he had looked in a glasse, and seeking to
reform his life in some sort, and to forme it in the mould of the
vertues of these great men; taking this fashion of searching their
manners, and writing the Lives of these noble men, to be a familiar
haunting and frequenting of them. Also he thought, [said he himselfe]
that he lodged these men one after another in his house, entering into
consideration of their qualities, and that which was great in either of
them, choosing and principally taking that which was to be noted, and
most worthy to be knowne in their sayings and deeds."[A]

[Footnote A: North's 'Plutarch,' 1631, p. 1198.]

Of Plutarch in his domestic relations we gather much information from