since Plato in Grecian philosophy. Stoicism exerted complete sway over
the cultivated classes; Epictetus gave his _Enchiridion_ and
_Manual_, wherein are condensed the elevated and profound thoughts
most deeply realised of the doctrine of Zeno; later, the Emperor Marcus
Aurelius, in his solitary meditations entitled _For Myself_, depicts
his own soul, admirable, chaste, pure, severe to himself, indulgent to
others, pathetically resigned to the universal order of things and
adhering to them with a renunciation and a faith that are truly
religious. Less severe, even playful and smiling, Dion Chrysostom (that
is, mouth of gold, nickname given to him because of his eloquence) is
penetrated with the same spirit a little mingled with Platonism, which
makes him, therefore, perhaps, penetrate more easily than the
over-austere pure Stoics.

PLUTARCH.--Plutarch, as historian discreetly romantic, as philosophical
moralist decidedly dexterous, gently obstinate in conciliation and
concord, in a large portion of his _Parallel Lives_ narrated those
of illustrious Romans and Greeks to show how excellent they were and how
highly they ought to esteem one another; elsewhere, in his moral works,
he sought to conciliate philosophy and paganism, no doubt believing in a
single God, as did Plato, but also believing in a crowd of intermediary
spirits between God and man, which allowed him to regard the deities of
paganism as misunderstood beings and even in a certain sense to admit
their authority. Emphatically a man who observed the golden mean, he
opposed the Stoics for being too severe on human nature and the
Epicureans for being too easy or for too lightly risking the future. He
was an elegant writer--gracious, self-restraining; nearer, all said and
done, to eclecticism than to simplicity, and he must not be judged by the
geniality which was virtually imparted to him by Amyot in translating
him. Throughout Europe, since the Renaissance, of all the Grecian authors