"imple being, free from mixture and compofition. To "be one, therefore, in this fenfe, is confiftent only with a "nature entire in its first principle, and incapable of al"teration or decay."

So far we are perfectly satisfied with Plutarch's creed, but not with his criticifm. To fuppofe that the word i should fignify the exiftence of one God only, is to hazard too much upon conjecture; and the whole tenor of the Heathen theology makes against it.

Nor can we be better pleafed with the other interpretations of this celebrated word. We can never fuppoft, that it barely fignified if; intimating thereby, that the bufinefs of those who vifited the temple was inquiry, and that they came to ask the Deity, if, fuch events fhould come to pafs. This construction is too much forced; and it would do as well, or even better, were the interpreted, if you make large prefents to the god, if you pay the prieft:

Were not this infcription an object of attention among the learned, we should not, at this diftant period of time have thought it worth mentioning, otherwife than as it gives us an idea of one branch of Plutarch's education. But, as a fingle word, infcribed on the temple of Apollo at Delphi, cannot but be matter of curiofity with those who carry their inquiries into remote antiquity, we shall not fcruple to add one more to the other conjectures concerning it.

We will fuppofe, then that the word, was here used, in the Ionic dialect, for de, I wish. This perfectly expreffed the state of mind of all that entered the temple on the bufinefs of confultation: And it might be no lefs emphatical in the Greek than Virgil's Quanquam O! was in the Latin. If we carry this conjecture farther, and think it probable, that this word might, as the initial word of a. celebrated line in the third book of the Odiffey, stand there to fignify the whole line, we shall reach a degree of probability almost bordering on certainty. The verfe we allude to is this:

Ει γαρ έμοι γοσσηνδε θεοι δύναμιν παραθειεν !

"O that the gods would empower me to obtain my wishes!" What prayer more proper on entering the

temples of the gods, particularly with the view of confulting them on the events of life.

If it fhould be thought, that the initial word is infufficient to represent a whole verfe, we have to answer, that it was agreeable to the custom of the ancients. They not only conveyed the fenfe of particular verfes by their ini. tial words, but frequently of large paffages by the quotation of a fingle line, or even of half a line; fome inftances of which occur in the following lives. The reafon of this is obvious: The works of their best poets were almost univerfally committed to memory; and the smallest quotation was fufficient to convey the fenfe of the whole paffage.

Thefe obfervations are matters of mere curiofity indeed; but they have had their ufe; for they have naturally. pointed out to us another inftance of the excellence of that education which formed our young philofopher.

This was the improvement of the memory, by means of exercise.

Mr. Locke has justly, though obviously enough observed, that nothing so much strengthens this faculty as the employment of it.

The Greek mode of education must have had a wonderful effect in this cafe. The continual exercife of the memory, in laying up the treasures of their poets, the precepts of their philofophers, and the problems of their mathematicians, muft have given it that mechanical power of retention, which nothing could easily escape. Thus Pliny* tells us of a Greek called Charmidas, who could repeat from memory the contents of the largest library.

The advantages Plutarch derived from this exercise, appear in every part of his works. As the writings of poets lived in his memory, they were ready for use and application on every appofite occafion. They were always at hand, either to confirm the fentiments, and justify the principles of his heroes, to support his own, or to il luftrate both.

By the aid of a cultivated memory too, he was enabled to write a number of contemporary lives, and to affign to each fuch a portion of business in the general tranfactions

Hift. Nat. lib. vii. cap. 24.

of the times, as might be fufficient to delineate the char acter, without repeated details of the fame actions and negotiations. This made a very difficult part of his work; and he acquitted himself here with great management and addrefs. Sometimes, indeed, he has repeated the fame circumstances in contemporary lives; but it was hardly avoidable. The great wonder is, that he has done it fo feldom.

But though an improved memory might, in this respect, be of fervice to him, as undoubtedly it was, there were others in which it was rather a difadvantage. By trusting too much to it, he has fallen into inaccuracies and inconfiftencies, where he was profeffedly drawing from preceding writers; and we have often been obliged to rectify his mistakes, by confulting thofe authors, because he would not be at the pains to confult them himself.

If Plutarch might properly be faid to belong to any sect of Philofophers, his education, the rationality of his principles, and the modefty of his doctrines, would incline us to place him with the latter Academy. At least, when he left his master Ammonius, and come into fociety, it is more than probable, that he ranked particularly with that fect.

His writings, however, furnish us with many reasons for thinking, that he afterwards became a citizen of the philofophical world. He appears to have examined every fect with a calm and unprejudiced attention; to have selected what he found of use for the purposes of virtue and happiness; and to have left the reft for the portion of thofe whofe narrowness of mind could think either fcience or felicity confined to any denomination of men.

From the Academicians he took their modesty of opinion, and left them their original fcepticifm: He borrowed their rational theology, and gave up to them, in a great measure, their metaphyfical refinements, together with their vain, though feductive, enthusiasm.

With the Peripatetics, he walked in fearch of natural fcience, and of logic; but, fatisfied with whatever practical knowledge might be acquired, he left them to dream over the hypothetical part of the former, and to chase the shadows of reafon through the mazes of the latter.

To the Stoics, he was indebted for the belief of a particular Providence; but he could not enter into their idea

of future rewards and punishments. He knew not how to reconcile the prefent agency of the Supreme. Being with his judicial character hereafter; though Theodoret tells us, that he had heard of the Christian religion, and inferted feveral of its myfteries in his works. * From the Stoics too, he borrowed the doctrine of fortitude; but he rejected the unnatural foundation on which they erected that virtue. He went back to Socrates for principles whereon to reft it.

With the Epicurians he does not feem to have had much intercourfe, though the accommodating philofophy of Ariftippus entered frequently into his politics, and fometimes into the general economy of his life. In the little states of Greece that philofophy had not much to do; but had it been adopted in the more violent meafures of the Roman adminiftration, our celebrated biographer would not have had fuch fcenes of blood and ruin to describe; for emulation, prejudice, and oppofition, upon whatever principles they might plead their apology, firft ftruck out the fire that laid the Commonwealth in afhes. If Plutarch borrowed any thing more from Epicurus, it was his rational idea of enjoyment. That fuch was his idea, it is more than probable; for it is impoffible to believe the tales that the Heathen bigots have told of him, or to fuppofe that the cultivated mind of a philofopher should purfue its happiness out of the temperate order of nature. His irreligious opinions he left to him, as he had left to the other fects their vanities and abfurdities.

But when we bring him to the fchool of Pythagoras, what idea fhall we entertain of him? Shall we confider him any longer as an Academician, or as a citizen of the philofophical world? Naturally benevolent and humane, he finds a fyftem of divinity and philofophy perfectly adapted to his natural fentiments. The whole animal creation he had originally looked upon with an instinctive tenderness; but when the amiable Pythagoras, the priest of Nature, in defence of the common privileges of her creatures, had called religion into their caufe; when he fought to foften the cruelty that man had exercised against them, by the honeft art of infinuating the doctrine of

*Nothing of Plutarch's is now extant, from which we can infer that he was acquainted with the Chriftian religion.

tranfmigration, how could the humane and benevolent Plutarch refuse to serve under this priest of Nature? It was impoffible. He adopted the doctrine of the Metempfychofis. He entered into the merciful scheme of Pythagoras, and, like him, diverted the cruelty of the human fpecies, by appealing to the selfish qualities of their nature, by fubduing their pride, and exciting their fympathy, while he fhowed them that their future existence might be the condition of a reptile.

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This fpirit and difpofition break ftrongly from him in his obfervations on the elder Cato. And as nothing can exhibit a more lively picture of him than these paintings of his own, we shall not fcruple to introduce them here: "For my part, I cannot but charge his using his fervants "like fo many beasts of burden, and turning them off, or felling them when they grew old, to the account of a mean and ungenerous fpirit, which thinks that the "fole tie between man and man, is interest or neceffity. "But goodness moves in a larger sphere than justice. The obligations of law and equity reach only to mankind, "but kindness and benificence fhould be extended to creatures, of every fpecies; and thefe ftill flow from "the breast of a well natured man, as streams that iffue "from the living fountain. A good man will take care "of his horfes and dogs, not only while they are young, "but when old and paft fervice. Thus the people of Athens, when they had finished the temple called "Hecatompedon, fet at liberty the beafts of burden that "had been chiefly employed in the work, fuffering them "to pafture at large, free from any other fervice. It is "faid, that one of thefe afterwards came of its own ac"cord to work, and putting itself at the head of the la "boring cattle, marched before them to the citadel. "This pleafed the people, and they made a decree, that "it fhould be kept at the public charge fo long as it "lived. The graves of Cimon's mares, with which he "thrice conquered at the Olympic games, are still to be "feen near his own tomb. Many have shown particular "marks of regard, in burying the dogs which they had "cherished, and been fond of; and amongst the rest, "Xantippus of old, whofe dog fwam by the fide of his. "galley to Salamis, when the Athenians were forced to "Abandon their city, and was afterwards buried by him upon a promontory, which, to this day, is called the