bodies, but the souls of men, have decreased from the vigour of the first ages; that we are not more short of the stature and strength of those gigantic heroes, than we are of their understanding and their wit. To let pass those happy patriarchs who were striplings at fourscore, and had afterwards seven or eight hundred years before them to beget sons and daughters, and to consider man in reference only to his mind, and that no higher than the age of Socrates, how vast a difference is there be twixt the productions of those souls, and these of ours? How much better Plato, Aristotle, and the rest of the philosophers understood nature; Thucydides and Herodotus adorned history; Sophocles, Euripides, and Menander advanced poetry, than those dwarfs of wit and learning who succeeded them in after times? That age was most famous amongst the Greeks which ended with the death of Alexander; amongst the Romans, learning seemed again to revive and flourish in the century which produced Cicero, Varro, Sallust, Livy, Lucretius, and Virgil: and after a short interval of years, wherein nature seemed to take a breathing time for a second birth, there sprung up under the Vespasians, and those excellent prince's who succeeded them, a race of memorable wits, such as were the two Plinies, Tacitus, and Suetonius; and, as if Greece was emulous of the Roman learning, under the same favourable constellation was born the famous philosopher and historian, Plutarch; than whom antiquity has never produced a man more generally knowing, or more virtuous; and no succeeding age has equalled him. His Lives, both in his own esteem and that of others, accounted the noblest of his works, have been long since rendered into English; but as that translation was only from the French, so it suf fered this double disadvantage; first, that it was but a copy of a copy, and that too but lamely taken from the Greek original; secondly, that the English language was then unpolished, and far from the perfection which it has since attained; so that the first version is not only ungrammatical and ungraceful, but in many places almost unintelligible. For which reasons, and lest so useful a piece of history should lie oppressed under the rubbish of antiquated words, some ingenious and learned gentlemen have undertaken this task; and what would have been the labour of one man's life, will, by the several endeavours of many, be accomplished in the compass of a year. How far they have succeeded in this laudable attempt, to me it belongs not to determine, who am too much a party to be a judge. But I have the honour to be commissioned from the translators of this volume to inscribe their labours and my own, with all humility, to your Grace's name and patronage; and never was any man more ambitious of an employment of which he was so little worthy. Fortune has at last gratified that earnest desire I have always had to shew my devotion to your Grace, though I despair of paying you my acknowledgments. And of all other opportunities, I have happened on the most favourable to myself, who, having never been able to produce any thing of my own, which could be worthy of your view, am supplied by the assistance of my friends, and honoured with the presentation of their * Sir Thomas North's translation, published in 1579, was executed through the medium of the French translation, by Jaques Amiot. your labours. The author they have translated, has been long familiar to you, who have been conversant in all sorts of history both ancient and modern, and have formed the idea of your most noble life from the instructions and examples contained in them, both in the management of public affairs, and in the private offices of virtue; in the enjoyment of better fortune, and sustaining of your worse; in habituating yourself to an easy greatness; in repelling your enemies, in succouring your friends; and in all traverses of fortune, in every colour of your life, maintaining an inviolable fidelity to your Sovereign. It is long since that I have learned to forget the art of praising, but here the heart dictates to the pen; and I appeal to your enemies, (if so much generosity and good nature can have left you any,) whether they are not conscious to themselves that I have not flattered. It is an age, indeed, which is only fit for satire, and the sharpest I have shall never be wanting to lance its villainies, and its ingratitude to the government. There are few men in it, who are capable of supporting the weight of a just and deserved commendation; but amongst those few there must always stand excepted the illustrious names of Ormond and of Ossory; a father and a son only worthy of each other. Never was one soul more fully infused into another's breast; never was so strong an impression made of virtue as that of your Grace's into him; but though the stamp was deep, the subject which received it was of too fine a composition to be durable. Were not priority of time and nature in the case, it might have been doubted which of you had been most excellent; but heaven snatched away the copy, to make the original more pre cious. I dare trust myself no farther on this sub ject; for after years of mourning, my sorrow is yet so green upon me, that I am ready to tax Providence for the loss of that heroic son: three nations had a general concernment in his death, but I had one so very particular, that all my hopes are almost dead with him; and I have lost so much, that I am past the danger of a second shipwreck. But he sleeps with an unenvied commendation; and has left your Grace the sad legacy of all those glories which he derived from you: an accession which you wanted not, who were so rich before in your own virtues, and that high reputation which is the duct of them. pro A long descent of noble ancestors was not necessary to have made you great; but heaven threw it in as overplus when you were born. What you have done and suffered for two royal masters has been enough to render you illustrious; so that you may safely wave the nobility of your birth, and rely on your actions for your fame. fame. You have cancelled the debt which you owed to your progenitors, and reflect more brightness on their memory than you received from them. Your native country, which Providence gave you not leave to preserve under one king, it has given you opportunity under another to restore. You could not save it from the chastisement which was due to its rebellion, but you raised it from ruin after its repentance; so that the trophies of war were the portion of the conqueror, but the triumphs of peace were reserved for the vanquished. The misfortunes of Ireland were owing to itself, but its happiness and restoration to your Grace. The rebellion against a lawful prince was punished by an usurping tyrant, but the fruits of his victory were the rewards of a loyal subject. How much that noble kingdom has flourished under your Grace's government, both the inhabitants and the crown are sensible: the riches of Ireland are increased by it, and the revenues of England are augmented. That which was a charge and burden of the government, is rendered an advantage and support; the trade and interest of both countries are united in a mutual benefit; they conspire to make each other happy; the dependance of the one is an improvement of its commerce, the pre-eminence of the other is not impaired by the intercourse, and common necessities are supplied by both. Ireland is no more a scion, to suck the nourishment from the mother tree; neither is it overtopped, or hindered from growth by the superior branches; but the roots of England diving, if I may dare to say it, underneath the seas, rise at a just distance on the neighbouring shore, and there shoot up, and bear a product scarce inferior to the trunk from whence they sprung. I may raise the commendation higher, and yet not fear to offend the truth; Ireland is a better penitent than England. The crime of rebellion was common to both countries, but the repentance of one island has been steady; that of the other, to its shame, has suffered a relapse; which shews the conversions of their rebels to have been real, that of ours to have been but counterfeit. The sons of guilty fathers there have made amends for the disloyalty of their families; but here the descendants of pardoned rebels have only waited their time to copy the wickedness of their parents, and, if possible, to outdo it. They disdain to hold their patrimonies by acts of grace and of indemnity; and by maintaining their old treasonable principles, make it apparent that they are still speculative traitors; for whether they are zealous sectaries, or prophane republicans, (of which two sorts they are principally composed,) both our reformers of church and |