translation, of which it has been well said: "Quoique on vieux Gaulois, cllo a un air de fraicheur qui la fait rejouuir de jour en jour." Amyot's spirited French version was no less spiritedly translated by Sir Thomas North. His translation was much read and admired in its day; a modern reviewer even goes so far as to say that it is "still beyond comparison the best version of Parallel Lives which the English tongue affords." Bo this as it may, the world will ever be deeply indebted to North's translation, for it is to Shakespeare's perusal of that work that we owe 'Coriolanus,' Antony and Cleopatra,' and Julius Cæsar.' North's translation was followed by that known as Dryden's. This work, performed by many different hands, is of unequal merit. Some Lives are rendered into a racy and idiomatic, although somewhat archaic English, while others fall far short of the standard of Sir Thomas North's work. Dryden's version has during the last few years been re-edited by A. H. Clough, Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. The translation by which Plutarch is best known at the present day is that of the Langhornes. Their style is certainly dull and commonplace, and is in many instances deserving of the harsh epithets which have been lavished upon it. We must remember, however, before unsparingly condemning their translation, that the taste of the age for which they wrote differed materially from that of our own, and that people who could road the 'Letters of Theodosius and Constantia' with interest, would certainly prefer Plutarch in the translation of the Langhornes to the simpler phrases of North's or Dryden's version. All events, comic or tragic, important or commonplace, are described with the same inflated monotony which was mistaken by them for the dignity of History. Yet their work is in many cases far more correct as & translation, and the author's meaning is sometimes much more clearly expressed, than in Dryden's earlier version. Langhorne's Plutarch was re-edited by Archdeacon Wrangham in the year 1819. In 1844, thirteen Lives were translated by that eminent scholar the late Mr. George Long; and it is by way of complement to these Lives that the present version was undertaken with his consent and his approval. Those translated by Mr. Long were selected by him as illustrating a period of Roman history in which he was especially interested, and will therefore be found to bo more fully annotated than tho others. It has seemed to mo unnecessary to give information in the notes which can at the present day be obtained in a more convenient form in Dr. Smith's Classical Dictionary and Dictionary of Antiquities, many of the articles in which are written by Mr. Long himself. The student of classical literature will naturally prefer the exhaustive essays to be found in these works to any notes appended to Plutarch's text, while to those who read merely "for the story," the notes prove both troublesome and useless. In deciding on the spelling of the Greek proper names, I havo felt great hesitation. To make a Greek speak of Juno or Minerva seems as absurd as to make a Roman swear by Herakles or Arcs. Yet both Greck and Roman divinities are constantly mentioned. The only course that seemed to avoid absolute absurdity appeared to me to be that which I have adopted, namely to speak of the Greek divinities by their Greek, and the Latin ones by their Latin names. In substituting a k for the more usual c, I have followed the example of Groto, who in his History spells all Greek names exactly as they are written, with the exception of those with which we are so familiar in their |