Well known and much read was the Roman history of Florus in four books, which, written in the reign of Trajan, is a very wretched piece of work. Yet at the side of many glaring mistakes, there is something which may be turned to use. Florus may have written from what he read in Livy; yet there is in one single passage a deviation from him, so that he must have read others also. Eutropius has evidently every where followed the track of Livy; but he is so bad a writer, that one cannot believe that he has read Livy. I therefore conjecture that there must have existed an abstract besides, forming a sort of medium between the work itself and our epitome; which Orosius no doubt also read, who likewise implicitly follows Livy, but assigns dates which clash with him, a practice quite in keeping with his ignorance in changing the dates by consuls into those by years. Such an abstract was like that of Trogus from Justin. Orosius’ object was simply this, to console his contemporaries in the state in which they were by means of perversions and sophisms in describing the wretchedness of the olden time. Yet there are many points in which his statements have great value, only one must not allow oneself to be misled by him. The influence which Livy had exercised upon the Romans, in putting an end to every thing like originality in writing history, did not extend to the Greeks. They directed their attention more and more to Roman history, and found in it a theme for rhetorical and elegant composition. One of those who at that time more or less engaged in this task, was Plutarch, who composed his historical works in the reign of Trajan. He had a definite moral purpose, his was a fine soul: yet neither was he a practical man, nor had he a turn for speculative thought, but he was made for quiet and cheerful contemplation, like Montaigne. He had an unaffected aversion to all that was vulgar; and he wrote in this spirit for himself and his friends, the parallels of distinguished Romans and Greeks. He is just to every body. He loves the Greeks and respects the Romans, and this makes his Lives most delightful reading. But his qualities as an historian are of a very secondary order. He is no critic, and does not discriminate between conflicting opinions; but he follows at one time one authority, and at another time another. In Pyrrhus and Camillus, one sees that he has used Dionysius; in Marius and Sylla, Posidonius; and wherever we are able to make this out, his history gains a much more important character for authenticity. The task of ascertaining this point is as yet far from being accomplished. Plutarch, as he himself tells us, understood little of Latin, and was particularly ignorant of the grammar, owing to which mistakes are found in him here and there, though indeed but seldom.