The corrupt state of the Greek text of many parts of Plutarch’s Morals must not be overlooked. No complete edition of the Greek has been published since Wyttenbach’s (1795-1800), except the French one by Dübner in the Didot collection. The latter gives no manuscript readings; and although it professes to be based partly on a new collation of the manuscripts in the public library of Paris, nothing distinguishes the changes made on this authority from conjectures of the editor and his predecessors. A slight glance at Wyttenbach will show that many parts of the text are restored by conjecture; and many of the conjectures, though plausible and ingenious, are not such as would be accepted by modern scholarship if they were made in earlier classic authors. A translator must accept many of these under silent protest; to enumerate one-half of them would introduce a critical commentary entirely out of place in a translation. In fact, no critical translation of these treatises is possible, until a thorough revision of the text, with the help of the best manuscripts, has been made; and this is a task from which most scholars would shrink in dismay. In many cases in this edition, blanks have been preferred to uncertain conjectures or traditional nonsense. The treatises on Music, on the Procreation of the Soul, and the two on the Stoics, have many of their dark corners made darker by the utter uncertainty of the Greek text. The essays in this edition follow the same order as in the old translation; but those on Fortune, and on Virtue and Vice, with the Conjugal Precepts, are transferred from the beginning of volume third to the end of volume second. The sections have been numbered in accordance with the modern editions of the Greek text. References to most of the classic authors quoted by Plutarch are given in the foot-notes, except where a quotation is a mere fragment of an unknown work. The tragic fragments are numbered according to the edition of Nauck (Leipsic, 1856). All notes (except these references) introduced by the editor are marked G. A few notes are taken from Holland; and all which are not otherwise marked are retained from the old translation. In conclusion, the editor must express his warmest thanks to his colleagues at the University and other friends who have kindly aided him with their advice and skill. Without their help, the undertaking would sometimes have seemed hopeless. WILLIAM W. GOODWIN. INTRODUCTION.