the obligations one might owe even to a contemporary, much less to the ancients, and the stores of Plutarch might be rifled without much fear of detection, and certainly with no fear of reproach. When Lyly, in _Euphues and his Ephoebus_,[19] takes it in hand to bring up a child in the way he should go, he is in a large measure simply translating, expanding, and emphasizing the pseudo-Plutarch on the _Bringing-up of a Boy_ and interspersing the discourse with pickings from other essays, particularly that on _Garrulousness_.[20] Montaigne, of course, with his bland unreserve, credits Plutarch via Amyot with a multitude of observations, while Bacon, when following the new vogue of the essay, sometimes refers us to ‘Plutarke’, and at least on one occasion informs us that ‘Mountaigny saith’ a thing which on reference to the said ‘Mountaigny’ we find to be Plutarchan. Though it is no part of the present Introduction to examine in detail the influence of the philosopher of Chaeronea upon modern writers, or to make an inventory of his contributions to English literature, it is at least worth asking whether an author whom genius once delighted to exploit, and from whom so many good things have filtered down to us through various channels, may not be well worth reading at first hand. To Professor Mahaffy[21] Plutarch ‘is a pure and elevating writer, full of precious information, and breathing a lofty moral tone’, and to Professor Gilbert Murray[22] he is ‘one of the most tactful and charming of writers, and one of the most lovable characters in antiquity’. Said Emerson[23]: ‘Plutarch will be perpetually rediscovered from time to time as long as books last.’ Footnote 1: The reproof might ostensibly be general, but its particular application was readily felt. Musonius, we are told by Epictetus, made all his hearers feel ‘as if some one had been talking to him about them’. Footnote 2: See _Concerning Busybodies_, 522 E. Footnote 3: