[Footnote E: We have not spoken of Mr. Long's translations of Select Lives from Plutarch, which were published in the series of Knight's Weekly Volumes, under the title of _The Civil Wars of Rome_, because, although executed in a manner deserving the highest praise, they presented to English readers but a limited number of Plutarch's biographies. Mr. Clough says, justly, in his Preface, that his own work would not have been needed, had not Mr. Long confined his translations within so narrow a compass.] [Footnote F: "De tous les auteurs," says the Baron de Grimm, "qui nous restent de l'antiquité, Plutarque est, sans contredit, celui qui a recueilli le plus de vérités de fait et de spéculation. Ses oeuvres sont une mine inépuisable de lumieres et de connaissance; c'est vraiment l'encyclopédie des anciens." _Mémoires Historiques_, etc., I., 312.] Nor is it merely the common mass of readers who have chosen Plutarch as their favorite ancient. The list of great and famous men who have made him their companion is a long one. Men of action and men of thought have taken equal satisfaction in his pages. Petrarch, the first scholar of the Revival, held him in high esteem, and drew from him much of his uncommon learning. Erasmus, the first scholar of the Reformation, made his writings a special study, and translated from the Greek a large portion of his Moral Works. Montaigne has taken pains to tell us of his affection for him, and his Essays are full of the proofs of it. "I never seriously settled myself," he says, "to the reading of any book of solid learning but Plutarch and Seneca."[G] And in another essay he adds,--"The familiarity I have had with these two authors, and the assistance they have lent to my age, and to my book wholly built up of what I have taken from them, oblige me to stand up for their honor."[H] And again he declares,--"The hooks I chiefly use to form my opinions are Plutarch, since he became French, and Seneca."[I] The genial humanity and liberal wisdom of Plutarch claimed the sympathy of Montaigne, while his discursive style and love of story-telling suited no less the taste of his disciple. Montaigne, as it were, makes Plutarch a modern, and uses his books to illustrate the passing times. He introduces him to new characters, and reads his judgment upon them. He finds in him a hundred things that others had not seen. It is a wide step from Montaigne to Rousseau, and yet, spite of the naturalness of the one and the artificiality of the other, there were some points of resemblance between them, and they harmonize in their love for a common master, Rousseau has written of Plutarch as Montaigne felt,--"Dans le petit nombre de livres que je lis quelquefois encore, Plutarque est celui qui m'attache et me profite le plus. Ce fut la première lecture de mon enfance, et sera la dernière de ma vieillesse; c'est presque le seul auteur que je n'ai jamais lu sans en tirer quelque fruit."[J] Plutarch's