One day I dined with our ambassador at Rome, where Muret[99] and other learned men were of the company. I spoke concerning the translation of Plutarch into French, and controverted those who esteem it less than I do. I maintained at least that, in passages where the translator may have missed the exact meaning of Plutarch, he has given instead one verisimilar and in accurate combination with what is writ before and after. To show me that I was hereby claiming too much for this work, they brought forward two passages; one (the criticism of which they assigned to a son of M. Mangot,[100] a Parisian advocate, who had just quitted Rome) was from the life of Solon--somewhere about the middle--in which the translator says that Solon claimed for himself that he had given freedom to Attica, and had removed the boundary stones which divided inherited plots of land. Here he had made a mistake, for the Greek word in question[101] is rather used to denote certain signposts which were wont to be set up on lands which were pledged or under bond, so that buyers might be forewarned that these were mortgaged. The word which the translator employed has none of the meaning of the original, inasmuch as it would lead the reader to infer that the lands alluded to were not separate freeholds, but were held in common. The Latin of Estienne comes nearer to the truth.[102] The second passage was one near the end of the treatise on the “Nurture of Children.” This the translator gives as follows: “The observation of these rules is rather to be desired than advised.” But his critics now affirmed the real meaning of the Greek to be: “That thing is more to be desired than to be hoped for.” The same proverb may be found elsewhere under different form. In place of this clear and intelligible meaning the translator has substituted one which is weak and foreign. Wherefore, accepting their presupposition of the true sense of the passage in question, I professed myself entirely of their opinion.[103]