louder; and leaving off his groaning, his sighs, and his lamentations, to argue the matter with more shew of reason; and, as under such a master he musts needs have gained a smattering of learning, he cried out, that Plutarch was not the philosopher he pretended himself to be; that he had heard him waging war against all the passions, and maintaining, that anger was unbecoming a wise man; nay, that he had written a particular treatise in commendation of clemency: that therefore he contradicted his precepts by his practices, since, abandoning himself over to his choler, he exercised such inhuman cruelty on the body of his fellow-creature. “How is this, Mr Varlet, (answered Plutarch,) by what signs and tokens can you prove I am in passion? Is it by my countenance, my voice, the colour of my face, by my words, or by my gestures, that you have discovered this my fury? I am not of opinion that my eyes sparkle, that I foam at mouth, that I gnash my teeth, or that my voice is more vehement, or that my colour is either more pale or more red than at other times; that I either shake or stamp with madness; that I say or do any thing unbecoming a philosopher. These, if you know them not, are the symptoms of a man in rage. In the mean, (turning to the officer who scourged him,) while he and I dispute this matter, mind you your business on his back.” His love to his friends, and his gratitude to his benefactors, are every where observable in his dedications of his several works; and the particular treatises he has written to them on several occasions, are all suitable either to the characters of the men, or to their present condition, and the circumstances under which they were. His love to his country is from hence conspicuous, that he professes to have written the life of Lucullus, and to have preserved the memory of his actions, because of the favours he conferred on the city of Chæronea; which, though his country received so long before, yet he thought it appertained to him to repay them, and took an interest in their acknowledgment: as also, that he vindicated the Bæotians from the calumnies of Herodotus, the historian, in his book concerning the malignity of that author. In which it is observable, that his zeal to his country transported him too far; for Herodotus had said no more of them than what was generally held to be true in all ages, concerning the grossness of their wits, their voracity, and those other national vices which we have already noted on this account; therefore, Petrarch has accused our author of the same malignity for which he taxed Herodotus. But they may both stand acquitted on different accounts: Herodotus for having given a true character of the Thebans, and Plutarch for endeavouring to palliate the vices of a people from whom he was descended. The rest of his manners, without entering into particulars, were unblameable, if we excuse a little proneness to superstition, and regulating his actions by his dreams. But how far this