place, Alexander of Macedon; in the second, Pyrrhus of Epyrus; and in the third, himself. To which Scipio, smiling, thus replied:—And what would you have thought, had it been your fortune to have vanquished me? To whom Hannibal:—I should then have adjudged the first place to myself. Which answer was not a little pleasing to Scipio, because by it he found himself not disesteemed, nor put into comparison with the rest; but by the delicacy and gallantry of a well-turned compliment, set like a man divine above them all.” Now this relation is a mere compendium of the same conference, from Livy; but if we can conceive Plutarch to have written the Life of Hannibal, it is hard to believe that he should tell the same story after so different, or rather so contrary a manner, in another place. For, in the Life of Pyrrhus, he thus writes:—“Hannibal adjudged the pre-eminence to Pyrrhus above all captains, in conduct, and military skill; next to Pyrrhus he placed Scipio; and after Scipio, himself; as we have declared in the Life of Scipio.” It is not that I would excuse Plutarch, as if he never related the same thing diversly; for it is evident, that, through want of advertency, he has been often guilty of that error, of which the reader will find too frequent examples in these Lives; but in this place he cannot be charged with want of memory or care, because what he says here is relating to what he had said formerly; so that he may mistake the story, as I believe he has done, (that other of Livy being much more probable,) but we must allow him to remember what he had before written.