them better, and naming any other in whom the resemblance might have been more perfect. But an equitable judge, who takes things by the same handle which Plutarch did, will find there is no injury offered to either party, though there be some disparity betwixt the persons; for he weighs every circumstance by itself, and judges separately of it; not comparing men at a lump, nor endeavouring to prove they were alike in all things, but allowing for disproportion of quality or fortune, shewing wherein they agreed or disagreed, and wherein one was to be preferred before the other.” I thought I had answered all that could reasonably be objected against our author’s judgment; but casually casting my eye on the works of a French gentleman,[9] deservedly famous for wit and criticism, I wondered, amongst many commendations of Plutarch, to find this one reflection:—“As for his comparisons, they seem truly to me very great; but I think he might have carried them yet farther, and have penetrated more deeply into human nature. There are folds and recesses in our minds, which have escaped him; he judges man too much in gross, and thinks him not so different as he is often from himself; the same person being just, unjust, merciful, and cruel; which qualities seeming to belie each other in him, he attributes their inconsistencies to foreign causes. In fine, if he had described Catiline, he would have given him to us, either prodigal or covetous: that _alieni appetens, sui profusus_, was above his reach. He could never have reconciled those contrarieties in the same subject, which Sallust has so well unfolded, and which Montaigne so much better understood.” This judgment could not have proceeded but from a man who has a nice taste in authors; and if it be not altogether just, it is at least delicate: but I am confident, that if he please to consider this following passage, taken out of the Life of Sylla, he will moderate, if not retract, his censure: “In the rest of his manners he was unequal, irregular different from himself: ἀνώμαλὸς τις ἔοικε, και διάφορος πρὸς ἑαυτὸν.He took many things by rapine, he gave more; honoured men immoderately, and used them contumeliously; was submissive to those of whom he stood in need, insulting over those who stood in need of him; so that it was doubtful, whether he were more formed by nature to arrogance or flattery. As to his uncertain way of punishing, he would sometimes put men to death on the least occasion; at other times he would pardon the greatest crimes: so that judging him in the whole, you may conclude him to have been naturally cruel, and prone to vengeance, but that he could remit of his severity, when his interests required it.”