were there at that time, some of them took up a laughing; others, being angry and offended hereat, incited the masters and governors of the public exercises (who indeed have great authority over the youth, and carry a vigilant eye unto them), so that they left the theatres and the exercises, and coming to the door of Ismenodora, fell into hot reasoning and debating of the matter between them. When the messenger had declared these things, old Zeuxippus (who was present with Plutarch, Protogenes, and the rest of them) "laughed very heartily as my father told the tale," says Antobulus. But Protogenes and Pisias were so enraged that they walked off to the city, resolving that they would, at least, have a say in the matter. Then Plutarch, talking to his friends, delivered his discourse upon the nature and fruits of love, which Antobulus was required to pronounce. And when Plutarch had finished, another messenger came from the city, and invited him, and those who were with him, to the wedding of Ismenodora and Bacchon. Such is a summary of this famous book, from which it will be seen that Plutarch has contrived to list the attention by his story, and so to prepare the way for a consideration of his graver discourse. In the person of Daphnæus he vindicates the truth of love against the slanderous sophistry of Protogenes and Pisias; and having dismissed all the minor actors, he grows so large with his own thought and utterance, that the previous speakers are thrown out of sight by the majesty of this chief person. There is, however, no assumption of superiority in Plutarch; and, throout the discourse, he appeals to, and is interrupted by, his associates. I am amused and charmed with the prattle of the philosopher, whose words run on to the end like the bubbling music of a swift and deep river; and when he has concluded, I feel quite sure that he has paused only for convenience, and not from exhaustion.

I will say no more, however, upon this subject, and have already far exceeded my original intention in this respect. It is enough to know that the cause of virtue has lost nothing, and gained much, by these examples.

We must not expect, however, that Plutarch, in any of his books, shall talk like a puritan divine, or modern evangelical clergyman. The religion of the Greeks was a very different affair to the religion of Christ; and altho the profoundest Grecian minds-such as those of Socrates, Plato, and Plotinus-were closely related to that of the Divine Man who presides over the modern world—yet the religion of the vulgar was a poetic superstition, and that of the majority of the philosophers a deification of the intellect. The moral perfection of man thrö the culture of the intellect, lies indeed at the bottom of the philosophy of Plutarch, as is evident enough from his treatise "Of proceeding in Virtue," and other similar papers. Yet he knows very well the uses of the intellect, and acknowleges it to be the servant of virtue, and not virtue itself. Nor will he allow the Sophists to babble in defence of vice and licentious living, without calling in the divine nature of virtue as the base and constitution of duty, to aid him in their vanquishment. It is interesting to observe how this brave Plutarch, armed at all points, walks firm and solid thrö the world of illusion which he dwelt in. What a strong love of truth, goodness, and heroic character were in him! How he loves to embalm the names, actions, and memorable sayings of wise and valiant persons! No devotee of the middle ages ever burnt incense before the tomb of his saint with greater reverence and devotion, than Plutarch to his noble idols.

I cannot despair over the destinies of man when I think of the virtues of these old and venerable heathens; for they enlarge my faith in human possibility; and altho I cannot say much for the manly progress of my own generation, yet with these antique examples before me, I will hope on for the future.

I am almost discouraged, however, in my literary enterprizes, at the thought of what has already been accomplished in philosophy by the antique sages. Plato and Plutarch have occupied all the ground long ago, so that a modern, if he write at all, must go over it at second hand. There is no virgin soil left for any horses either of the sun or moon to break up; all is old and fruitful. I cannot call to mind a single inch of fallow. Immortality-future rewards and punishmentsthe nature of the soul-the supersensuous life-God, and man's relation to himvirtue and vice-origin of evil-duty and the practical conduct-liberty-necessity—and all the great questions of time and eternity-have upon them the stamp and seal of these great monopolists of thought. And altho it is very fashionable to depreciate these majestic thinkers, and to heap odious names upon them because they (being Heathens) are not stereotyped in the moulds of Christianity-yet I doubt whether much, if any, true light has since been thrown upon the subjects which they treated of. They were, indeed, the planters of virtue and thought in the spring time of the world, and we small and ungrateful people eat of the harvest, and abuse the husbandmen who sowed it for us.

are not

I confess there are many whims and vagaries in the speculations of the highest minds of old-especially upon subjects connected with the physical sciences, which were but imperfectly known in the elder civilizations. But the reason thereof lies rather in the subjective disposition of those old thinkers, than in any weakness or imbecility of their minds. Even in this day, when the great and almost universal mental tendency is objective and scientific, we without our whimwams and foolish fires. But when I remember that Euclid is the father of mathematics-Zeno and Plato of metaphysics-Socrates and Plutarch of morals-and that Aristotle ruled the scholastic world for a thousand years, I am not at all disposed to carp at the heathen fancies. I am often much amused at the manner wherewith modern divines, sermon writers, and authors of religious tracts, speak of the old philosophers. How gravely they babble about the 'darkness' of those luminaries who shone in the roofs of the ancient firmament. An unlettered person, in reading these speeches, cannot but imagine that there was no light or truth in the world until the era of that Bethlehem manger. Surely it would be wiser to preserve a prudent silence upon this subject, than to extol the new wisdom at the expense of the old. Let us be thankful for all good things, nor examine too closely the mouth of the gift horse. I can very well mark the distinction between the laws of philosophy and the gospel of Jesus; and altho I am grateful that faith, in favor of the poor and the ignorant, has been proclaimed to be the Royal-road to Heaven, yet I prefer the discipline of intellect and virtue, and the hard drudgery of practical duty, to a more ready and easy route. I believe it is better for a man to pave his own road, than to accept the offices of another. For every one, at last, must be accountable for his own work, and tho he be never so adroit a shuffler, he cannot escape the final judgment. Religion, as I take it, is the performance of a man's duty in the reverence and love of God-and philosophy has precisely the same mean

ing. Both produce the same state of being in man as a result; it is the means alone which are different.

It would be better, however, if there were more philosophy in the religious writers of the day, and less eagerness and hurry. I would have every man to be in earnest, but not without measure; and nothing disgusts me more than the inflammatory declamation with which what we call 'sacred literature' is distorted. There is no necessity for so much heat and ebulition of vaporous feeling; for it is irreverent and indecent to offer hard words to God, as an oblation for the sins of man. The fiery tongues of Pentecost have long since been silent-nor can they be made to speak again by any modern person. Let the truth at all times be spoken with sobriety, and leave the result. If it fall upon stony ground, so much the worse for the stony ground; if upon a right soil, so much the better. It is a poor compliment which we pay to Providence, when, after we have done our best, we cannot leave him to manage his own concerns, but must worry the ear of heaven with importunities for a blessing upon our labor, and fret ourselves when we discover no immediate fruitage. It is the old disease of egotistical men who would be greater and wiser than the master, Philosophy, at least, teaches us to have a higher trust, and better manners.

Notwithstanding, therefore, the arrogance of our Preachers and Divines in assuming that they alone are the lights of the world, and that all the ancients were blind leaders of the blind, I do not think, if a comparison were instituted between them, that it would be at all to the advantage of the former. After reading Plotinus or Seneca, who could listen with patience to the modern drivelers who fill our repositories with their lumber? I have not met with a single religious book—if I except Foster's and Channing's—which pleases me, on this side the era of the commonwealth. And even these exceptions are not of so much moment, that I could not very well spare them. It is certainly different with our poets, and moral and metaphysical writers, who are for the most part freer men, and live in wider latitudes. For poetry and philosophy have no limits, and those who profess them need not, therefore, tie themselves to rules and articles of faith. Neither does it follow on this account, that they must be less religious than the most orthodox manikin who utters his nonsense in the conventicle. I call Plutarch a religious man, and believe that Socrates was a divine person and teacher-and yet they were as large and limitless as nature. It is not worth while, however, to speak further in defence of the old philosophers. The religious idea of their time manifested itself in this philosophic form, and in our time it shows itself in quite a different manner. This seems to be the proper way of ending the business in hand.

But in the midst of all this petty disquisition one larger thought looms up for utterance—which I may put down after this fashion. That man is the originator of all thought, morals, and religion, and that the cultivated minds of one age, being equal to those of another-will arrive at the same results, altho these results must necessarily be modified by the individuality of the thinkers and the form and pressure of their times. I do not mean by this proposition to exclude revelation and supernatural agency-but rather to confirm them; for I hold that these things are inevitable in certain high dispositions of the soul-and that truth flows natur'y out of heaven into the wise and pure man. At all events I can find no other

words to express my apprehension of the meaning of that divine afflatus which was familiar alike to Plato and Paul, to Swedenborg, to Behmen, and to Fox. I call this ravishment of the soul by truth, a supernatural overshadowing and revelation; if any one choses to call it by any other name he is welcome, but the fact remains.

Neither do I find so marked and distinctive a difference between the various near and remote religions of the world, as some scholars profess to see. Religion has but one soil to grow in, and that is the common nature of man. It deals always with the highest interests and forms of human life, but it cannot get further than the divine nature of Duty-which in truth is the base and dome of its architecture. All the rest of its teachings about God, heaven, and immortality, are but speculations, and altho in the mouths of divine men these things may consolidate themselves into absolute truths-and so influence the life and inspire the soul with infinite hopes for the future—they are all matters for the inquisition of thought. Nay, when we have done our best in the investigation, we can come to no real soundings or demonstrations of them. Hence in all religions these things are affirmed for the universal belief-and I, for one, allow my faith to guide me with as much humility as I can muster, whenever my intellect forsakes me.

I will now come back from this long wandering to speak once more of Plutarch, who himself could speak of so many things, and sympathize with so large a diversity of character and opinion. As a biographer he is unrivalled-for he has that rare faculty, which no modern man possesses beside Carlyle, of entering into the most secret parts of his subject, and turning all his characters inside out. It is a mark of the very highest order of genius for a man to put off himself, and to assume, as this admirable Plutarch does, all the Protean forms of human life which he has represented with so magical an effect in his books. I cannot help thinking that Plutarch's Lives are the best commentary yet written upon the old doctrine of the metempsychosis. His portraits not only overflow with blood, but burn with life. They live and move before us, as if they were here in realitywhereas it is nothing but Plutarch and his Images. Glorious old Image maker, and Heart reader-in whom so many Dædalian and Promethean elements were combined-I wonder what mighty god it was that dwelt in thy venerable body! I have spoken before of the humor which runs like music thrö all the discourses of Plutarch, and gives such a zest and ravishment to his teachings; and I find that there are likewise touches of tenderness in him, which to me are all the more grateful, because of his usual impassability. In the letter of consolation which he sent to his wife on the death of their little daughter, he deals in high discourse, full of all noble sentiment, yet chastened by the great occasion of his sorrow. We can see that he feels his loss deeply, but he speaks of it with calmness and moderation, and admonishes his wife to bear it, as he knows she will, with reverence and fortitude. "For mine own part," he says, "I conceive and measure in mine own heart this loss according to the nature and greatness thereof, and so I esteem of it accordingly; but if I should find that you took it impatiently, this would be much more grievous unto me, and wound my heart more than the calamity itself that causeth it; and yet I am not begotten and born either of an oak or a rock; whereof you can bear me good witness, knowing that we both together have reared many of our children at home, even with our own hands

and how I loved this girl most tenderly." He then goes on to describe those quali ties of his little daughter which gave an edge to his fatherly affection-not forgetting her gentleness and sweetness of disposition, the vestal purity of her heart, and her generous self sacrifices in those small things which are great to children. He afterwards rises to the grand height of human argument, and speaks of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul as a 'truth undoubtedly to be believed in'-and so takes comfort for his little one's loss, by the reflection that she is happy and immortal.

I cannot undertake, however, to say more at this time upon Plutarch, altho I confess it would delight me to give an analysis of his best discourses. But before I conclude this long introduction of the immediate matter I have now in hand, I will remark, that Plutarch's treatise entitled 'Why divine justice defereth punishment' is one of the wealthiest of his 'moral' writings-and about as modern in its divinity as an Unitarian sermon. As to the rest of these Plutarchian discourses, and indeed as to the whole of them, they remind me of an extensive geological remain, wherein I discover the oldest bones of thought, and the fossil wisdom and experience of many ancient civilizations.