a great philosopher and historian of antiquity, who lived from the reign of Claudius to that of Hadrian, was born at Chaeronia, a small city of Eoetia in Greece. Plutarch's family was ancient in Chaeronia; his grandfather Lamprias was eminent for his learning and a philosopher; and is often mentioned by Plutarch in his writings, as is also his father. Plutarch was initiated early in study, to which he was naturally inclined; and was placed under the care of Ammonius, an Egyptian, who, having taught philosophy with great reputation at Alexandria, from thence travelled into Greece, and settled at Athens. Under this master he made great advances in knowledge; and like a thorough philosopher, more apt to regard things than words, he purified this knowledge to the neglect of languages. The Roman language at that time was not only the language of Rome, but of Greece also: and much more used there than the French is now in England. Yet he was so far from regarding it then, that, as we learn from himself, he became not conversant in it till the declension of his life: and, though he is supposed to have resided in Rome near 40 years at different times, yet he never seems to have acquired a competent skill in it. But this was not the worst: he did not cultivate his mother-tongue with any great exactness; and hence that harshness, inequality and obscurity in his style, which has so frequently and justly been complained of.

After he was principled and grounded by Ammonius, having an inextinguishable thirst for knowledge, he resolved to travel. Egypt was at that time, as formerly it had been, famous for learning; and probably the mysteries of their doctrine might tempt him, as it had tempted Pythagoras and others, to go and converse with the priesthood of that country. This appears to have been particularly his bent, by his travels Of Isis and Osiris: in which he shows himself versed in the ancient theology and philosophy of the wise men. From Egypt he returned into Greece; and visiting in his way all the academies and schools of the philosophers, gathered from them many of those observations with which he has abundantly enriched posterity. He does not seem to have been attached to any particular sect, but culled from each of them whatever he thought excellent and worthy to be regarded. He could not bear the paradoxes of the Stoics, but yet was more averse from the impiety of the Epicureans: in many things he followed Aristotle; but his favourites were Socrates and Plato, whose memory he revered to highly, that he annually celebrated their birth-days with much solemnity. Besides this, he applied himself with extreme diligence to collect not only all books that were excellent in their kind, but also all the sayings and observations of wise men which he had heard in conversation or had received from others by tradition; and likewise to consult... Plutarch fulf the records and public instruments preserved in cities which he had visited in his travels. He took a particular journey to Sparta, to search the archives of that famous commonwealth, to understand thoroughly the model of their ancient government, the history of their legislators, their kings, and their ephori; and digested all their memorable deeds and sayings with much care. He took the same methods with regard to many other commonwealths; and thus was enabled to leave us in his works such a rich cabinet of observation upon men and manners, as, in the opinion of Montaigne and Bayle, have rendered him the most valuable author of antiquity.

The circumstances of Plutarch's life are not known, and therefore cannot be related, with any exactness. According to the learned Fabricius, he was born under Claudius, 50 years after the Christian era. He was married to a most amiable woman of his own native town, whose name, according to the probable conjecture of Rualdus, was Timoxena, and to whose sense and virtue he has borne the most affectionate testimony in his moral works. He had several children, and among them two sons; one called Plutarch after himself, the other Lamprias in memory of his grandfather. Lamprias was he, of all his children, who seems to have inherited his father's philosophy; and to him we owe the table or catalogue of Plutarch's writings, and perhaps also his aphorisms. He had a nephew, Sextus Chaeronius, who taught the learned emperor Marcus Aurelius the Greek tongue, and was much honoured by him. Some think, that the critic Longinus was of his family; and Apuleius, in the first book of his Metamorphoses, affirms himself to be defended from him.

On what occasion, and at what time of his life, he went to Rome, how long he lived there, and when he finally returned to his own country, are all uncertain. It is probable, that the fame of him went thither before him, not only because he had published several of his works, but because immediately upon his arrival, as there is reason to believe, he had a great resort of the Roman nobility to hear him: for he tells us himself, that he was taken up in giving lectures of philosophy to the great men of Rome, that he had not time to make himself master of the Latin tongue, which is one of the first things that would naturally have engaged his attention. It appears that he was several times at Rome; and perhaps one motive for his living there was the intimacy he had contracted in some of these journeys with Soffius Senecio, a great and worthy man, who had been four times consul, and to whom Plutarch has dedicated many of his lives. But the great inducement which carried him first to Rome, was undoubtedly that which had carried him into so many other parts of the world; namely, to make observations upon men and manners, and to collect materials for writing the lives of the Roman worthies, in the same manner as he had already written those of the Grecian: and accordingly he not only conversed with all the living, but searched the records of the Capitol, and of all the libraries. Not but, as we learn from Suidas, he was instructed also with the management of public affairs in the empire, during his residence in the metropolis. "Plutarch (says he) lived in the time of Trajan, who befriended him the consular ornaments, and also caused an edict to be passed, that the magistrates or officers of Illyria should do nothing in that province without his knowledge and approbation."

When and how he was made known to Trajan is likewise uncertain: but it is generally supposed that Trajan, a private man when Plutarch first came to Rome, was, among other nobility, one of his auditors. It is also supposed, that this wise emperor made use of him in his councils; at least, much of the happiness of his reign has been imputed to Plutarch. Fabricius asserts that he was Trajan's preceptor, and that he was raised to the consular dignity by him, and made procurator of Greece in his old age by the emperor Adrian. We are equally at a loss concerning the time of his abode in the imperial city; which, however, at different times, is not imagined to fall much short of 40 years. The desire of visiting his native country, so natural to all men, and especially when growing old, prevailed with him at length to leave Italy: and at his return he was unanimously chosen archon or chief magistrate of Chaeronia, and not long after admitted into the number of the Delphic Apollo's priests. We have no particular account of his death, either as to the manner of it or the year; only it is evident that he lived, and continued his studies, to a good old age. The most probable conjecture is that of Fabricius, who says he died in the fifth year of Adrian, at the age of 70.

His works have been divided, and they admit of a pretty equal division, into Lives and Morals: the former of which, in his own estimation, were to be preferred as more noble than the latter. His style, as we have already observed, has been excepted to with some reason: he has also been criticised for some mistakes in Roman antiquities, and for a little partiality to the Greeks. On the other hand, he has been justly praised for the copiousness of his fine sense and learning, for his integrity, and for a certain air of goodness which appears in all he wrote. His bufnells was not to please the ear, but to instruct and charm the mind; and in this none ever went beyond him. Of his moral writings it is to be regretted that we have no elegant English translation. Even his Lives were chiefly known to the English reader by a motley and miserable version, till a new one executed with fidelity and spirit was presented to the public by the Langhorns in 1770. On the whole, it is to be wished that this most amiable moralist and biographer had added a life of himself to those which he has given to the world of others, as the particulars which other writers have preferred of his personal history are very doubtful and imperfect.