Σεῖο πολυκλήεντα τύπον στήσαντο Χερωνεῦ
Πλούταρχε κρατερῶν ὑιέες Ἀυσονίων·
Ὅττι παραλλήλοισι βίοις Ἑλληνας ἀρίστους
Ῥώμης ἐυπολέμοις ῆρμοσας ἑνναέταις;
Ἀλλὰ τεοῦ βιοτοιο παράλληλον βίον ἄλλον
Ὀυδὲ σύγ’ ἂν γράψαις, οὐ γὰρ ὅμοιον ἔχεις.
Cheronean Plutarch, to thy deathless praise
Does martial Rome this grateful statue raise;
Because both Greece and she thy fame have shared,
(Their heroes written, and their lives compared;)
But thou thyself could’st never write thy own;
Their lives have parallels, but thine has none.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Sir Thomas North’s translation, published in 1579, was executed through the medium of the French translation, by Jaques Amiot.

[2] Lord Howard, Sir Thomas Armstrong, Ford Lord Grey, and others among the opposers of government, notorious for being libertines even beyond the license of that age, seem to be here pointed at.

[3] These devices were impressed on the coin struck by the Commonwealth.

[4] Alluding to the Irish witnesses in the time of the Popish Plot; one set of whom came over to England, on purpose to support by their evidence that supposed conspiracy, but afterwards turned against their employer Shaftesbury. See Vol. IX. p. 410.

[5] Fought A. U. C. 724.

[6] This sentence is ungrammatical, as has been observed by Mr Malone. Perhaps we ought to read, “that he was invited thither; and that.”

[7] The authenticity of this letter has been doubted. Its dictatorial tone certainly rather resembles the forgery of some pedant, assuming the character of a great man, than that of a sage addressing a conquering emperor.

[8] Plutarch is said to have died in the reign of Antoninus Pius, A. D. 140, aged ninety years.

[9] Mons. de St Evremont.