in Seneca's treatise _De
Consolatione_, which may, perhaps, be not unfairly regarded as the
expression of a sentiment common among the better heathens in regard to
death,--a sentiment of profound sadness. He says,--"Mors dolorum omnium
solutio est et finis, ultra quam mala nostra non exeunt, quae nos in
illam tranquillitatem, in qua antequam nasceremur jacuimus, reponit."
xix. 4.]

Again, we must be content rather to hint at than to develop the matter
for reflection and study that Plutarch affords, and unwillingly pass by,
without even a glance at them, large domains of thought that lie within
his pages. We are glad to believe, that, through the excellent edition
before us, his Lives will be more widely read than ever. In this
country, where the tendency of things is to the limited, but equal
development of each individual in social and political life, and hence
to the production of a uniform mediocrity of character and of action,
these biographies are of special value, as exhibiting men developed
under circumstances widely contrasted with our own, and who may serve
as standards by which to measure some of our own deficiencies or
advantages. Here were the men who stood head and shoulders above the
others of their times; we see them now, "foreshortened in the tract of
time,"--not as they appeared to their contemporaries, but in something
like their real proportions. But the greatness of those proportions for
the most part remains unchanged. How will it be with our great men two
thousand years hence? Will the numerous "most distinguished men of
America" appear as large then as they do now? Will the speeches of our
popular orators be read then? Will the most famous of our senators be
famous then? Will the ablest of our generals still be gathering laurels?

There is a story told by the learned Andrew Thevet, chief cosmographer
to Henry III., King of France and Poland, to the effect that one
Triumpho of Camarino did most fantastically imagine and persuade himself
that really and truly one day "he was assembled in company with the
Pope, the Emperor, and the several Kings and Princes of Christendom,
(although all that while he was alone in his own chamber by himself,)
where he entered upon, debated, and resolved all the states' affairs of
Christendom; and he verily believed that he was the wisest man of
them all; and so he well might be, of the company." The fantastical
imagination of this Triumpho furnishes a good illustrati