st version of Parallel Lives which the English tongue
affords." Be this as it may, the world will ever be deeply indebted to
North's translation, for it is to Shakespeare's perusal of that work
that we owe 'Coriolanus,' 'Antony and Cleopatra,' and 'Julius Caesar.'

North's translation was followed by that known as Dryden's. This work,
performed by many different hands, is of unequal merit. Some Lives are
rendered into a racy and idiomatic, although somewhat archaic English,
while others fall far short of the standard of Sir Thomas North's work.
Dryden's version has during the last few years been re-edited by A.H.
Clough, Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford.

The translation by which Plutarch is best known at the present day is
that of the Langhornes. Their style is certainly dull and commonplace,
and is in many instances deserving of the harsh epithets which have been
lavished upon it. We must remember, however, before unsparingly
condemning their translation, that the taste of the age for which they
wrote differed materially from that of our own, and that people who
could read the 'Letters of Theodosius and Constantia' with interest,
would certainly prefer Plutarch in the translation of the Langhornes to
the simpler phrases of North's or Dryden's version. All events, comic or
tragic, important or commonplace, are described with the same inflated
monotony which was mistaken by them for the dignity of History. Yet
their work is in many cases far more correct as a translation, and the
author's meaning is sometimes much more clearly expressed, than in
Dryden's earlier version. Langhorne's Plutarch was re-edited by
Archdeacon Wrangham in the year 1819.

In 1844, thirteen Lives were translated by that eminent scholar the late
Mr. George Long; and it is by way of complement to these Lives that the
present version was undertaken with his consent and his approval.

Those translated by Mr. Long were selected by him as illustrating a
period of Roman history in which he was especially interested, and will
therefore be found to be more fully annotated than the others. It has
seemed to me unnecessary to give information in the notes which can at
the present day be obtained in a more convenient form in Dr. Smith's
Classical Dictionary and Dictionary of Antiquities, many of the articles
in which are written by Mr. Long himself. The student of classical
literature will naturally prefer the exhaustive essays to be found in
these works to