ad the invaluable help of the text of Rudolf
Hercher; help so invaluable that one cannot but sadly regret that only
one volume of the _Moralia_ has yet appeared in the _Bibliotheca
Teubneriana_. Wyttenbach's text and notes I have always used when
available, and when not so have fallen back upon Reiske. Reiske is
always ingenious, but too fond of correcting a text, and the criticism
of him by Wyttenbach is perhaps substantially correct. "In nullo
auctore habitabat; vagabatur per omnes: nec apud quemquam tamdiu
divertebat, ut in paulo interiorem ejus consuetudinem se insinuaret." I
have also had constantly before me the Didot Edition of the _Moralia_,
edited by Frederic Duebner.

Let any reader who wishes to know more about Plutarch, consult the
article on Plutarch, in the Ninth Edition of the _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_, by the well-known scholar F. A. Paley. He will also do well
to read an Essay on Plutarch by R. W. Emerson, reprinted in Volume III.
of the Bohn's Standard Library Edition of Emerson's Works, and Five
Lectures on Plutarch by the late Archbishop Trench, published by Messrs.
Macmillan and Co. in 1874. All these contain much of interest, and will
repay perusal.

In conclusion, I hope this little volume will be the means of making
popular some of the best thoughts of one of the most interesting and
thoughtful of the ancients, who often seems indeed almost a modern.

Cambridge,
_March_, 1888.

[1] See article _Plutarch_, in _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_, Ninth Edition.

[2] Grosart's _Herrick_, vol. i. p. liii. See in this
volume, p. 180, and also note to p. 288. Richard Baxter
again is always quoting the _Moralia_.

CONTENTS
Page

PREFACE. vii

I. ON EDUCATION 2
II. ON LOVE TO ONE'S OFFSPRING 21
III. ON LOVE 29
IV. CONJUGAL PRECEPTS 70
V. CONSOLATORY LETTER TO HIS WIFE 85
VI. THAT VIRTUE MAY BE TAUGHT 92
VII. ON VIRTUE AND VICE 95
VIII. ON MORAL VIRTUE 98
IX. HOW ONE MAY BE AWARE OF ONE'S PROGRESS IN VIRTUE 118
X. WHETHER VICE IS SUFF