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The tomb of Cæcilia Metella, wife of the rich and famous Crassus, claims our next attention; it is a beautiful structure, and still called Capo di Bove by the Italians, on account of its being ornamented with the oxhead and flowers which now flourish over every door in the new-built streets of London; but the original of which, as Livy tells us, and I believe Plutarch too, was this.
The question naturally arises, What are the qualities in Plutarch which have made him so universal a favorite, which have attracted towards him men of such opposite tempers and different lives? It is not enough to say that all real biography is of interest, that every man has curiosity about the life of every other man, and finds in it illustrations of his own.
They soon appeared, "in immense numbers," says Plutarch, "with their hideous looks and their wild cries," drawing up their chariots, and planting their tents in front of the Roman camp. They showered upon Marius and his soldiers continual insult and defiance. The Romans, in their irritation, would fain have rushed out of their camp, but Marius restrained them.
But, I must break off this treaty with a story related in Plutarch. The city of Athens was in a great strait, wherein they knew not what to do. Themistocles in this strait said he had something wherein to give his opinion, for the behoof of the state, but he thought it not fit to deliver himself publicly.
Several authors wrote universal history from the beginning of the world to their own time; every state, province, and city possessed its individual chronicle, Many, in imitation of Plutarch, wrote the lives of distinguished men; and there was such a passion for every species of composition, and such a desire to leave no subject untouched, that there was a serious history written of celebrated horses, and another of camels that had risen to distinction.
Throw those books off that chair and make yourself easy." One by one Pendleton lifted the books and glanced at the titles. "Your morning's reading, if this is such," commented he, "is strikingly catholic. Plutarch, Snarleyow, the Opium Eater, Martin Chuzzlewit." Then came a host of tattered pamphlets, bound in shrieking paper covers, which the speaker handled gingerly.
Plutarch twits Chrysippus with inconsistency, because in the face of this declaration as to the order of treatment, he nevertheless says that morals rest upon physics. But to this charge it may fairly be replied that the order of exposition need not coincide with the order of existence.
Here is the Tale of Troy, which the audience will bear hearing some part of, every week; the Death of Julius Caesar, and other stories out of Plutarch, which they never tire of; a shelf full of English history, from the chronicles of Brut and Arthur down to the royal Henries, which men hear eagerly; and a string of doleful tragedies, merry Italian tales, and Spanish voyages, which all the London 'prentices know.
And I said to him, 'Respected Doctor, what do they call that book? He answered, 'It is called the Greek Plutarch, and it treats of philosophy. And I said, 'Read some of it, for it must contain wonderful things. Then I saw a little book, newly printed, lying on the floor, and I said to him, 'Respected Doctor, what lies there? He answered, 'It is a controversial book, which a friend in Cologne sent me lately.
These tales gave me a most precocious insight into human passions, and the confused emotions which swept through me brought with them the queerest and most romantic views of life. But when I was seven we came to the end of my mother's old stock of romances, and we fell back on Bossuet, Molière, Plutarch, Ovid, and the like.
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