[Footnote O:  There is a striking passage 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 illustration of the reality of companionship which one who possesses Plutarch may have in his own chamber with the greatest and most interesting men of ancient times.  If he be worthy, he may make the best of them his intimates.  He may live with them as his counsellors and his friends.  Whether he will believe that he is “the wisest man of them all” is doubtful; but, however this may be, he will find himself in their company growing wiser, stronger, tenderer, and truer.