Bookseller.—­Am I got into a world so absolutely the reverse of that I left, that here authors domineer over booksellers?  Dear Charon, let me go back, and I will pay any price for my passage; but, if I must stay, leave me not with any of those who are styled classical authors.  As to you, Plutarch, I have a particular animosity against you for having almost occasioned my ruin.  When I first set up shop, understanding but little of business, I unadvisedly bought an edition of your “Lives,” a pack of old Greeks and Romans, which cost me a great sum of money.  I could never get off above twenty sets of them.  I sold a few to the Universities, and some to Eton and Westminster, for it is reckoned a pretty book for boys and undergraduates; but, unless a man has the luck to light on a pedant, he shall not sell a set of them in twenty years.

Plutarch.—­From the merit of the subjects, I had hoped another reception for my works.  I will own, indeed, that I am not always perfectly accurate in every circumstance, nor do I give so exact and circumstantial a detail of the actions of my heroes as may be expected from a biographer who has confined himself to one or two characters.  A zeal to preserve the memory of great men, and to extend the influence of such noble examples, made me undertake more than I could accomplish in the first degree of perfection; but surely the characters of my illustrious men are not so imperfectly sketched that they will not stand forth to all ages as patterns of virtue and incitements to glory.  My reflections are allowed to be deep and sagacious; and what can be more useful to a reader than a wise man’s judgment on a great man’s conduct?  In my writings you will find no rash censures, no undeserved encomiums, no mean compliance with popular opinions, no vain ostentation of critical skill, nor any affected finesse.  In my “Parallels,” which used to be admired as pieces of excellent judgment, I compare with perfect impartiality one great man with another, and each with the rule of justice.  If, indeed, latter ages have produced greater men and better writers, my heroes and my works ought to give place to them.  As the world has now the advantage of much better rules of morality than the unassisted reason of poor Pagans could form, I do not wonder that those vices, which appeared to us as mere blemishes in great characters, should seem most horrid deformities in the purer eyes of the present age—­a delicacy I do not blame, but admire and commend.  And I must censure you for endeavouring, if you could publish better examples, to obtrude on your countrymen such as were defective.  I rejoice at the preference which they give to perfect and unalloyed virtue; and as I shall ever retain a high veneration for the illustrious men of every age, I should be glad if you would give me some account of those persons who in wisdom, justice, valour, patriotism, have eclipsed my Solon, Numa, Camillus, and other boasts of Greece or Rome.