The New York herald. [volume] (New York, N.Y.) 1920-1924, 1921-09-18

account Of the other parts of the body,
80 / must be permitted to devote my
self to the signs of the soul in men,
and by means of these to portray the
life of each, leaving to others the de-
scription of their great contests
OF course admiration and apprecia-
ton of Plutarch have not been con-
fined to any one country. Our own
BENJAMIN Franklin has said, in telling
of his early browsing among the books
of his fathers library. "Plutarch's
Lives there was, in which ! read
abundantly, and ! still think that time
spent to great advantage" Perhaps
our dear old philosopher owes some OF
his shrewd insight into human nature
to that early course In applied psy-
chology.
But 1t goes without saying that the
influence exerted by Plutarch on all
others pales in comparison with the
paramount part which he played In
modelling the works Of our paramount
poet. Ghakespeare's indebtedness to
Plutarch is well known. "Coriolanus"
is largely based on the life of the
same name Loeb Library, Vol. IV).
Antony and Cleopatra" on Antony
Cvol. Ky, while Julius Caesar" owes
much to the last-named biography, as
well as to Brutus (Vol. VII and julius
Caesar (Vol. VIII. Such stirring
scenes as Antony's funeral grafton in
Julius Caesar" and the finding of the
dead Queen in Antony and Cleopatra"
are simply Plutarch transferred into
dramatic and poetic form. Even in
mere details Of diction Shakespeare
closely copied Plutarch in the render
ing through which he knew him-that
of North For example, in "Corio-
lanus." Ill, 1859 f.. we find:
I'm soothing them we nourish 'gainst
our senate
The cookie of rebellion. insolence
sedition."
This Is simply North's "They nour-
ished against themselves the naughty
seed and cookie of insolence and sedi-
tion"-which Perrin In the Loeb
Library fVol. w. p. 1850 renders,
"They were nourishing, to their own
harm, the evil seeds of holiness and
insolence." Further interesting in
stances of verbal imitation of North's
Plutarch. from "Coriolanus" and vari-
cited by DR.. Tyrrell in his admirable
essay on Plutarch
The chief of all dramatists has also
been the chief In recognizing and rea-
lizing the dramatic opportunities pro-
vided by Plutarch. A few modern
pays--such as John Masefield's
"Pompey the Great" and Odin Greg
ory's "Caius Gracchus"-show indebt-
edness to Plutarch; but many plays
are still crying out for a discoverer
among the pages 50 earnestly scanned
hv the great F,lizabethan
As Is we'll known and has been al
ready mentioned. Shakespeare used
the version OF Plutarch published by
Sir Thomas North in 1879 This was
really based not so much on the Greek
original as on the French rendering
by Jacques Amyot which had appeared
twenty years earlier. translation OF
a translation. North's work is natu-
rally valuable by reason Of charm and
vigor rather than OF accuracy and
scholarship. It was destined TO be
supplanted by new rendering which
was made about century later
(16s3D, and which undeservedly gained
reflected light from the name of Dry
den that 1t bore. although he con-
tributed merely the preface and the
life of Plutarch The eighteenth CEN
fury likewise had its Plutarch--that
Of the scholarly Langhorne brothers
f1T7o)-superlor TO It's predecessors 50
far as the letter went, but vastly in
ferior as regards the spirit Because
" its dun and pedantic character, the
nineteenth century returned TO the
Dryden version. revised by another
poet-scholar. Arthur Hugh Clough, In
1859. just 300 years after the publica-
ton Of the early Amyot translation,
This work, which occupied Clough for
period OF seven years. is preceded
" a long and interesting introduction,
Astounding in entertaining personal