"[K]
[Footnote K: The following passage presents a view of some of the uses
to which Plutarch's narratives were turned during the Middle Ages. "Or
personne n'ignore que les chroniqueurs du moyen age compilaient les
faits les plus remarquables de l'Ecriture Sainte ou des histoires
profanes pour les meler a leurs recits. C'est ainsi que ceux qui ont
ecrit la vie de Du Guesclin ont mis sur le compte de ce heros ce
que Plutarque rapporte de plus memorable des grands hommes de
l'antiquite."--SOUVESTRE. _Les Derniers Bretons._ I. 147.]
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. Other writers of lives have not had the same
fortune with Plutarch. For one reader of Suetonius or of Diogenes
Laertius, there are a thousand of Plutarch. Nor is it that the subjects
of his biographies are greater or more famous than all other men.
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