Mr. Grote, in his History, passes a very different judgment upon these
two men from that to which one would be led by the perusal of Plutarch's
narratives merely. And it is an illustration, at once, of the honesty of
the ancient biographer, and of the ability of the modern historian, that
Mr. Grote should not infrequently derive from Plutarch's own account the
means for correcting his false estimate of the motives and the actions
of those whom he misjudged.
In an excellent passage in his Preface, Mr. Clough remarks that
"Much has been said of Plutarch's inaccuracy; and it cannot be denied
that he is careless about numbers, and occasionally contradicts his own
statements. A greater fault, perhaps, is his passion for anecdote; he
cannot forbear from repeating stories the improbability of which he is
the first to recognize, which, nevertheless, by mere repetition,
leave unjust impressions. He is unfair in this way to Demosthenes and
Pericles,--against the latter of whom, however, he doubtless inherited
the prejudices which Plato handed down to the philosophers.
"It is true, also, that his unhistorical treatment of the subjects
of his biography makes him often unsatisfactory and imperfect in the
portraits he draws.
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