Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers

"
When
Plutarch and the Greece of His Age
Plutarch, whoso fame as
biographer has, I think,
unduly eclipsed his reputation as a moralist, may be
justly regarded as the leader of this movement, and
his moral writings may be profitably compared with
1 hose of Seneca, the most ample exponent of the sterner
school. Seneca is not unfreqiicntly self-conscious,
theatrical, and over strained. His precepts have
something of the affected ring of a popular preacher.
The imperfect fusion of his short sentences gives his
style a disjointed and. so to speak, granulated charac
ter, which the emperor Caligula happily expressed
when he compared it to sand without cement; yet he
often rises to a majesty of eloquence, a grandeur
both of thought and expression, that few moralists
have ever rivaled.
Plutarch, though far less sublime,
is more sustained, equable and uniformly pleasing.
The Montaigne of antiquity, his genius coruscates
playfully and gracefully around his subject; he de
lights in illustrations which are often singularly
vivid and original, but which by their excessive mul
tiplication appear sometimes rather the texture than
the ornament of his discourse. A gentle, tender spirit,
and a judgment equally free from paradox, exagger
ation, and excessive subtilty, are characteristics of all
he wrote. Plutarch excels most in collecting mo
tives of consolation; Seneca in forming characters that
need no consolation. There is something of the wo
man in Plutarch; Seneca is all man.* The writings
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* Plutarch, after the death of his daughter; was writ
ing a letter of consolation to his wife, we find him turning away
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