232 P L U P L U porter of Catholic emancipation ; he was not averse to some measure of parliamentary reform ; and, as generally lie was on the side of constitutional progress, he was reckoned a principal ornament of one of the sections of the Whigs. In 1822 Plunket was once more attorney-general for Ireland, with Lord Wellesley as lord-lieutenant. One of his first official acts was to prosecute for the " bottle riot," an attempt on his part to put down the Orange faction in Ireland. But, though always the advocate of the Catholic claims, he strenuously opposed the Catholic Association, which about this time, under the guidance of O Connell, began its extraordinary and successful agitation. He struggled vehemently to extinguish it, and in 1825 made a powerful speech against it ; and thus the curious spectacle was seen of the ablest champion of an oppressed sect doing all in his power to check its efforts to emancipate itself. In 1827 Plunket was made master of the rolls in Eng land ; but, owing to the professional jealousy of the bar, who not unnaturally thought him an intruder, he was obliged to abandon this office. Soon afterwards he became chief justice of the common pleas in Ireland, and was then created a peer of the United Kingdom. In 1830 he was appointed lord chancellor of Ireland, and held the office, with an interval of a few months only, until 1841, when he finally retired from public life. During this period he made some able speeches in favour of parliamentary reform; but they were scarcely equal to his earlier efforts ; and his reputation as a judge, though far from low, was not so eminent as might have been expected. He died in 1854, in his ninetieth year. (w. o. M.) PLUSH (French Peluche), a textile fabric having a cut nap or pile the same as fustian or velvet. Originally the pile of plush consisted of mohair or worsted yarn, but now silk by itself or with a cotton backing is used for plush, the distinction from velvet being found in the longer and less dense pile of plush. The material is largely used for upholstery and furniture purposes, and is also much employed in dress and millinery. The most distinctive form of plush is that which has taken the place of the napped beaver felt in the dress hats of gentlemen, which are now consequently known as "silk" hats. That plush, a considerable manufacture, is principally made in Lyons. PLUTARCH (ITAcurrapxos Xatpwvevs), a Greek prose writer, born at Chaeronea in Boaotia, and a contemporary of Tacitus and the Plinys. The precise dates of his birth and death are unknown ; but it is certain that he flourished under the Roman emperors from Nero to Trajan inclusive, so that from 50 to 100 A.D. will probably include the best years of his life. There is some probability that he out lived Trajan, 1 who died in 117. In the Consolation to his Wife on the loss of his young daughter, he tells us ( 2) that they had brought up four sons besides, one of whom was called by the name of Plutarch s brother, Lamprias. We learn incidentally from this treatise ( 10) that the writer had been initiated in the secret mysteries of Dionysus, which held that the soul was imperishable. He seems to have been an independent thinker rather than an adherent to any particular school of philosophy. His forte, so to say, was learning, and the application of it to the casualties of human existence. His vast acquaintance with the litera ture of his time is everywhere apparent; and with history especially he was thoroughly conversant, and hardly less so with physics. The celebrity of Plutarch, or at least his popularity, is mainly founded on his forty-six Parallel Lives. He is thought to have written this work in his later years after 1 The scanty evidences of date collected from Plutarch s writings are well discussed by Long in Smith s Diet, of Bioy., iii. p. 429. his return to his native town Chrcronea. His knowledge of Latin and of Roman history he must have partly derived from some years residence in Rome and other parts of Italy, 2 though he says he was too much engaged in lecturing (doubtless in Greek, on philosophy) to turn his attention much to Roman literature during that period. Long observes that " we must expect to find him imperfectly informed on Roman institutions, and we can detect in him some errors. Yet, on the whole, his Roman lives do not often convey erroneous notions ; if the detail is incorrect, the general impression is true." Plutarch s design in writing the Parallel Lives for this is the title which he gives them in dedicating Theseus and Romulus to Sosius Senecio appears to have been the publication, in successive books, of authentic biographies in pairs, a Greek and a Roman (generally with some approximation to synchronism as well as some well-marked resemblances in political career) being selected as the subject of each. In the introduction to the Theseus he speaks of having already issued his Lycurgus and Nnma, viewing them, no doubt, as bearing a resemblance to each other in their legislative character ; and so Theseus and Romulus are compared as the legendary founders of states. In the opening sentence of the life of Alexander he says that " in this book he has written the lives of Alexander and Caesar " (Julius), and in his Demosthenes, where he again (1) mentions his friend Sosius, SoWics, he calls the life of this orator and Cicero the fifth book. 3 It may there fore fairly be inferred that Plutarch s original idea was simply to set (7rapafldiv, Nic., 1) a Greek warrior, statesman, orator, or legislator side by side with some noted Roman celebrated for the same qualities. In his age, when Rome held the supremacy, but Greece was still looked up to as the centre and source of wisdom and art, such a comparison of the greatest men of both nations had a special propriety and significance, and was more than a mere literary exercise. It was a patriotic theme, to show the superiority of this or that race ; and Plutarch, in a sense, belonged to both. Now Alexander and C. Caesar, Demosthenes and Cicero, Solon and Valerius Publicola, have some fairly obvious resemblances, which are not so conspicuous in some other pairs. But the sequel which follows most (not all) of the Lives, entitled cnryK/ito-is, viz., a comparison in detail, is by modern critics rejected as spurious. It was manifestly added as an appendix from a misapprehension of Plutarch s real motive ; the effort to bring out exact points of resemblances which are either forced or fanciful far exceeded the design contemplated by him. Moreover, the marked difference in style between the /?toi and the o-uyKpiVets is quite decisive of the ques tion. Nearly all the lives are in pairs ; but the series con cludes with single biographies of Artaxcrxes, Aratus (of Sicyon), Galba, and Otho. In the life of Aratus, not Sosius Senecio, but one Polycrates, is addressed. It is not to be supposed that Plutarch was content to write merely amusing or popular biographies. On the contrary, the Lives are works of great learning and research, and they must for this very reason, as well as from their considerable length, have taken many years in their compilation. For example, in the life of Theseus the following long list of authorities appears : the Megarian historians, 4 Hellanicus, Simonides, Philochorus, Pherecydes, Demo, Paeon of Amathus, Dicaearchus, Hero- 2 Demosth. , "2. Plutarch s orthography of Roman words and names is important as bearing on the question of pronunciation. A curious example (De Fortun. Rom., 5) is Virtutis et Honoris, written Ouiprovris re xal Ovwpis. The Volsci are OVOOV<TKOI, ibid.
- ! It is quite evident tiiat the original order of the books has been
altered in the series of Lives as we now have them.
4 Oi Meyapddev avyypa<p(~is, referred to in 10.