French translation generally is. The translation of 'Plutarch's Lives
from the Greek by several hands,' was published at London in 1683-86. It
was dedicated by Dryden to James Butler, the first Duke of Ormond, in a
fulsome panegyric. It is said that forty-one translators laboured at the
work. Dryden did not translate any of the Lives; but he wrote the Life
of Plutarch which is prefixed to this translation. The advertisement
prefixed to the translation passes under the name and character of the
bookseller (Jacob Tonson), but, as Malone observes, it may from internal
evidence be safely attributed to Dryden. The bookseller says, "You have
here the first volume of Plutarch's Lives turned from the Greek into
English; and give me leave to say, the first attempt of doing it from
the _originals_." This is aimed at North's version, of which Dryden
remarks in his Life of Plutarch: "As that translation was only from the
French, so it suffered this double disadvantage; first, that it was but
a copy of a copy, and that too but lamely taken from the Greek original;
secondly, that the English language was then unpolished, and far from
the perfection which it has since attained; so that the first version is
not only ungrammatical and ungraceful, but in many places almost
unintelligible." There is another English version, by the Langhornes,
which has often been reprinted; there is an edition of it with notes by
Wrangham. I have compared my translation carefully with the German of
Kaltwasser, and sometimes with the French of Amyot, and I have thus
avoided some errors into which I should have fallen. There are errors
both in the versions of Amyot and Kaltwasser which I have avoided; but I
may have fallen into others.

The translation of Kaltwasser contains some useful notes. Those which I
have added to this translation are intended to explain so much as needs
explanation to a person who is not much acquainted with Roman history
and Roman usages; but they will also be useful to others. The notes of