Notices of Recent Publications [pp. 633-642]

Notices of Recent Publications.
idenitified as forming constituent parts of the one body of Christ in
its earthly essence.
"Between these two doctrines of the Church, the medieval or Roman,
and the evangelical or Protestant, there is no tenable middle ground.
This is the great lesson of our history. One or the other of these
two positions must be maintained: either the Church Catholic is one
and the same with the collective whole of the churches of the Roman
obedience, exemplifying as it does, in completeness, the theory of a
visible organic unity,'Catholic unity,' as its advocates claim, or the
visible Church Catholic, so called, is one and the same with the collective whole of the particular churches which severally confess the
faith of Christ crucified; a collective whole presumptively identified
with the mystical body of Christ, visibly one considered as the aggregation of all particular churches, each maintaining in its purity the
faith once delivered to the saints."
Plutarch's Morals, translated from the Greek by several hands, corrected and
revised by William W. Goodwin, Ph.D., Professor of Greek Literature
in Harvard University, with an introduction by Ralph Waldo Emerson,
in six volumes, 8vo. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 1870.
It is probable that "Plutarch's Lives" has made a deeper impression upon the minds of a greater number of generous-young men than
any other book that was ever written, except the Bible. These beautiful volumes include all of Plutarch that remains to the world, except
the "Lives" In this reprint from the fifth English edition published
in 1718, revised and corrected with great labor, Prof. Goodwin has
rendered a great service to the lovers of Plutarch and to the world.
For although a new translation from the Greek text, corrected and
restored where it is corrupt, so far as this is possible, by modern criticism is still a great desideratum, yet it is doubtfuil whether it would
supersede this monument of the copiousness and riches of the English
language, when it was, to say the least, vastly more flexible than it is
now.
Plutarch, beyond comparison, is the most entertaining, and, in certain respects, the most instructive, of all the ancient authors, whether
Greek or Latin. We grow tired at last of Homer and Sophocles, of
Herodotus and Plato, of Plautus and Virgil, vCsesar, Cicero, and
Seneca; but we never tire of Plutari. He is a perpetual refreshment-so genial, so human, so full of good sense, so full of sympathy
with all that is heroic and sublime.
In such a brief notice of this work it is almost impossible to say
anything that is worth saying. But let any one who is not already a
lover of Plutarch take up the first volume in a bookstore, and read
over the short introduction by Emerson, and he will surely find it
difficult to leave without carrying with him the whole work. Hear
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