The Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius - College of Stoic Philosophers

MARCUS AURELIUS 231
of the general fidelity and accuracy of his translation ;
on these matters, besides, I am hardly entitled to speak,
and my praise is of no value. But that for which I and
the rest of the unlearned may venture to praise Mr. Long
is this ;
that he treats Marcus Aurelius s writings, as he
treats all the other remains of Greek and Roman antiquity
which he touches, not as a dead and dry matter of learning,
but as documents with a side of modern applicability and
living interest, and valuable mainly so far as this side in
them can be made clear ;
that as in his notes on Plutarch s
Roman Lives he deals with the modern epoch of Caesar
and Cicero, not as food for schoolboys, but as food for
men, and men engaged in the current of contemporary
life and action, so in his remarks and essays on Marcus
Aurelius, he treats this truly modern striver and thinker
not as a Classical Dictionary hero, but as a present
source from which to draw example of life, and in
struction of manners. Why may not a son of Dr. Arnold
say, what might naturally here be said by any other
critic, that in this lively and fruitful way of considering
the men and affairs of ancient Greece and Rome, Mr. Long
resembles Dr. Arnold ?
One or two little complaints, however, I have against
Mr. Long, and I will get them off my mind at once. In
the first place, why could he not have found gentler and
terms to describe the translation of his best known
juster
predecessor, Jeremy Collier the redoubtable enemy of
stage plays than these : a most coarse and vulgar
copy of the original ? As a matter of taste, a translator
should deal leniently with his predecessor ; but, putting
that out of the question, Mr. Long s language is a great
deal too hard. Most English people who knew Marcus
Aurelius before Mr. Long appeared as his introducer,
knew him through Jeremy Collier. And the acquaintance
of a man like Marcus Aurelius is such an imperishable
benefit, that one can never lose a peculiar sense of obliga-