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PLUTO

1507

PLYMOUTH

Greece. He also spent several years at Rome, where he enjoyed the friendship of public officers and men of learning, besides devoting himself to a course of study and giving lectures on philosophy. Life at Rome not being altogether to his taste, he returned to Chasronea, where he became a magistrate, and died at 70 or 75 in the reign of Emperor Hadrian.

The work of Plutarch for which he is most noted is his Parallel Lives, in which he gives the life of some distinguished Greek and some distinguished Roman, and then draws a detailed comparison between them, although some authorities consider these comparisons spurious. These lives, 44 in number, as arranged in pairs, include Demosthenes and Cicero; Aristides and Cato the Elder; Pericles and Fabius Maximus; Alexander and Caesar; Agesilaus and Pompey; Pyrrhus and Marius; and Alcibiades and Coriolanus among others. Plutarch was not a profound thinker, but he was a man of rare gifts, and adheres throughout to his professed purposes, which was portraiture of character. For this reason his Lives will remain the book of all ages, so that Plutarch may almost be called the interpreter of Greece and Rome to modern times. Emerson called him "the serenest and stablest figure in the world of letters." Shakspere was greatly indebted to Plutarch. See A. H. Clough's version of Plutarch's Lives.

Plu'to, the surname of Hades, in Grecian mythology is the third son of Cronos and Rhea and the brother of Zeus and Poseidon. To him belongs the sovereignty of the under world — the realm of darkness and ghostly shades — where he sits enthroned as a "subterranean Zeus," and rules the spirits of the dead. His dwelling place, however, is not far from the earth. Pluto is inexorable in disposition, not to be moved by prayers or flatteries, and is borne on a car drawn by four black steeds, whom he guides with golden reins. In Homer, Hades means a person, not a place; and the poet does not divide the realm of the shades into two distinct regions. All the souls of the dead — good and bad alike — mingle together. At a later day the kingdom of the dead was divided into Elysium, the abode of the good, and Tartarus, the abode of the wicked. This change also exercised an important influence on the ancients' conception of Pluto. The ruler of the underworld not only acquired additional power and majesty, but was regarded as a beneficent deity, who held the treasures of the earth (whence his name Pluto, from plutein, to be rich) in his hands, and caused the fruits and abundance of the earth to spring from under the ground. Hence in later times men prayed to him before digging for the wealth hid in the bowels of the earth.

Plym'outh Company, The, was incorporated in 1606 by a company of English merchants belonging to Plymouth and Bristol for the purpose of trade, especially with North Virginia; James I granted it a charter and a portion of territory lying between Passamaquoddy Bay and Long Island, so that it became a serious competitor with the London Company. In 1620 the Plymouth Company was reorganized. It had been the North Virginia Company; henceforth it was the New England Company. Under its auspices the Pilgrim Fathers (q. v.} obtained their patent for a settlement in so-called Virginia.

Plymouth, an English seaport on the northern shore of Plymouth Sound, 240 miles from London and 125 from Bristol. It was the favorite port of Edward the Black Prince, the chief rendezvous of Drake, Hawkins, Grenville, Raleigh and their fellows, and the final port of departure of the Pilgrim Fathers in the Mayflower. In the contest of Charles I with Parliament it sided with the latter, and after enduring a series of sieges and blockades, extending over four years, shared with Hull the honor of saving the parliamentary cause. In the reign of James II it was the first town to declare for the Prince of Orange (William III), and in the great French war it rivaled Portsmouth in naval activities. Population 112,042.

Plymouth, Mass., on Plymouth Bay, 37 miles by rail from Boston, is famous as the landing place of the Pilgrim Fathers, Dec. 21, 1620. Plymouth Rock, on which they landed, is a granite bowlder at the water's edge and is covered by a handsome granite canopy. The national monument, on a hill overlooking the landing-place, is 46 feet in height, and is surmounted by a central figure of Faith, with four immense stone figures, representing Morality, Education, Freedom and Law, around the base. In Pilgrim Hall are preserved many relics of the first settlement. The town is popular as a summer resort. It has a variety of manufactures — duck, cordage, woolen goods, tacks, wire nails and electrical supplies. Population 12,141. See MAYFLOWER.

Plymouth, Pa., a borougr on the Sus-quehanna, county-seat of Lt? ierne County, four miles from Wilkes-Barre, and in the center of the anthracite mining activities. It is served by the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western, the Delaware and Hartford and the Jersey Central which enters for coal-trade. It has public and high schools, churches, banks and other civic institutions. Its chief industry is the shipping and handling of coal, as it is in communication, both by water and rail, with Scranton and the mines of Wilkes-Barre. Among other occupations are hoisery, silk and mining-drill mills and a paper and wooden box factory. It is united by electric lines to