P L O 
his various engagements, and in this date were fuffered 
to pafs into the hands of his difciples. To this circum- 
ftance we may in part afcribe the obfcurity and confufion 
which are ftill to be found in them, notwithstanding the 
pains which, at the-requeft of Plotinus, his difciple Por¬ 
phyry took to correct them. The novelty of his plan of in- 
llruftion drew after hima crowd of auditors, among whom 
are faid to have been many fenators, and fome females of 
rank 5 but owing to the obfcurity and fu'otletv of his 
doftrine, the number of his real difciples was but fmall. 
To the inltruftion of thofe who were willing to become 
his followers, and to fpare no labour in order to acquire 
proficiency in his principles, he devoted himfelf with the 
grdatell affiduity. Nothing could exceed the ardour with • 
which he applied himfelf to his philofophical purfuits; 
and he was frequently accuftomed to prepare himfelf for 
his fublime contemplations by-watching and fading. It 
is not to be wondered at, therefore, that his enthuiiafm 
was fometimes raifed to the higheft pitch ; and that he 
could entertain a belief of his being under the prot.eftion 
af a genius, or familiar fpirif, of the moll eminent order, 
who was not merely a demon, but a god. The fuperiority 
which he fancied belonged to his tutelar genius, inflated 
him with a degree of pride which feems to have bordered 
on impiety. Having been defired by his difciple Amelius, 
for whom he had a great elleem, to (hare in his devotions, 
or the facrifices to the gods which he was about to offer 
up at fome folemn feftival, “ It is their bufinefs,” replied 
Plotinus, “ to come to me, and not for me to go to them.” 
“ No one,” fays Porphyry, “ could guefs, nor dared to 
alk, the reafon of this haughty anfwer.” 
Plotinus enjoyed fo high a reputation for wifdom and 
integrity, that many private quarrels were referred to his 
arbitration, and feveral perfons of both fexes, when on 
their death-beds, fent for him, to entruft him with the 
care of their eftates, and the guardianfhip of their children. 
Such offices, though troublefome, he never refufed, and 
lie difcharged them in a manner that gave the higheft 
fatisfaftion to the parties concerned. Indeed, his whole 
conduit was fo blamelefs and commendable, that he did 
not create to himfelf one enemy during the twenty-fix 
years in which he refided at Rome. His excellent cha¬ 
racter fecured to him the elleem and friendfliip of many 
perfons of high rank, and particularly of the emperor 
Gallienus, and his emprefs Salonina. The romantic turn 
of his mind was fufficiently Ihown by the ufe which be 
made of his intereft at court. He requelled the emperor 
to rebuild a city in Campania, which had been formerly 
deftroyed, and to grant it, with the adjoining territory, 
to a body of phiiofophers, who lliould be governed by the 
laws of Plato’s ideal republic, and Ihould call the city 
Piatonopolis; promifingat the fame time, that he himfelf, 
with his friends, would lay the foundation of this philo¬ 
fophical colony. The emperor, it is faid, was inclined to 
lillen to his application, till he was difliiaded by fome of 
his friends. As a further evidence of Plotinus’s Angula¬ 
rities in opinion, and fanatical fpirit, we may mention, 
that though well (killed in the medical art, he entertained 
fuch a contempt for the body, that he could never be 
prevailed upon to make ufe of the means neceffary for 
curing the difeafes to which he was fubjeft, or for mitiga¬ 
ting the pains which he fuffered. To juftify fuch unna¬ 
tural conduft, he could only plead the opinion which he 
had learned from Pythagoras and Plato, that the foul is 
fent into the body for the punilhment of its former fins, 
and mud, in this prifon, pafs through a fevere fervitude, 
before it can be fufficiently purified to return to the di¬ 
vine fountain from which it flowed. Such was his con¬ 
tempt of the corporeal vehicle in which his foul was en- 
clofed, that he would never fuffer his birth-day to be cele¬ 
brated, nor his portrait to be drawn by any perfon, with 
his knowledge. At length by his determined negleft of 
his health, and the very rigorous abllinence which he ob¬ 
served, be reduced himfelf to fuch a (late of difeafe and 
infirmity, that be fpent the latter part of his life in great 
Vol. XX; No. 1402. 
P L O 697 
bodily differing. In this condition, while Porphyry was 
in Sicily, being forfaken of all his friends excepting Eu- 
ftochius, he left Rome and retired into Campania, to the 
heirs of one of his former difciples, then deceafed. Here 
he was hofpitably fupported till his death, which took 
place in the year 270, when he was in the fixty-fixth year 
of his age. When he found his end approaching, he faid 
to Euftochius, “ The divine principle within me is now 
haltening to unite with that Divine Being which animates 
the univerfe exprefling in thofe words a leading prin¬ 
ciple of his philofophy, that the human foul is an emana¬ 
tion from the divine nature, and will return to thefource 
whence it proceeded. 
The treatifes of Plotinus, which are fifty-four in num¬ 
ber, were diftributed by Porphyry under fix claffes, called 
Enneads. Proclus wrote commentaries upon them, and 
Dexippus defended them againft the Peripatetics. At the 
requell of Cofmo de Medici, Marfilius Ficinus made a 
Latin verfion of them, which was firft publifhed by itfelf 
at Florence, under the title of “ Plotini Opera ex In fer¬ 
ret. Marfilii Ficini, cum Commentariis, necnon Vita 
lotini a Porphyrio confcripta,” 1492, folio. Afterwards 
the Greek text was publilhed at Bafil, from a manufcript 
Hated by Lambecci to be in the imperial library, accom¬ 
panied with the verfion of Ficinus, in 1580, folio. In 1787, 
a treatife was publilhed in London, “ Concerning the 
Beautiful: or a paraphrafed Tranflation from the Greek 
of Plotinus, Ennead I. Book VI. by Thomas Taylor,” 
8vo. Enfield’s Hiji. Phil. vol. ii. 
PLOTTER, J'. Confpirator.—Colonel, we (hall try 
who is the greater plotter of us two; 1 againft the Hate, 
or you againft the petticoat. Dryden. —Contriver: 
An irreligious Moor, 
Chief architect and plotter of thefe woes. Shahefpeare. 
PLOTTING, f The aft of forming a plot; the aft of 
delineating a traft of land on paper. 
PLOTT'NITZ, a lake of Silefia, in the principality of 
Oels; four miles eall of Militfch.— Alfo, a town of 
Silefia, in the principality of Neiffe; three miles weft of 
Patfchkau. 
PLO'TUS,/. the Darter ; a genus of birds of the order 
anleres. Generic characters—Bill ftraight, pointed, tooth¬ 
ed ; the nollrils have a flit near the bale; face and chin 
naked; legs Ihort; all the toes connefted. The birds of this 
genus, of which there are three fpecies, have a fmall head, 
and long (lender neck; they are chiefly feen in Southern 
climates; they live on fifli, which they take by darting 
forwards the head while the neck is contracted like the 
body of a ferpent. There are three fpecies. 
1. Plotus anhinga, white-bellied darter. The head is 
fmooth, and the belly white. The darter has been faid to 
exhibit a reptile grafted on the body of a bird. Its excef- 
fively long and (lender neck, and its fmall cylindrical head, 
rolled out like a fpindle, of the fame girth of the neck, 
and drawn out into a long (harp bill, refemble both the 
figure and the motion of a fnake, whether the bird nimbly 
extends its head to fly from the tops of trees, or unfolds 
it and darts it into the water to pierce the" fifties. Thefe 
lingular analogies have equally (truck all who have obferv- 
ed the darter in its native country, Brafil and Guiana; 
they (trike us even in the dried fpecimensof our cabinets. 
The plumage of the neck and head does not alter its (len¬ 
der Shape ; for it is a clofe down (haven like velvet; the 
eyes are of a brilliant black, with the iris golden, and en¬ 
circled by a naked (kin ; the bill is jagged at the tip with 
fmall indentings turned backwards. The body is fcarcely 
larger than a mallard ; yet the whole length of the bird, 
from the point of the bill to the end of the tail, is no le(s 
than two feet ten inches. The extreme length of the 
neck is not the only difproportion that ftrikes us in the 
figure of the darter. Its large and broad tail, cotnpofed 
of twelve fpread feathers, differs no lefs from the Short 
round Shape which obtains in mod of the fwimming birds; 
yet the anhinga fwims, and even dives, only holding its 
8 P head 
