P L U 
well-written works. He died in 1790, at the age of 74, 
having maintained through life the charaffer of a truly- 
virtuous good man. His principal publications are, 1. An 
Examination of the Dodlrine of Fatalifm, 3 vols. mno, 
2. A Dictionary of Herefies, 2 vols. 8vo. 3. ATreatife on 
Sociability, in oppofition of the fyftem of Hobbes, and to 
prove that man is difpofed to benevolence and religion. 
4.The Claffical Books of the Chinefe Empire, 4 vols.iamo. 
tranflated from the colledlion of Father Noel. 5. A phi- 
lofophical and political Treatife on Luxury, 2 vols. 
1211 ) 0 . 
PLU'RAL, adjfpluralis, Lat.] Implying more than one: 
Better'have none 
Than plural faith, which is too much by one. Shake/. 
In grammar.—The Greek and Hebrew have two varia¬ 
tions, one to fignify the number two, and another to 
fignify a number of more than two 5 under one variation 
the noun is faid to be of the dual number, and under 
the other of theplural. Clarke. 
PLU'RALIST, /.’ [from plural. ] One that holds more 
ecclefiaftical benefices than one with cure of fouls. 
PLURAL'ITIVE, arlj. Plural, containing many. Cole. 
PLURAL'ITY, f. The ftate of being or having a great 
number.—It is not plurality of parts without majority of 
parts, that maketh the total greater; yet it feemeth to 
tile eye a {hotter diftance of way, if it be all dead and con¬ 
tinued, than it it have trees, whereby the eye may divide 
it. Bacon. —A number more than one.—’Tis impoflible to 
conceive how any language can want this variation of 
the noun, where the nature of its fignification is fuch as to 
admit of plurality. Clarke's Lat. Gram.~ More cures 
of fouls than one.— Plurality of benefices, held by one 
prefbyter, is not contrary to the firft inftitution or en¬ 
dowment of parifhes. Dean Stanhope and H. Wharton's 
Def. ofPlur. 1692. 
You have thrown off your Prelate Lord, 
And with (tiff vows renounc’d his liturgy, 
To feize the widow’d whore Plurality 
From them whofe fin ye copied, not abhorr’d. Milton. 
The greater number; the majority.—Take the plurality 
of the world, and they are neither wife nor good. 
L' EJlrange. 
PLURAL'LY, adv. In a fenfe implying more than one. 
PLU'RIES,/. A writ of capias, when iflued a third 
time.—If the theriff cannot find the defendant upon the 
firft w rit of capias, there iffues out.an alias writ, and after 
that a pluries, and this claufe is inferted ficut pluriespraci- 
pitnus. Blackftone. 
PLURIFA'RIOUS, adj. [Latin.] Having diverfe 
fafhions. Cole. 0 
PLU’RISY,/. [from the Lat. plus, phi ris, more.] Super¬ 
abundance.— The plurify of goodnefs is thy ill. Maffin- 
ger.—A plurify of blood you may let out. Majfmgw's 
PiElurt. 
Goodnefs, growing to a plurify, 
Dies in his own too-much. Shakejpecue's Hamlet. 
PLUS, adv. in algebra,acharader marked thus +, ufed 
for the fign of addition. 
PLUSH, f. [pelucke , Fr.] A kind of villous or ftiaggy 
cloth ; fltag ; a kind of woollen velvet.—The colour of 
plujh or velvet will appear varied if you ftroak part of it 
one way and part of it another. Boyle.— Some afcribe the 
invention of plujh to the Englifh 5 others fay it was firft 
made in Holland, and particularly at Haerlem. Be this as 
it will, it is certain the French are the people who make 
the moll of it; there being feveral very confiderable plufh- 
mantifailures at Amiens, Abbeville, and Compeigne. 
Chambers. 
I love to wear cloths that are flufli. 
Not prefacing old rags with plujh. Clcaveland. 
PLUSII'ER, /. A fea-fifh. A fpecies of {hark; probably 
the Squalus Cornubicus. — The pilchard is devoured by 
hugger kind of fifli called a plu/her, fomewhat like the 
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dog-fifli, who leapeth above water, and there through 
bewrayeth them to the balker. Carew. 
PLU'TARCH, an eminent biographer and moralift, 
was born at Chaeronea in Bceotia, of a family which had 
filled offices of tnagiftracy in that city. The period of his 
birth is not known; but it was either the latter part of the 
reign of Claudius, or the commencement of that of Nero. 
He ftudied under a philofopher of the name of Ammo¬ 
nias, whofe particular fedft is not known. After leaving 
the fchcols, he is fuppofed to have travelled for improve¬ 
ment; and forne haveafferted that he vilited Egypt, chiefly 
from the circumftance of his writing a treatife on 
Ifis and Ofiris.” His attachment to ftudy did not pre¬ 
vent him from engaging in public bufinefs; for he 
mentions having been fent, when a very young man, on 
a deputation to the Roman proconful. It was probably 
alfo in fome public capacity that he firft vifited Rome and 
Italy ; for he fays he had not lei(ure at that time to learn 
the Latin language, on account of the commiffions with 
which he was charged, and the numbers who reforted to 
him in order to be inftrufled in philofophy. This was in 
the reign of Domitian; and he mentions theilluftriousAru- 
lenus Rufticus as one of his particular friends. He either 
vifited Rome or made it his continued abode for a confi¬ 
derable time; fince we find him in reputation there 
during the reign of Trajan, who by fome is fuppofed to 
have been one of his auditors. That emperor is faid by 
Suidas to have raifed Plutarch to the confular dignity; 
which does not imply that he bore the office of conful, but 
that the titular honour of it was conferred upon him. It 
is added that all the prefers in Illyricum were direffed 
to do nothing without his approbation, whence he is faid 
to have been procurator of Greece. He finally retired 
to his native place, in which he fixed his refidence, giving 
as a reafon, that being born in a little city he would not 
make it lefs by deferting it. Pie was there chofen to the 
office of archon or chief magiftrate, and was afterwards 
admitted into the college of priefts of the Delphic Apollo. 
The time of his death is not certainly known, but it was 
probably in the earlier part of Adrian’s reign, about 
A. D. 120. Plutarch was married and had feveral children. 
Two fons furvived him, Plutarch and Lamprias: the lalt 
probably imitated his father in his ftudies, as he drew up 
a catalogue of his works, and is thought to have collefled 
his apophthegms. He had a nephew, named Sextus, 
who was preceptor in the Greek language to the emperor 
Marcus Antoninus. 
Plutarch derived his philofophical tenets from various 
fources. In ethics he chiefly followed Ariftotle; his 
pfychology is derived from the Egyptians or from the 
Pythagoreans; his metaphyfics are thofe of Plato and the 
old academy. He fometimes aflerts with the Dogmatifts, 
and doubts with the Sceptics ; and upon the whole is 
rather to be regarded as a memorialift and interpreter of 
philofophers, than as himlelf an eminent philofopher. 
His works have been divided, and they admit of a pret¬ 
ty equal divifion, into Lives and Morals: the former of 
which, in his own eftimation, were to be preferred as 
more noble than the latter; but it appears from his fon’s 
catalogue that more of them have been loft than preferved. 
His ftyle has been excepted to with fome reafon; he has 
been criticifed for fome miftakes in Roman antiquities, 
and for a little partiality to the Greeks. On the other 
hand, he has been juftly praifed for the copioufnefs of his 
fine fenfe and learning, for his integrity, and fora certain 
air of piety which appears in all he wrote. Of his moral 
writings it is to be regretted that w'e have no elegant and 
uniform Englifti tranffation. Even his Lives were chiefly 
known to the Englifh reader by a motley and miferable 
verfion, till a new one, executed with fidelity and fpirit, 
was prefented to the public by the Langhornes in 1770. 
It is to be wifhed that this moll amiable moralift and bio¬ 
grapher had added a life of himfelf to thofe which he has 
given to the world of others, as the particulars which 
other writers have preferved of his perfonal hiftory are 
very doubtful and imperfect. Some verfes in the Antho- 
logia, 
