rds for things? When such as
these dare to defame men who may be justly ranked among the greatest and
wisest of the ancients, what else can be said than that they are the
legitimate descendants of the suitors of Penelope, whom, in the animated
language of Ulysses,

Laws or divine or human fail'd to move,
Or shame of men, or dread of gods above:
Heedless alike of infamy or praise,
Or Fame's eternal voice in future days,[21]

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[21] Pope's Odyssey, book xxii, v. 47, &c.
-----------------

But it is now time to present the reader with a general view of the works
of Plato, and, also to speak of the preambles, digressions, and style of
their author, and of the following translation. In accomplishing the
first of these, I shall avail myself of the synopsis of Mr. Sydenham,
taking the liberty at the same time of correcting it where it appears to
be erroneous, and of making additions to it where it appears to be
deficient.

The dialogues of Plato are of various kinds; not only with regard to
those different matters, which are the subjects of them; but in respect
of the manner also in which they are composed or framed, and of the form
under which they make their appearance to the reader. It will therefore,
as I imagine, be not improper, in pursuance of the admonition given us by
Plato himself in his dialogue named Phaedrus[22] and in imitation of the
example set us by the ancient Platonists to distinguish the several
kinds; by dividing them, first, into the most general; and then,
subdividing into the subordinate; till we come to those lower species,
that particularly and precisely denote the nature of the several
dialogues, and from which they ought to take their respective
denominations.

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[22] Whoever is unable to divide and distinguish things into their
several sorts or species; and, on the other hand, referring every
particular to its proper species, to comprehend them all in one general
idea; will never understand any writings of which those things are the
subject, like a true critic, upon those high principles of art to which
the human understanding reaches. We have thought proper, here, to
paraphrase this passage, for the sake of giving to every part of so
important a sentence its full force, agreeably to the tenor of Plato's
doctrine; and in order to initiate our readers into a way of thinking,
that probably many of them are as yet unacquainted with.
----------------