fifty-five; for though the Republic forms but one treatise, and the Laws
another, yet the former consists of ten, and the latter of twelve books,
and each of these books is a dialogue. Hence, as there are thirty-three
dialogues, besides the Laws and the Republic, fifty-five will, as we have
said, be the amount of the whole. Of these fifty-five, the nine following
have been translated by Mr. Sydenham; viz. the First and Second Alcibiades,
the Greater and Lesser Hippias, the Banquet (except the speech of
Alcibiades), the Philebus, the Meno, the Io, and the Rivals.[29] I have
already observed, and with deep regret, that this excellent though
unfortunate scholar died before he had made that proficiency in the
philosophy of Plato which might have been reasonably expected from so fair
a beginning. I personally knew him only in the decline of life, when his
mental powers were not only considerably impaired by age, but greatly
injured by calamity. His life had been very stormy; his circumstances, for
many years preceding his death, were indigent; his patrons were by no means
liberal; and his real friends were neither numerous nor affluent. He began
the study of Plato, as he himself informed me, when he had considerably
passed the meridian of life, and with most unfortunate prejudices against
his best disciples, which I attempted to remove during my acquaintance with
him, and partly succeeded in the attempt; but infirmity and death prevented
its completion. Under such circumstances it was not to be expected that he
would fathom the profundity of Plato's conceptions, and arrive at the
summit of philosophic attainments. I saw, however, that his talents and his
natural disposition were such as might have ranked him among the best of
Plato's interpreters, if he had not yielded to the pressure of calamity, if
he had not nourished such baneful prejudices, and if he had not neglected
philosophy in the early part of life. Had this happened, my labors would
have been considerably lessened, or perhaps rendered entirely unnecessary,
and his name would have been transmitted to posterity with undecaying
renown. As this unfortunately did not happen, I have been under the