but if any judgment may be formed of this work, from a translation of it
into English, I will be bold to say that it is by no means literal, and
that he very frequently mistakes the sense of the original. From this
translation therefore I could derive but little assistance; some however
I have derived, and that little I willingly acknowledge. In translating
the rest of Plato's works, and this, as the reader may easily see, form
by far the greatest part of them, I have had no assistance from any
translation except that of Ficinus, the general excellency of which is
well known to every student of Plato, arising not only from his
possessing a knowledge of Platonism superior to that of any translators
that have followed him, but likewise from his having made this
translation from a very valuable manuscript in the Medicean library,
which is now no longer to be found. I have, however, availed myself of
the learned labors of the editors of various dialogues of Plato; such as
the edition of the Rivals, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, by
Forster; of the First and Second Alcibiades and Hipparchus, by Etwall; of
the Meno, First Alcibiades, Phaedo and Phaedrus, printed at Vienna, 1784;
of the Cratylus and Theaetetus, by Fischer; of the Republic, by Massey;
and of the Euthydemus and Gorgias, by Dr. Routh, president of Magdalen
College, Oxford. This last editor has enriched his edition of these two
dialogues with very valuable and copious philological and critical notes,
in which he has displayed no less learning than judgment, no less
acuteness than taste. He appears indeed to me to be one of the best and
most modest of philologists; and it is to be hoped that he will be
imitated in what he has done by succeeding editors of Plato's text.

If my translation had been made with an eye to the judgment of the many,
it would have been necessary to apologize for its literal exactness.
Had I been anxious to gratify false taste with respect to composition, I
should doubtless have attended less to the precise meaning of the original,