so largely stamped with the characters of sovereign good, that they are
calculated to benefit in a certain degree even those who are incapable
of penetrating their profundity. They can tame a savage sophist, like
Thrasymachus in the Republic; humble the arrogance even of those who
are ignorant of their ignorance; make those to become proficients in
political, who will never arrive at theoretic virtue; and, in short, like
the illuminations of deity, wherever there is any portion of aptitude in
their recipients, they purify, irradiate, and exalt.

After this general view of the dialogues of Plato, let us in the next
place consider their preambles, the digressions with which they abound,
and the character of the style in which they are written. With respect to
the first of these, the preambles, however superfluous they may at first
sight appear, they will be found on a closer inspection necessary to the
design of the dialogues which they accompany. Thus the prefatory part of
the Timaeus unfolds, in images agreeably to the Pythagoric custom, the
theory of the world; and the first part of the Parmenides, or the
discussion of ideas, is in fact merely a preamble to the second part,
or the speculation of the one; to which however it is essentially
preparatory. Hence, as Plutarch says, when he speaks of Plato's dialogue
on the Atlantic island: These preambles are superb gates and magnificent
courts with which he purposely embellishes his great edifices, that
nothing may be wanting to their beauty, and that all may be equally
splendid. He acts, as Dacier well observes, like a great prince, who,
when he builds a sumptuous palace, adorns (in the language of Pindar) the
vestibule with golden pillars. For it is fit that what is first seen
should be splendid and magnificent, and should as it were perspicuously
announce all that grandeur which afterwards presents itself to the view.

With respect to the frequent digressions in his dialogues, these also,