_4. A Commentary on the Timæus of Plato, in five Books._ A most admirable work, composed in the flower of his age, when he was twenty-eight years old, according to Marinus. This invaluable treasure, may be said to contain all the wisdom of the highest antiquity: for Proclus every where cites the most celebrated interpreters on the Timæus, such as Adrastus the Peripatetic; Ælianus and Albinus, Platonists; Aristocles, Clearchus, Crantor, Dercyllides; and especially Jamblichus; likewise Longinus, whom he often refutes; Numenius the Pythagorean, and Origen, (different from Adamantius,) together with Plotinus, Porphyry the Platonic, Ptolemy, Severus, and Theodorus Asinæus; but he always prefers the explications of his master Syrianus, before all the rest. Add too, that he every where conciliates the Orphic writings and the Chaldean oracles with the theology of Plato. And with respect to Orpheus in particular, we are indebted to these sublime commentaries for the greatest part of the fragments of that divine poet. He is perpetually on the wing, and rises gradually in elevated conceptions, until his mind, like Homer’s discord, reaches the heavens. His style is at the same time nervous and diffuse, accurate and elegant. We are astonished with the magnificence of his metaphors, delighted with the copious variety of his matter, and filled with a divine light, by the sacred truths he unfolds. This great work, however, unfortunately, scarcely explains a third part of the Timæus; from whence it is probable, as Fabricius well observes, that several books have been lost through the injury of time. It was published in Greek, at Basil, in the year 1556; and is full of mistakes, as is generally the case with the Basil editions of books, so that a more correct edition is greatly to be desired, though at present not much to be expected. On concluding my account of this inestimable work, I find my indignation roused by the following words of Dr. Cudworth, in his Intellectual System, p. 306. “Proclus (says he) had some peculiar fancies and whims of his own, and was indeed a confounder of the Platonic theology, and a mingler of much unintelligible stuff with it.” I must confess, (and I am neither afraid, nor ashamed of the declaration,) that I never found any thing in Proclus, but what by patient thought, accompanied with a sincere and vehement thirst after truth, I have been able to fathom. Had Dr. Cudworth been endued with these requisites, he would doubtless have had equal success; but without them, the sublimest truths will certainly appear to be _unintelligible stuff_. Besides this consideration is not to be omitted, that a modern priest makes a bad philosopher.