Patricius was one of the very few in modern times who have been
sensible of the great merit of these writings, as is evident from the
extract from the preface to his translation of Proclus's Theological
Elements. (Ferrar. 4to. 1583.) Patricius, prior to this, enumerates the
writings of Proclus, and they are included in his wish that all the
manuscript Greek commentaries on Plato were made public.
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And here gratitude demands that I should publicly acknowledge the very
handsome and liberal manner in which I was received by the University of
Oxford, and by the principal librarian and sub-librarians of the Bodleian
library, during the time that I made the above mentioned extracts. In the
first place I have to acknowledge the very polite attention which was paid
to me by Dr. Jackson,[31] dean of Christ-church. In the second place, the
liberty of attendance at the Bodleian library, and the accommodation which
was there afforded me, by the librarians of that excellent collection,
demand from me no small tribute of praise. And, above all, the very liberal
manner in which I was received by the fellows of New College, with whom I
resided for three weeks, and from whom I experienced even Grecian
hospitality, will, I trust, be as difficult a task for time to obliterate
from my memory, as it would be for me to express it as it deserves.

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[31] I was much pleased to find that this very respectable prelate is a
great admirer of Aristotle, and that extracts from the Commentaries of
Simplicius and Ammonius on the Categories of that philosopher, are read
by his orders in the college of which he is the head.
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With respect to the faults which I may have committed in this translation
(for I am not vain enough to suppose it is without fault), I might plead
as an excuse, that the whole of it has been executed amidst severe
endurance from bodily infirmity and indigent circumstances; and that a
very considerable part of it was accomplished amidst other ills of no
common magnitude, and other labors inimical to such an undertaking. But
whatever may be my errors, I will not fly to calamity for an apology. Let
it be my excuse that the mistakes I may have committed in lesser
particulars, have arisen from my eagerness to seize and promulgate those
great truths in the philosophy and theology of Plato, which though they
have been concealed for ages in oblivion, have a subsistence coeval with
the u