Sydenham, FLOYER

Sydenham, FLOYER (1710-87), an amiable and accomplished man of letters, whose privations and miserable end brought about the foundation of the Literary Fund, graduated at Wadham College, Oxford (M.A., 1734), and in his fiftieth year began the publication, by subscription, of a complete English version of Plato's Dialogues, each to be prefaced by a critical introduction and illustrated with explanatory notes. The Io appeared first, and was followed by the Hippias Major and Minor and the Banquet. Superior in style and scholarship to the general run of 18th-century translations, its merits found scant appreciation from a world not yet ripe for Plato's philosophy; subscribers were few, and the public were not tempted by the low price of the book to purchase or interest themselves in it. Undaunted by this failure, Sydenham made another attempt at arousing a taste for Greek philosophy by his dissertation on Heraclitus (1775). This too, had no market, any more than his publication entitled Onomasticum Theologicum (1784). Three years afterwards he was arrested at the suit of a victualler for unpaid meals, and died in prison.