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An excerpt of a review from The Classical Review, Volume 28: Although many foreign scholars, since the days of Ast nearly a century ago, have written at length both for and against the genuineness of the so-called Epistles of Plato, our English Platonists and historians of Classical literature have conspired to ignore the question. It would be hard to point to anything in English which attempts to handle the matter seriously, with the exception of some pages in Grote's History and in Mr. Richards' Platonica. Hence the very careful and thoroughgoing examination of the whole subject which Mr. Hackforth offers in the volume before us fills a real gap, and deserves, if only on that account, a grateful welcome from all students of Classics. The most important of the more modern criticisms of the Epistles are those by Raeder, Ritter and R. Adam; and the present work is largely based on these, especially in regard to linguistic statistics. Mr. Hackforth's method is to deal with the Epistles one by one, giving a summary of the contents of each, and then passing on to consider critical questions as to linguistic affinities, date, objections to authenticity, etc. At the end of his opening chapter ('General Introduction, ' p. 34) he thus states his conclusions: ' iii., vii. and viii. I believe to be Platonic beyond all reasonable doubt: iv. and xiii. show evidence of authenticity only next to these: ix., x. and xi. must be left doubtful, chiefly because of their brevity: while i., ii., v., vi., xii. are unquestionably spurious.' By far the most interesting of the letters is, of course, the seventh, and those who regard it as genuine will be glad to find Mr. Hackforth supporting their view; but I, for one, doubt whether I could ever persuade myself to father on Plato what I must still regard - pace Mr. Hackforth - as an intolerable mishmash. And I should refuse to be bullied into changing my mind by such epithets as 'subjective' and 'sentimental.' Nonetheless, what Mr. Hackforth writes in explanation and defence of the 'philosophical digression' - as well as the other digressions-in Ep. vii. , and his ingenious imaginations as to the state of mind of Dion's party in 353-2 B.C., deserve careful consideration and may even carry conviction to less prejudiced minds.

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