MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE. 4? 



any solid proof; and the absurd calumny that he not 

 only regarded this pretended displeasure as an in 

 jury, but even proceeded the length of joining in a 

 conspiracy to poison the king, is warranted by no 

 thing in history, except a report preserved in Plu* 

 larch, of a vague and hasty expression in a letter of 

 Alexander to Antipater, " I will punish the sophist 

 (Callisthenes) and those who sent him." The friend- 

 ly epistles addressed by him while in Asia to hit 

 former instructor, contradict the supposition of any 

 irritation or enmity between them. 



Leaving the " Macedonian madman" to pursue 

 his conquests in the east, we must now return to 

 the personal history of the Stagirite. On arriving 

 at Athens, he found Xenocrates teaching in the 

 school of Plato, his predecessor Speusippus having 

 been dead four years. The character of Xenocra* 

 tes was that of dull gravity and rigid austerity. He 

 had been a fellow-student with Aristotle at the Aca- 

 demy, where the striking contrast of their genius 

 did not escape the notice of Plato, who used to ex- 

 claim, " What a horse arid an ass have I to yoke to- 

 gether ; Xenocrates requires the spur, Aristotle the 

 curb;'* alluding to the obtuseness of the one and 

 the acuteness of the other. The circumstance of 

 such a man having been exalted to the supreme 

 chair of philosophy, is said to have determined the 

 Stagirite to open a school on his own account ; re- 

 marking, " that it would be disgraceful for him to 

 be silent while Xenocrates publicly taught." Thia 



