22 MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE. 



mother, whose name was Phsestis, some have traced 

 to the same illustrious origin as her husband ; but 

 whatever was her extraction, her acknowledged 

 country was Eubcea, or Chalcidica, her father, as 

 Dionysius Halicarnassus asserts, being one of the 

 colony which was sent from Chalcis to Stagira* 

 It was the misfortune of Aristotle to lose his parents 

 at a veiy early age, a fact that Dr Reid seems to 

 have overlooked when he mentions his being brought 

 up at the Court of Macedon, as among the " many 

 uncommon advantages" which he enjoyed. At what 

 precise period that event happened, or what pro- 

 gress he had then made in his education, it is now 

 impossible to ascertain ; but, as one of his modem 

 oiographers has remarked, it is an agreeable, and 

 not altogether an unwarranted, conjecture, that his 

 father had inspired him with a taste for his own pro- 

 fession, and especially with that ardent love for the 

 study of Nature, which made him long be regarded 

 as her best and chosen interpreter ; while from his 

 mother he imbibed that attic elegance and purity 

 which everywhere pervades his writings. His gra- 

 titude and affection to her he displayed, by causing 

 her picture to be drawn by Protogenes, an eminent 

 painter of that time, which Pliny reckoned as among 

 the choicest pieces of that master. 



The early loss of his parents was supplied and 

 compensated by the kind attentions of Proxenus, a 



* It appears from Laerthw, that Aristotle had two bro- 

 thers, Arimnestus and Arimnestes, and a sister called 

 Hero. 



