PLATO— BYRON— ARISTOTLE 107 



When expressing astonishment at the variety and extent of 

 Aristotle's knowledge, one of the characters of Athenseus asks 

 from what Proteus or Nereus he could have found out all he 

 writes about fishes and other animals. 1 The curiosity of the 

 questioner was natural. It is, however, probable that Aristotle, 

 from living for several years close to the sea and from his 

 intercourse with fishermen, had amassed a big fund of informa- 

 tion about fishes and other aquatic animals. 



His knowledge of the Mediterranean fishes not only exceeded 

 that of any ancient writer, but also, if Belon, Rondolet, and 

 Salviani be excepted, that of any writer before Risso and Cuvier. 

 However true may be the criticism of Dr. Giinther that 

 Aristotle's " ideas of specific distinction were as vague as those 

 of the fishermen whose nomenclature he adopted," the fact 

 cannot be gainsaid that Aristotle was; and remains, a very 

 great Naturahst as well as a very great Biologist. 



To him 2 by right belongs the distinction, which (except 

 incidentally in Mr. Lones' work 3) I have so far failed to find 



Byron closes his note with " But Anglers ! No Angler can be a good man." 

 Walton received many a shrewd blow, especially from his contemporary 

 Richard Franck, whose Northern Memories, with its appreciation of the Fly and 

 its depreciation of Izaak's ground-bait, found less favour than the Compleat 

 Angler. His worsting of Walton at Stafford runs, " he stop'd his argument 

 and leaves Gesner to defend it : so huS'd a way." Again, " he stuffs his 

 book with morals from Dubravius — not giving us one precedent of his own 

 experiments, except otherwise when he prefers the trencher to the troling- 

 rod ! There are drones that rob the hive, yet flatter the bees that bring them 

 honey." 



1 Deipn., VIII. 47. Rabelais would seemingly make Aristotle his own 

 Proteus, for Pantagruel (IV. 31) discovers him with his lantern at the bottom 

 of the sea spying about, examining, and writing. This lantern has long been 

 coupled with that of the Sea-urchin, but as a few pages later on we find our- 

 selves in the Pays des Lanternois, it is probably a reference to a philosopher's 

 lamp, like that of Diogenes. 



2 The Natural History (of which the text I use is Bekker's) is practically 

 the only work by Aristotle discussed here. For me, being no " Clerk " 

 although " of Oxenford," it is not, as — 



" For him was lever have, at his beddes heed. 

 Twenty bokes, clad in black or reed. 

 Of Aristotle and his philosophye. 

 Than robes riche, or fithele, or gay sautrye." 



^ Aristotle's Researches in Natural Science, by Thomas E. Lones (1912), 

 from whose book I borrow and to whose kind advice I owe much. At last 

 we have a reaUy admirable translation of Hist. Anim., which is by Prof. D'Arcy 

 Thompson, Oxford, 1910. The notes are those of an expert zoologist, thor- 

 oughly famihar with classical literature. 



I 



