ARISTOTLE. 119 



the basis of a prosecution of him for blasphemy : such straws will 

 envy and malice grasp at ! 



The respect of the philosopher for his departed friend was yet 

 further attested by the erection of a statue, or, as some say, a ceno- 

 taph, to him at Delphi, with an inscription, in which his death was 

 recorded " as wrought in outrage of the sacred laws of the gods, by 

 the monarch of the bow-bearing Persians, not fairly by the spear in 

 the bloody battle-field, but through the false pledge of a crafty vil- 

 lain I" 1 And " the nearer view of wedded life " does not seem in any 

 respect to have diminished the good opinion he had originally formed 

 of his friend's daughter. She died how soon after their marriage we 

 cannot say leaving one orphan daughter; and not only was her 

 memory honoured by the widower with a respect which exposed him, 

 as in the former instance of her father, to the charge of idolatry, 2 but, 

 in his will, made some time afterwards, he provides that her bones 

 should be taken up and laid by the side of his, wherever he might be 

 buried, as, says he, she herself enjoined. 3 



At this epoch of Aristotle's life, when the clouds of adversity ap- Aristotle 

 peared to be at the thickest, his brightest fortunes were about to f? es * 



TT , . n , ,, ., 3 ., , , ,, , . r , Macedon to 



appear. He had ned to Mytilene an exile, deprived ol his powerful educate 

 friend, and apparently cut off from all present opportunity of bringing A1 JjyjJ)J er * 

 his gigantic powers of mind into play. But in Mytilene he received cik. 2. 

 an invitation from Philip to undertake the training of one who, in the B ' c ' 343 ~ li * 

 world of action, was destined to achieve an empire, which only that 

 of his master in the world of thought has ever surpassed. A con- 

 junction of two such spirits has not been yet twice recorded in the 

 annals of mankind ; and it is impossible to conceive anything more 

 interesting and fruitful than a good contemporary account of the inter- 

 course between them would have been. But, although such a one 

 did exist, we are not fortunate enough to possess it. The destroying 

 hand of time has been most active exactly where we should most 

 desire information as to details ; and almost all the description we can 

 give of this period is founded upon the scanty notices on the subject 

 furnished by Plutarch in his biography of the great conqueror. 



How far the mere personal character of Aristotle contributed to Philip's 

 procuring him the invitation from Philip, it is difficult to say. Cicero 

 represents the king as mainly determined to the step by the reputation with 

 of the philosopher's rhetorical lectures. 4 A letter preserved by Aulus totle< 

 Gellius (ix. 3), which is well known, but can scarcely be genuine, 

 would induce us to believe that, from the very birth of Alexander, he 

 was destined by his father to grow up under the superintendence of 

 his latest instructor. It is, indeed, not unlikely that, at this early 

 period, Aristotle was well known to Philip. We have seen that, in 

 all probability, his earliest years were passed at the court, where his 

 father possessed the highest confidence of the father of Philip. More- 

 1 Diog. Vit. sec. 6. 2 i bid> sec . 4. 



3 Ibid, sec, 16. * De Oratore, iii. 35. 



