ARISTOTLE. 135 



ander's, and that its influence could not be increased, and would in 

 all probability be much diminished, by the irritation of personal dis- 

 cussion, producing, almost of necessity, altercation and invective. 

 Callisthenes, however, did not abide by the instructions of his master ; 

 and, perhaps, the ambition of martyrdom contributed almost as much 

 as the love of truth to his neglect of them. The description of Kent, 

 which Shakspeare puts into the mouth of Cornwall, 1 would certainly 

 not do him justice ; but it is impossible to shut our eyes to the fact 

 that he made it " his occupation to be plain." Disgusted at the cere- 

 mony of the salaam, and the other oriental customs, which in the eyes 

 of many were a degradation to the dignity of freeborn Greeks, he did 

 not take the proper course, namely, to withdraw himself from the 

 royal banquets, and thus by his absence enter a practical protest 

 against their adoption ; but, while he did not cease to attend these, 

 he took every opportunity of testifying his disapprobation of what he HisJisiike of 

 saw, and his contempt of the favours which were bestowed on such 

 as were less scrupulous than himself. One of these, who appears to 

 have particularly excited his dislike, was the sophist Anaxarchus/an un- 

 principled flatterer, who vindicated the worst actions and encouraged 

 the most evil tendencies of his master ; 2 and perhaps a jealousy of this 

 miscreant, and an unwillingness to leave him the undivided empire 

 over Alexander's mind, was one reason which prevented him from 

 adopting what would have been probably the most effectual as well as 

 the most dignified line of conduct. Some anecdotes are related by 

 Plutarch, which exhibit in a very striking manner both the mutual 

 i This j s some f e li OWj 



Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect 



A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb 



Quite from his nature : He cannot flatter, he ! 



An honest mind and plain ! he must speak truth : 



An they will take it, so : if not, he's plain. 



These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness 



Hai-bour more craft, and more corrupter ends, 



Than twenty silly ducking observants 



That stretch their duties nicely ! 



King Lear, act ii. sc. 2. 



2 When Alexander, after having slain his friend Clitus in a fit of drunken passion, 

 threw himself upon the earth, overwhelmed with remorse, deaf to the solicitations 

 of his friends, and obstinately refusing to touch food, Callisthenes and Anaxarchus, 

 the philosophers of that day standing in the place of the priests of this, were sent 

 to offer him spiritual consolation. The latter, wise in his generation, determined 

 to sear the conscience which he could not heal, and entered the tent with an ex- 

 pression of indignation and surprise. "What!" he cried, "is this Alexander, on 

 whom the eyes of the whole world are bent ? Is this he lying weeping like a slave, 

 in fear of the reproaches and the conventional laws of men, when he ought to be 

 himself the law and the standard of right and wrong to them ? Why did he con- 

 quer the world but to rule and command it; surely not to be in bondage to it and 

 its foolish opinions ?" " Dost thou not know," he continued, addressing the un- 

 happy prince, " that Justice and Law (At/ofy ttal 4^iv) are represented the assessors 

 of Jupiter, as a sign to all that whatever the mighty do is lawful and just ?" 

 Plutarch Vit. Alex. sec. 52. 



