MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE. 
33 
had educated, and destined to become the heiress of 
his fortunes. Her expectations were now miserably 
reduced ; but this sad reverse endeared her the more 
to Aristotle, who espoused his fair companion, for 
whom he entertained a sincere attachment. He 
was then in his thirty-seventh year, which is pre- 
cisely the age recommended by himself as the fittest 
on the male side for entering into wedlock. The 
lady did not long survive her marriage, but she left 
an infant daughter whom the father named after a 
wife tenderly beloved, and who repaid his affection 
with the most tender sensibility. It is mentioned 
by Diogenes Laertius, as her last request, that when 
her husband should die (which might the fates long 
avert ! ) her own ashes were to be disinterred, and 
enclosed with his in the same monument. 
Aristotle passed but a short time in the Island of 
Lesbos, his celebrity being now too well known to 
allow him much leisure for the indulgence either of 
love or melancholy. His father’s name and his own 
were familiar at the court of Macedon ; and, during 
his residence in Athens, he had strengthened his 
hereditary friendship with Philip, a prince only one 
year younger than himself, who, having lived from 
the age of fifteen to twenty-two in Thebes, and the 
neighbouring cities, had ascended the throne of his 
ancestors in the twenty-third year of his age. This 
circumstance of itself may account for the applica- 
tion which that monarch made to Aristotle, to un- 
dertake the education of his son Alexander, who, 
