38 
MEMOIR OP ARISTOTLE. 
miration, and whom he seems to have treated through 
life with uniform and unchanged respect. 
The branches of knowledge to which his attention 
was first directed, were poetry, ethics, and politics. 
Science and philosophy were not the only studies 
in which Aristotle excelled ; he was addicted to the 
muses, and while he favoured the world with criti- 
cisms on the works of others, he was himself the au- 
thor of productions that ranked him a poet of the 
first eminence. Few of his verses, indeed, have 
reached modern times, but the few that remain prove 
Kim worthy of sounding the lyre of Pindar ; and it 
is not the least singularity attending this extraordi- 
nary man, that with the nicest and most subtle powers 
of discrimination and analysis, he united a vigorous 
and rich vein of poetic fancy. In his writings he 
frequently cites the bards of Greece, especially 
Homer. This taste he imparted to his pupil, for 
whose use he prepared a correct edition of the Iliad, 
which obtained the name of the casket copy, from 
the circumstance of its being enclosed in a rich cas- 
ket, found after the siege of Gaza among the spoils 
of Darius, in which that unfortunate monarch is said 
to have kept his perfumed ointments. This edition 
he constantly carried about with him in his wars, re- 
garding it as “ a portable treasure of military know- 
ledge,” and every night it was laid with his dagger 
under his pillow. It is not improbable that the poe- 
tical prelections of his master, and his admiration for 
the verses of Homer, might tend to inflame that na- 
