ARISTOTLE.

IF aught of sterling wit, or natural worth,
The heights of thought, or depths of various lore
That to the mind's own fountain gushing forth

Added its wealth as from an ocean store,

If these be honour, be that honour thine,

O human wonder, Intellect divine,

That spake of all things wisely,-taught aright
By nature's voice, and reason's inner sun,—
Still can we love thy not all human light

And hail thy wisdom, heathen Solomon :
Another praise be thine, O Stagyrite,

For that the world's great winner, in thy school His all of power, with all of knowledge, won,

Learning from thee to conquer and to rule.

The wisdom of Aristotle, as a mere child of earth, may be profitably contrasted with that of Solomon, as a pupil of heaven. Of both it may with equal truth be said, that " every bird and every beast he knew, and spake of every plant that sips the dew," from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop growing on the wall. Nor only this; but regular codes of private morals, social government, and general literature are prominent in the works of both: at least it would not be difficult to run many parallels between the Rhetoric, Ethics, Politics, and even Poetics of the citizen of Stagyra, and the Wisdom, Proverbs, Preacher, and Canticles of the great king. It was no little compliment to Aristotle that Plato surnamed him “ Intellect;" no small praise that Alexander was his pupil; and no low appreciation of his merits that every school of learning from Arabia to Iceland has in all ages walked in the light of this mighty master.

In common with every other luminary of science, Aristotle has met with very various appreciation of his character from friends or enemies: the former have been so extravagant in his praises universally, that, not very long ago, in the first university of Europe, permission used to be granted to the student

who aspired to read Aristotle, in the name of the ever blessed Trinity, and kneeling at the Bishop's feet!-while in 1209, when the works of the great Stagyrite were first brought from Byzantium, they were openly condemned as impious by the council of Paris, and indeed many writers, either through envy, or obtuseness, have charged on the writings of the philosopher doctrines both immoral and atheistic, and on his private life so many crimes, that the calumny bears with it sufficient confutation. No man can rise from the study of the Nicomachean Ethics, and believe their author other than a great and consistent moral teacher; at the same time no human being in his senses can suppose another immaculate. Doubtless, the social faults and virtues of Aristotle, with his literary merits and demerits, have been equally exaggerated.

The intellectual eminence of Aristotle, and his political importance in being tutor to Alexander, rendered the philosopher as a matter of course obnoxious to Athenian jealousy. Accordingly, the moment the death of Alexander made it safe to attack, the popular party openly accused him of impiety, and," to save Athens," as he exclaimed, "the guilt of murdering him like Socrates," the illustrious author of two hundred and sixty works on every branch of knowledge escaped privily to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died soon after broken-hearted.

PHOCION.

TRULY ennobled in that name The Good,
Thy spirit sought a thankless country's weal
Thro' fourscore years with all a martyr's zeal,
And then, the fickle envious multitude,
That democratic city's viper brood,

Rewarded thee with hate and clamorous strife,
Poisoned thy fame with calumny's foul breath,
And for the wages of a patriot's life
Paid, as their wont, a malefactor's death:

Athens, base Athens, what a deed abhorr'd Of guileless blood lies heavily on thee;

Hear to thy shame a Phocion's dying word,

My son, forget that thou hast seen or heard The bitter wrongs poor Athens heap'd on me.'

There is necessarily much of sameness in the fate of illustrious Athenians. After the alliterative fashion of the Roman general's veni, vidi, vici, we may put it in three words, eminence, envy, exile, varied occasionally by patriotism, popularity, and poison. Allusion has already been several times made to this fact, and repetition, however wholesome, palls upon the spirit: the admirers of democracy, however, ought never to forget how fearfully, as a rule, the Athenian mob revenged itself on virtue: they ought also ever to remember that, with very few exceptions, among which the questionable character of Themistocles is pre-eminent, the worthies of that republic whose fame has survived to our day, were of the oligarchical or aristocratic faction. Honest minds must really account it a marvel that there are to be found many well-informed men, who reading history through the distorting glasses of the school of Voltaire, attribute all the greatness of Athens to its commonalty, all its crime to its nobles; the direct contrary of this being matter of fact.

Cornelius Nepos gives the following account of Phocion: "though often invested with the highest offices in the state of Athens, both military and civil,