that so artfully as not only to impose on the fathers of the church, but on many profane writers. Brucker informs us that he was an admirer of the Greek philosophy, and united with the study of the Mosaic law, in the mystical and allegorical method introduced in his time, some knowledge of the Aristotelian philosophy.'

· ARISTOPHANES, a celebrated comic poet, was the son of Philip, and probably an Athenian by birth; but his place of nativity has been contested, his enemies endeavouring to represent him as a stranger. He was contemporary with Plato, Socrates, and Euripides; and most of his plays were written during the Peloponnesian war. His imagination was warm and lively, and his genius particularly turned to raillery: he had also great spirit and resoJution, and was a declared enemy to slavery, and to all those who wanted to oppress their country. When the Athenians suffered themselves in his time to be governed by men who had no other view than to make themselves masters of the commonwealth, Aristophanes exposed their artifices with great wit and severity upon the stage. Cleo was the first whom he attacked, in his comedy of the

Equites" and when none of the comedians would venture to personate a man of his great authority, Aristophanes played the character himself; and with so much success, that the Athenians obliged Cleo to pay a fine of five talents, which were given to the poet. This freedom of his likewise was so well received by the Athenians, that they cast handfuls of flowers upon his head, and carried him through the city in triumph with the greatest acclamation. They made also a public decree, that he should be honoured with a crown of the sacred olive-tree in the citadel, which was the greatest honour that could be paid to a citizen. He described the affairs of the Athenians in so exact a manner, that his comedies are a faithful history of that people. For this reason, when Dionysius king of Syracuse desired to learn the state and language of Athens, Plato sent him the plays of Aristophanes, telling him these were the best representation thereof. He wrote above 50 comedies, but there are only 11 extant which are perfect; these are "Plutus, the Clouds, the Frogs, Equites, the Acharnenses, the Wasps, Peace, the Birds, the Eccleşiazusæ or Female Orators, the Thesmophoriazusæ or

Brucker.-Biog. Universelle -Lud. Gasp. Valckenærii diatribe de Aristobolo Judæo, Leyden, 1806, 4to.

Priestesses of Ceres, and Lysistrata." The "Clouds," which he wrote in ridicule of Socrates, is the most celebrated of all his comedies: Socrates had a contempt for the comic poets, and never went to see their plays, except when Alcibiades or Critias obliged him to go thither. He was shocked at the licentiousness of the old comedy; and as he was a man of piety, probity, candour, and wisdom, could not bear that the characters of his fellow-citizens should be insulted and abused. This contempt which he expressed to the comic poets, was the ground of their aversion to him, and the motive of Aristophanes's writing the "Clouds" against him. Madam Dacier tells us, she was so much charmed with this performance, that after she had translated it, and read it over 200 times, it did not become tedious; and that the pleasure she received from it was so exquisite, as to make her forget all the contempt and indignation which Aristophanes deserved, for employing his wit to ruin a man, who was wisdom itself, and the greatest ornament of the city of Athens. Aristophanes having conceived some aversion to the poet Euripides, satirizes him in several of his plays, particularly in his "Frogs" and his "Thesmophoriazusæ." He wrote his "Peace" in the 10th year of the Peloponnesian war, when a treaty for 50 years was concluded between the Athenians and the Lacedæmonians, though it continued but seven. The "Acharnenses" was written after the death of Pericles, and the loss of the battle in Sicily, in order to dissuade the people from intrusting the safety of the commonwealth to such imprudent generals as Lamachus. Soon after, he represented his "Aves" or Birds, by which he admonished the Athenians to fortify Decelæa, which he calls by a fictitious name Nepheloccoccygia. The "Vespa," or Wasps, was written after another loss in Sicily, which the Athenians suffered from the misconduct of Chares. He wrote the "Lysistrata" when all Greece was involved in a war, and in this the women are introduced debating on the affairs of the commonwealth, and come a resolution, not to cohabit with their husbands, till a peace should be concluded. His "Plutus," and other comedies of that kind, were written after the magistrates had given orders, that no person should be exposed by name upon the stage. He invented a peculiar kind of verse, which was called by his name, and is mentioned by

Cicero in his "Brutus ;" and Suidas says, that he also was the inventor of the tetrameter and octameter verse.

Aristophanes was greatly admired among the ancients, especially for the true attic elegance of his style: "It is," says madam Dacier, "as agreeable as his wit; for besides its purity, force, and sweetness, it has a certain harmony, which sounds extremely pleasant to the ear: when he has occasion to use the common ordinary style, he does it without using any expression that is base and vulgar; and when he has a mind to express himself loftily, in his highest flight he is never obscure." "Let no man,' says Scaliger, "pretend to understand the Attic dialect, who has not read Aristophanes: in him are to be found all the Attic ornaments, which made St. Chrysostom so much admire him, that he always laid him under his pillow when he went to bed." Mr. Frischlin observes, that Plautus has a great affinity to Aristophanes in his manner of writing, and has imitated him in many parts of his plays. Frischlin has written a vindication of our poet, in answer to the objections urged against him by Plutarch. How great an opinion Plato had of Aristophanes, is evident even from Plutarch's acknowledgement, who tells us, that this poet's Discoure upon Love was inserted by that philosopher in his Symposium: and Cicero, in his first book "De legibus," styles him "the most witty poet of the old comedy." The time of his death is unknown; but it is certain he was living after the expulsion of the tyrants by Thrasybulus, whom he mentions in his Plutus and other comedies.

The editions of Aristophanes are extremely numerous. The first was that of Aldus, Venice, 1498, fol. in Greek, with the Scholia. The best since are, 1. Gr. & Lat. Amsterdam, 1670, 12mo. 2. Gr. & Lat. with Kuster's notes, Amst. 1710, fol. 3. With Bergler's notes, ibid. 1760, 2 vols. 4to. 4. With Brunck's notes, Strasburgh, 1783, 3 vols. 8vo. and some copies in 4 vols. nizi, from a manuscript of the tenth Ravenna, Leipsic, 1794, 2 vols. 8vo. have likewise been published separately, and the Plutus and the Clouds have been often translated into English; the Plutus by Randolphe, 1651; H. H. B. 1659; Theobald, 1715; Fielding and Young; and the Clouds by Stanley, White, and lastly by Mr. Cumberland in his Observer; who has given a masterly, although somewhat too

5. That of Invercentury found at Most of his plays

favourable delineation of the personal history, connexions, and dramatic genius of Aristophanes.

1

ARISTOTLE, the chief of the peripatetic philosophers, and one of the most illustrious characters of ancient Greece, was born in the first year of the ninety-ninth olympiad, or 384 years before the Christian æra, at Stagyra, a town of Thrace, whence he is usually called the Stagyrite. His father was a physician, named Nicomachus: his mother's name was Phæstias. He received the first rudiments of learning from Proxenus, of Atarna in Mysia, and at the age of 17 went to Athens, and studied in the school of Plato, where his acuteness and proficiency so attracted the notice of his master, that he used to call him "The mind of the school;" and said, when Aristotle happened to be absent, "Intellect is not here." His works, indeed, prove that he had an extensive acquaint ance with books; and Strabo says, he was the first person who formed a library. At this academy he continued until the death of Plato, whose memory he honoured by a monument, an oration, and elegies, which contradicts the report of his having had a difference with Plato, and erecting a school in opposition to him, as related by Aristoxenus. At the time of the death of Plato, Aristotle was in his thirty-seventh year; and when Speusippus, the nephew of Plato, succeeded him in the academy, our philosopher was so much displeased, that he left Athens, and paid a visit to Hermias, king of the Atarnenses, who had been his fellow-disciple, and now received him with every expression of regard. Here he remained three years, prosecuting his philosophical researches; and when Hermias was taken prisoner and put to death, he placed a statue of him in the temple at Delphos, and married his sister, who was now reduced to poverty and distress, by the revolution which had dethroned her brother. After these events, Aristotle removed to Mitelene, where, after he had resided two years, he received a respectful letter from Philip, king of Macedon, who had heard of his great fame, requesting him to undertake the education of his son, Alexander, then in his fifteenth year. Aristotle accepted the charge, and in 343 B. C. went to reside in the court of Philip.

Here he executed his trust with so much satisfaction to

1 Gen. Dict. Saxii Onomast.-Cumberland's Observer, No. 137-140.. Biog. Universelle.-Dibdin's Classics-and Clark's Bibliographical Dictionary.

1

Philip, that he admitted him into his confidence and counsels, an advantage which Aristotle is said have employed for the benefit of his friends and of the public, without any selfish views. He gained likewise the entire affection of his royal pupil, whom he instructed in all the learning of the age; and whose studies he directed in conformity to the prospects of a young, spirited, and ambitious prince. Immediately after the death of Philip, in the year 336 B. C. when Alexander formed the design of his Asiatic expedition, Aristotle returned to Athens, but not before he had prevailed on Alexander to employ his increasing power and wealth in the service of philosophy, by furnishing him, in his retirement, with the means of enlarging his acquaintance with nature. Alexander accordingly employed several thousand persons in different parts of Europe and Asia to collect animals of various kinds, and send them to Aristotle, who, from the information which this collection afforded him, wrote fifty volumes on the history of animated nature, ten of which are still extant. But a dispute which took place between Callisthenes, Aristotle's nephew, who had accompanied Alexander, and that monarch, eventually produced a coolness, if not a total alienation, between Aristotle and his royal pupil.

Aristotle, upon his return to Athens, conceived the design of becoming a leader in philosophy, by founding a new sect, and chose for his school, the Lyceum, a grove in the suburbs of Athens, where he held daily conversation on subjects of philosophy with those who attended him, walking as he discoursed, whence his followers were called Peripatetics. According to the long-established practice of philosophers among the Grecians, Egyptians, and other nations, Aristotle had his public and his secret doctrine, the former of which he called the Exoteric, and the latter the Acroamatic or Esoteric. Hence he divided his auditors into two classes, to one of which he taught his Exoteric doctrine, discoursing on the principal subjects of logic, rhetoric, and policy; the other he instructed in the Esoteric, or concealed and subtle doctrine, concerning Being, Nature, and God. His more abstruse discourses he delivered in the morning to his select disciples, whom he required to have been previously instructed in the elements of learning, and to have discovered abilities and dispositions suited to the study of philosophy. In the evening he de