-What? I buy 'em of him?

_Dion_.--If you'll be advised by me.

_Eur_.--Not a bit of it. I've lots of prologues where he can't
work 'em in.

Pelops the Tantalid to Pisa coming
With speedy coursers

_AEsch_.--lost his smelling-salts.

_Dion_.--There they are again, you see. Do let him have 'em,
my good AEschylus. You can replace 'em for a
nickel.

_Eur_.--Never. I've not run out yet.

Oeneus from broad fields

_AEsch_.--lost his smelling-salts.

_Eur_.--Let me say the whole verse, won't you?

Oeneus from broad fields reaped a mighty crop
And offering first-fruits

_AEsch_.--lost his smelling-salts.

_Dion_.--While sacrificing? Who filched them?

_Eur_.--Oh, never mind him. Let him try it on this verse:--

Zeus, as the word of sooth declared of old--

_Dion_.--It's no use, he'll say Zeus lost his smelling-salts. For
those smelling-salts fit your prologues like a kid
glove. But go on and turn your attention to his
lyrics.

ARISTOTLE

(B.C. 384-322)

BY THOMAS DAVIDSON

The "Stagirite," called by Eusebius "Nature's private secretary," and by
Dante "the master of those that know,"--the greatest thinker of the
ancient world, and the most influential of all time,--was born of Greek
parents at Stagira, in the mountains of Macedonia, in B.C. 384. Of his
mother, Phaestis, almost nothing is known. His father, Nicomachus,
belonged to a medical family, and acted as private physician to Amyntas,
grandfather of Alexander the Great; whence it is probable that
Aristotle's boyhood was passed at or near the Macedonian court. Losing
both his parents while a mere boy, he was taken charge of by a relative,
Proxenus Atarneus, and sent, at the age of seventeen, to Athens to
study. Here he entered the school of Plato, where he remained twenty
years, as pupil and as teacher. During this time he made the
acquaintance of the leading contemporary thinkers, read omnivorously,
amassed an amount of knowledge that seems almost fabulous, schooled
himself in systematic thought, and (being well off) collected a library,
perhaps the first considerable private library in the world. Having
toward the end felt obliged to assume an independent attitude in
thought, he was not at the death of Plato (347) appointed his successor
in the Academy, as might have been