Page:A new and general biographical dictionary; containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation v1.djvu/352

 316 yoi. ;;. lib. iii. cap. 6. ARISTOTLE. dred treatifes, according to Diogenes Laertius ; or more, ac- cording to Francis Patriciusof Venice. An accdunt of futh as are extant, and of thofe faid to be loft, may be feen in Fabri- cius" BibliothecaGraeca." He left his writings with Theo- phraftus, his beloved difciple and fucceflbr in the Lyceum, and forbad that they (hould ever he publifhed. Theophraftus, at his death trufted them to Neleus, his good friend and dif- ciple, whofe heirs buried them in the ground at Scepfis, a town of Troas, to fecure them from the king of Pergamus, who made great fearch every where for books to adorn his library. Here they lay concealed one hundred and fixty years, until, being almoft fpoiled, they were fold to one Ap^iicon, a rich citizen of Athens. Sylia found them at this man's houfe, and ordered them to be carried to Rome. They were fometime after purchafed by Tyrannion a grammarian ; and Andronicus of Rhodes, having bought them of his heirs, was in a manner the firft reftorerof the works of this great phi- lofopher ; for he not only repaired what had been decayed by timeandill keeping, but alfo putthemin a better order, and got them copied. There were many who followed the doc- " lc " " " t{ " '' ' " " " " ing, which he hath traced for it, he hath fo clofcly confined it, that it cannot depart from them, without arguing inconfeqtientially. Hi"Phy- licks" contain many ufeful obferva- tions, particularly his " Hiftory of Animals." His Moral? are perhaps the pureft fyftem in antiquity. His Politics are a moft valu-ible monu- ment of the civil wifdom of the an- cients, as they preferve to us the defcriptions of feveral governments, and particularly of Crete and Car- thage, that otherwise would have been unknown. But of all his com- pofitions, his Rhetoric and Poetics are rnoft complete : no writer has ihewn a greater penetration into the recefles of the human heart, than. this philofopher, in the fecond book of his Rhetoric, where he treats of the different manners and pafiions, that diflingui/h each different age and condition of man ; and from whence Horace plainly t"ok his fa- mous defcription in the Art of Poe- try. La Bruyere, Rochefoucault, and Montaigne himfelf, are not to be compared to him in this refpefr. No 1'ucceeding writer on eloquence, not even Tully, has added any thing new or important on this lubjcft. ' His Poetics, which I fuppofe are " here by Pope chiefly referred to, " feem to have been written for rhe life
 * < ot that prince, with whofe education

" Ariftotle was honoured, to give him " a juft tafte in reading Homer and the c< tragedians : 10 judge properly of " which was then thought no unne- " ceflary accomplil'hment in the cha- " racier of a prince. To attempt to " underftand poetry without having Hi- " ligently digefted this treatife, would " be as abfurd and impofiible, as to " pretend to a /kill in geometry with- " out having ftudied Euclid'. The ' fourteenth, fifteenth, and fifteenth. " the properefl methods of exciting " terror and pity, convince us that he " was intimately acquainted with thefe " objecls which iroft forcibly affecT: " the heart. The prime excellence of " this precious treatife is the fcholaftic Cl piecif.on, and philofophical clofe- " nefs, with which the fubjecl is hand- " led, without any addrefs to the paf- " fions or imagination. It is to be la- " mented that the part of the Poetics, " comedy, did not likewife defcend to " pofterity." Effay on the Writings and Genius of Pope, p. 168. trine
 * ' chapters, wherein he has pointed out
 * ' in which he had given precepts for