Before that growth began, the productions of Aristotle had experienced a fortune that is one of the romances of literary history. The great pupil of Plato had himself no great pupil to continue after his death the illustrious succession of Grecian philosophy. His writings, unduplicated manuscripts they seem to have been, fell into the hands of a disciple, who, dying, bequeathed them to a disciple of his own, residing in the Troad. To the Troad accordingly they went. Here, with a view to save them from the grasp of a ruthless royal collector of valuable parchments, the family having these works in possession hid them in an underground vault, in which they lay moldering and forgotten one hundred and fifty years! It was thus in all nearly two hundred years that Aristotle’s thoughts were lost to the world. When at last it was deemed safe, the precious documents were brought out and sold to a rich and cultivated Athenian. This gentleman, let us name him for honor, it was A-pelˈli-con, had unawares purchased his prize for a rapacious Roman collector. Sylla seized it, on his capture of Athens, and sent it to Rome. At Rome it had the good fortune to be appreciated. One An-dro-niˈcus edited the collection, and gave to the world that, probably, which is now the accepted text of Aristotle. But, romantic as has been the succession of vicissitudes befalling his productions and his fame, Aristotle is, in his extant writings, anything but a romantic author. A less adorned, a less succulent style, than the style in which the Stagirite (he was of Stagˈi-rus, in Macedonia) wrote, it would be difficult to find. Still it is a style invested at least with the charm of evident severe intentness, in the writer, on his chosen aim. Cicero, it is true, speaks of Aristotle’s style in language of praise that would well befit a characterization of Plato. But Cicero must have had in view works of the philosopher other than those which we possess, works written perhaps in the author’s more florid youth. With this conjecture agrees the fact that a list of Aristotle’s works, made by the authorities of the renowned Alexandrian library, contains numerous titles not appearing in the writings that remain to us attributed to Aristotle.