The choicest stores of earth, of sea, and air:
To welcome thee, she comes profusely drest
With all the spices of the wanton east:

To pleasure thee, e'en lazy luxury toils:]

The roughest sea puts on smooth looks and smiles," &c.

The five lines included within brackets, are not to be found in any edition of the original.

The indefatigable character of Dr. Good is conspicuously manifested in the copiousness of his notes on this passage, which appear in ten, and would fill eight entire quarto pages. His remarks are apposite, however, and can hardly be considered dull, as they are enlivened with choice parallel passages from several modern as well as ancient authors. The following is a specimen of his style in the argumentative parts. The author is declaring his opinion, that no new material beings spring fortuitously into existence, but that all proceed from seminal atoms, formed at first by the plastic hand of the Creator:

"Could things from nought proceed, then whence the use

Of generative atoms, binding strong

Kinds to their kinds perpetual? Man himself

Might spring from ocean; from promiscuous earth

The finny race, or feath'ry tribes of heaven:

Prone down the skies the bellowing herds might bound,

Or frisk from cloud to cloud: while flocks and beasts

Fierce and most savage, undefined in birth,

The field or forest might alike display.

Each tree, inconstant to our hopes, would bend
With foreign fruit: and all things all things yield.
Whence but from elemental seeds that act
With truth, and power precise, can causes spring
Powerful and true themselves? But grant such seeds,
And all, as now, through Nature's wide domain,

In time predicted, and predicted place,
Must meet the day concordant; must assume
The form innately stampt, and prove alone
Why all from all things never can proceed.
Why does the balmy rose possess the spring?
The yellow grain the summer? or, the vine

With purple clusters, cheer th' autumnal hours?" &c.

Good's Lucretius, Book I. ver. 179.

The following extract is inserted as further exemplifying the manner of the author and of the translator:

-"Nought can perish, that the sight surveys,
With utter death; but nature still renews
Each from the other, nor can form afresh
One substance till another be destroyed.
But come, my friend, and since the muse has sung
Things cannot spring from, nor return to nought,
Lest thou should'st urge, still sceptic, that no eye
Their generative atoms e'er have traced;

Mark in what scenes thyself must own, perforce,
Still atoms dwell, though viewless still to sense.
And, first, th' excited wind torments the deep;
Wrecks the strong bark, and rends the shivering clouds:

Now with wide whirlwind, prostrating alike

O'er the waste champaign, trees and bending blade;
And now, perchance, with forest-rending force,
Rocking the mighty mountains on their base.
So vast its fury!-But that fury flows
Alone from viewless atoms, that, combined,
Thus form the fierce tornado, raging wild

O'er heaven, and earth, and ocean's dread domain."

Good's Lucretius, Book I. ver. 302.

We close these extracts with a passage which has been generally admired and imitated:

"O! wretched mortals! race perverse, and blind!
Through what dread dark, what perilous pursuits
Pass ye this round of being! know ye not
Of all ye toil for, Nature nothing asks
But, for the body, freedom from disease,
And sweet unanxious quiet for the mind?—
And little claims the body to be sound:
But little serves to strew the paths we tread
With joys beyond e'en Nature's utmost wish.

What though the dome be wanting, whose proud walls
A thousand lamps irradiate, propt sublime

By frolic forms of youths in massy gold,

Flinging their splendours o'er the midnight feast?
Though gold and silver blaze not o'er the board,
Nor music echo round the gaudy roof?

Yet listless laid the velvet grass along,

Near gliding streams, by shadowy trees o'er-arch'd,
Such pomps we need not; such still less when spring
Leads forth her laughing train, and the warm year
Paints the green meads with roseate flowers profuse."

Good's Lucretius, Book II. ver. 14.

The notes appended to the poem are copious, displaying the amplest stores of learning and science, as well as a familiar acquaintance with the belles-lettres writings of all ages.

If we have regarded this translation with more favour than a rigid criticism may seem to demand, the almost impracticable nature of the task, the total failure of several of the translators, and the very imperfect success of the few who have acquired any celebrity, will justify a liberality on our part, not to be expected on ordinary occasions. It is not to be denied, however, that, while a high degree of praise is due to the translator for the accuracy of his version, there is a want of grace and harmony manifested in many passages; and that words are too frequently employed which are by no means select, nor even the best that would occur, we think, instanter, to an elegant scholar. For a more complete view of the Epicurean system, and of the manner in which the translator has performed his part, we must refer our readers to the "Rerum Natura" itself, and to the comprehensive and highly satisfactory commentary which accompanies it. The profound and accurate views which he has taken of this ancient sect, deserve a careful and candid examination. His assertions

are in every instance supported by the necessary proofs; and his illustrations, drawn from ancient as well as modern sources, are numerous, beautiful, and apposite. The life of Lucretius, which is prefixed to the work, we have read with pleasure, and deem it, if not a satisfactory, at least an interesting and well-written memoir.

The Wakefield text, the best extant, accompanies the work, although the translator has, in his version, occasionally adopted that of other editions, and sometimes added emendations of his own: these, however, are indicated in the notes.

Catalogue of translations of LUCRETIUS, extant in several

languages.

Lucretius, translated by De Marolles (French) A. D.

Langlois (French)

Baron De Coutures, (French)
De Witt (Dutch)

Marchetti (Italian) the best,
M. T. X. Mayer (German)

Le Blanc De Guillet (French) an

elegant version,

1788

ART. IV.-Essai sur l'histoire de la Musique en Italie, depuis les temps les plus anciens jusqu'à nos jours. Par M. le Comte Grégoire Orloff, Senateur de l'Empire de Russie. 2 vols. pp. 304. 398. Paris. An Essay upon the History of Music, from the earliest times to the present day. By Count Gregory Orloff, Senator of the Russian Empire. 2 vols. Paris.

THE very agreeable author of the work before us, has remarked, that the eminence to which Italy has attained in the art of music cannot be denied,-no country having furnished so large a number of composers remarkable for their genius, learning and fertility. Such being almost universally recognised to be the case, and actuated as we are by the firm persuasion, that, at the present moment, when the recent visit of an Italian company to

this country has inspired a greater degree of interest among us, for all that relates to the Opera, and infused a little more musical taste into the hearts of our countrymen than could formerly be boasted, some account of the rise and progress of the art in Italy could not fail to prove interesting to our readers-we have undertaken to offer in this place, an analysis of one of the latest, and we may safely affirm, most entertaining essays upon the subject. In the construction of the work, there is something remarkable, which can hardly be passed over unnoticed. Italian music has had many celebrated eulogists; but none of them, so far as we know, has succeeded so well as Count Orloff, in portraying in the most brilliant and fascinating colours, and in a lively, and we might say, elegant style, its pre-eminence in many respects over the music of every other nation; and yet that author is a Russian. The history of Italian music, in the French language, by a subject of the autocrat of that country, whose civilization is of very recent date, and from one extremity of which issued the legions of barbarians, who at one period inundated the fairest portion of Europe, and destroyed, as our author himself mentions, together with the other arts, the music of the countries they subjugated, is really an anomaly of which we believe but very few examples can be pointed out in the literature of any country. Alone, it shews more conclusively than long treatises, the progress of civilization and of the arts; and indicates plainly, that the Russians of the present day have not all the same kind of feeling for music, as was displayed by their ancestors of the seventeenth century, who, as we learn from Dr. Collins, delighted more in a concert of Billingsgate nightingales, "joined with a flight of screech-owls, a nest of jackdaws, a pack of hungry wolves, seven hogs in a windy day, and as many cats with their corrivals," singing Lacryma-to all the music in Italy, light airs in France, marches of England, or jigs of Scotland.

Count Orloff judiciously remarks, that it is unnecessary to undertake the eulogium of music, since it is engraved in almost every heart. Every being in nature endowed with life, with a soul, renders it homage. In order to feel,-to appreciate its charms and its power, he continues, it is only necessary to listen to the notes of the nightingale during one of the pure and beautiful mornings of Spring, or during one of the delicious evenings of Summer-to know its effects, it is only requisite to witness the tears of joy it causes to be shed by those whose sorrows, captivity, or exile, it alleviates, and to whose minds it recalls, in foreign climes, their friends and their sweet home. To judge of its moral influence, it is sufficient to recollect, that it has prompted to fine and noble actions, and appeased the cruelty of oppressors and tyrants.

As we cannot follow the author into the history of the art, it

will be sufficient to remark, that, like Lucretius and many of the poets and historians of antiquity, he refers the origin of vocal music to the singing of the feathered tribe, whilst he traces instrumental music to the rustling of the wind among leaves and reeds, and to the humming of insects. "This union of diversified sounds constituted the germ of what was called harmony, which, subjected to positive rules, was destined to carry the art to its utmost degree of perfection."

In remotest antiquity, the Egyptians declared they had received music from the gods; the Hebrews consecrated it to the divinity; and the Greeks, honouring it not less than the preceding people, ranked it among their instruments of legislation. They introduced it every where; in their games, festivals, and ceremonies. In his first chapter, Count Orloff offers a few cursory remarks on the introduction of music among the Romans,on the use which the masters of the world made of it for increasing the pomp of their religious ceremonies, and inspiring ardour into their legions in the hour of battle;-on its banishment from Rome, after the death of the sanguinary Nero, of whom it was regarded as the accomplice; on its introduction into the Church;' -on the improvements made in it by St. Ambrose and St. Gre gory; -on the vicissitudes it had to encounter, in Spain, Gaul, and Italy, after the irruption of the Vandals, Franks, and Goths; -on the revival of instrumental music, and the introduction of organs in France-on the Flemish school-and on many other subjects equally interesting: but want of room forces us to pass them by, at present, without comment. We shall however recur to some of them, in a more appropriate place. Nor can we devote much space to the chapter on the music of the Greeks, although it forms a proper introduction to the subject which more particularly engages our attention. A very few words will suffice.

As might readily be supposed, our author speaks somewhat at large of the system of the tetrachords and of musical proportions, the discovery of which, he observes, has been attributed by some writers to Tubal Cain, by others to Diocles the Athenian, but by the greater number to Pythagoras, to whom the credit is awarded, of having first subjected music to positive laws of calculation. Of the manner in which he is said to have discovered musical proportions, and of the experiments to which he had recourse with a view of rectifying and establishing his system, we shall say nothing here, from the supposition that they are familiarly known to most of our readers, and because the results which he is said to have obtained have been found by Bontempi to be very different from what they were represented to be. Pythagoras's system, besides, was involved in much metaphysical obscurity;-. he pretended, that in harmonic proportions, the sense operates before reason; that the latter derived the principle of its actions