with party, and free from the political animosities of the times, he passed his life in accordance with the precepts which he had been taught; and, like his illustrious master, secured a solid foundation for happiness, in the practice of temperance, equanimity, and virtue. In this retirement he composed his Poem "De Rerum Naturâ," a work received by his contemporaries with the warmest admiration, and which has survived more hostile criticism, both learned and illiterate, than any other effort of the human mind. Ambitious of the fame of the philosopher and poet, he appears to have taken great pleasure in its composition, and to have thought, that patriotism may be manifested, and a name deserved, by efforts more intellectual, and services more refined, than those which are connected with the rivalries of statesmen, or with the strife of arms. This aspiration after distinction, blended with a consciousness of the difficulties, as well as the charms of his subject, is finely illustrated in the following lines:

"Nec me animi fallit, quam sint obscura; sed acri
Percussit thyrso laudis spes magna meum cor,
Et simul incussit suavem mî in pectus amorem
Musarum: quo nunc instinctus, mente vigenti
Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius ante
Trita solo: juvat integros adcedere funteis,
Atque haurire; juvatque novos decerpere flores,
Insignemque meo capiti petere inde coronam,

Unde prius nulli velarint tempora Musæ."

Thus elegantly imitated by Akenside, in the "Pleasures of Imagination:"

"But the love

Of nature and the muses bids explore,

Through secret paths erewhile untrod by man,

The fair poetic region, to detect

Untasted springs, to drink inspiring draughts,
And shade my temples with unfading flowers
Cull'd from the laureate vale's profound recess,
Where never poet gain'd a wreath before."

But the life of this illustrious Philosopher and Poet was drawing near its close. He did not long survive the completion of his great work, and died in the forty-fourth year of his age, during the delirium of a fever. Thus perished, in the vigour of maturity, one who as an author and a man has seldom been surpassed, if excellence is to be estimated by exalted virtue, and greatness manifested by originality and splendour of genius. No one ever united so much of the Poet with so much of the Philosopher. In his friendships he was ardent, sincere, and steadfast; in his pleasures temperate, discriminating, and chaste; in his mode of life frugal, industrious, and systematic. He delivered the most admirable precepts for the government of life, and con

scious of their importance, with undeviating perseverance, practised what he taught.

At the time when Dr. Good produced the work, the title of which is prefixed to this article, Lucretius was not extensively nor advantageously known either in this country or in England. An attempt to translate him had been made, the first in our language, by Evelyn, in the year 1656; but this was not extended beyond the first Book, and was relinquished by that learned and elegant scholar as an impracticable task. To this succeeded the version of Creech, which, however applauded at the time of its appearance, was little fitted to become a favourite in the refined period which followed it. The admirers of Lucretius were only to be found among scholars of the first rank; and their admiration, however warmly expressed, does not appear to have excited any great desire, among general readers in either country, to become familiar with his works. The translation of Creech was exceedingly diffuse; much was added by the translator, not to be found in the original; and many passages omitted, or erroneously interpreted; the versification dissonant, lame, and rugged; the phrases ill-selected and mean; and, in short, the whole was performed in the very worst style of poetical composition. Dryden had indeed produced translations of a few extracts, but these are short, and though well executed in some respects, consist only of those passages which are of a striking and poetical character. A later one, in prose, by Guernier and his colleagues, has never been popular; nor is it likely to become so, since it is impossible to exhibit the chief merit of a poet in a mode of dress which is not adapted to poetical expression and illustration. Under these circumstances, the version and commentary of Dr. Good have been highly important not only for the fame of Lucretius, but as furnishing to the English reader the only means of a correct and comprehensive knowledge of one of the best and most rational writers of antiquity. The abilities which he brought to the task were eminently suited to its satisfactory accomplishment. In scientific acquirements, and particularly those in which Lucretius is most conversant, Dr. Good possessed a distinguished reputation. His classical knowledge was extensive, accurate, and profound. His acquaintance with several of the languages of Asia, and with almost all of modern Europe, merits great praise, and may perhaps justify the application of an expression once applied to the celebrated Gray-that of being the most learned man in Europe. His familiarity not only with the author whom he has rendered, but with the numerous editions of the original, and with translations in the modern languages, his intellectual powers, and integrity of character, while they are subjects of applause with the classical scholar, entitle him to the respect, and add strength to the confidence of the English reader.

The period assigned by Dr. Good as that in which Lucretius produced his celebrated poem, was, the year of the city 695, and the thirty-eighth of the poet's age. The Latin language had not yet been subjected to order, nor were its few writings distinguished for expansion of thought, variety of subject, or elegance of style. It was wholly unknown to Philosophy, and supplied but few terms fitted for the use of the moralist, the naturalist, or the metaphysician. Of the few authors who preceded him, Ennius alone was worthy of any consideration; and his subject, the second Punic war, embraced only terms of a historical and popular character. It was not, therefore, without reason, that Lucretius said

"Avia Pieridum peragro loca nullius ante
Trita solo."

But these difficulties, really formidable, he overcame by a surprising skill in language, rendered more forcible and exact by a clear and distinct apprehension of his subject. He revived old words, to which he gave new and well-defined significations; and by an order as luminous as his language was perspicuous, has established a claim for propriety of style, and legitimate conclusion, unrivalled by any other classical author. The "Rerum Natura" was the favourite book of Quintus Cicero, who was himself a poet, as well as a distinguished general; and Marcus Cicero, after he had adopted another system, spoke of it on several occasions in terms of exalted praise. The digressions with which the Poem abounds are eminently beautiful and appropriate; one of which, a portraiture of the pleasures of the rural philosopher, has been finely dilated by Virgil in the second Georgic, and in which he alludes to Lucretius personally, in the line—

"Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas," &c.

Nor was he less esteemed, as an author and as a man, by Cornelius Nepos and Gellius, to whose names may be added that of Casaubon, a greater authority perhaps than either; and Dr. Wharton has expressed an opinion, in which every judicious scholar will coincide, that he possesses more energy, more of the "vivida vis animi," than Virgil himself; in proof of which assertion, he adduces the description of the Demon of Superstition, of Venus and Mars, and the sacrifice of Iphigenia, in the first book,-of the Philosopher looking down from the summit of the Temple of Wisdom on the idle pursuits of man, in the second, the pictures of lethargy and epilepsy,-and Nature chiding her ungrateful children.

This admirable poem was written at an era of great political excitement; and the conflicts foreign and domestic in which Rome was engaged, tended greatly to retard the success of literary exertion; to which also the all-pervading influence of the

mythological system largely contributed. These were, indeed, formidable difficulties in the way of a work, the object of which was to correct errors of opinion and conduct, to introduce a more natural and rational mode of thinking, and to establish a purer as well as more practicable morality. In the days of the monarchy, the king himself was Pontifex Maximus; and in after ages, this high mythological personage was selected from the class of Patricians, and invested with an influence almost boundless. It is unnecessary to suggest to the recollection of the classical reader the extreme profligacy and gross superstition which at this time infected the whole republic. Lucretius, however, notwithstanding the animosity which he had reason to anticipate, firm in the integrity of his intentions, and relying on what he deemed the correctness of his doctrines, and their beneficial tendency, resolved to exert the force of argument and the charms of poetry, to convince and disabuse them of their errors. He urged them not to reject his opinions because they were new, but to give them that attention and examination which subjects so important to their real welfare justly deserved.

"Desine qua propter novitate exterritus ipsa Expuere ex animo rationem sed magis acri Judicio perpende; at, si tibi vera videntur

Dede manus; aut, si falsum est adcingere contra."

Lucret. Rer. Nat.

"Cease, then, alarm'd by aught profound or strange,

Right reason to reject: weigh well the proofs
Each scheme advances; if by truth upheld,
Embrace the doctrine; but if false, abjure."

True philosophy, he said, could never introduce vice, but must always be the friend of virtue and human happiness. No one inveighed more forcibly, or more eloquently, against the vices of "ambition, rapacity, sensuality, avarice, strife and anxiety for public honours and popular applause, and all unworthy means to obtain them;" and in illustration of their principles, the lives of Lucretius and Epicurus were distinguished for wisdom, for temperance, for sincerity, for simplicity and gentleness. Yet these are the men who have been misrepresented as addicted to gluttony and every excess. Lovers of pleasure they certainly were, but in a sense in which it were well if others would imitate them. Let an Epicurean, let Cassius, the friend of Lucretius, acquaint us with the character of this pleasure. In a letter to a friend attached to the Platonic school, he says,—

"Those whom we call lovers of pleasure, are real lovers of goodness and jus tice: they are men who practise and cultivate every virtue; for no true pleasure can exist, without a good and virtuous life. When we assert, then, that pleasure is the chief good, the prime felicity of man, we do not mean the pleasures of the luxurious and the libidinous; the pleasures of the taste, the touch, or any of the grosser senses, as the ignorant, or those who wilfully mistake our opinions, maliciously assert: but what constitutes pleasure with us, is the possession of a body

exempt from pain, and a mind free from perturbation. It is not the company of the lascivious, nor the luxurious tables of the wealthy, nor an indulgence in any sensual delights, that can make life happy; but it is a sound and unerring judgment, that investigates and develops causes, that informs us what ought reasonably to be desired, and what to be avoided."

These absurd allegations were known and admitted to be false by Plutarch, Cicero, and Diogenes Laertius. Plutarch says, "every one knows that this opinion was never deserved by Epicurus." Cicero's words are, "Negat (i. e. Epicurus) quemquam jucunde posse vivere, nisi idem honeste, sapienter, justèque vivat." Diogenes Laertius confirms the fact of the temperance and frugality of this philosopher, and adds that "he was content with bread and water alone." "Let him then," says Creech, “who accuses Epicurus of illicit pleasures, examine the delights in which he indulged; let him who defames him as a glutton, produce his dishes. Let him enter into his garden, let him sit down at the sumptuous table it exhibits, and when convinced by the banquet itself, let him rise up and pronounce his condemnation."* Dying of a most excruciating disease, but bearing it with consummate fortitude and patience, Epicurus called around him his pupils, and affectionately recommended and inculcated the principles of virtue. There is no species of vice, which Epicurus and Lucretius have not reprehended, and with such force and effect, that even Cicero has said, that a purer and more virtuous class of men was not to be found than the followers of Epicurus. †

In accounting for those absurd accusations to which we have referred, the commentators have adduced facts which sufficiently prove that they had their origin in envy. The manner and style of the lectures of Epicurus were extremely attractive. Nature appears to have endowed him, not only with strong and acute reasoning powers, but with a quickness of conception, and a brilliancy of imagination, which, while the former convinced and satisfied the understanding, gave distinctness, force, and effect to his illustrations. Such indeed were the dignity, the grace, and the eloquence of his discourses, that it is not to be wondered at if the pupils of the rival institutions, attracted by his celebrity, should unite themselves to a school so pre-eminent and so successful.

The other philosophers of the period, and more especially the Stoics, unable to endure the praises of so illustrious a rival, could not refrain from manifesting their displeasure; and a writer, whose effrontery was only equalled by his depravity, was willing, at their instigation, to execute a commission, which, although refuted by the life and discourses of the illustrious victim, was, nevertheless, the foundation of most of the obloquy which in sucCreech, in Vit. Lucret.

† Quest. Tusc. I. iii. Epist. ad Famil.