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Feel they the power t' advance? and if t' advance

They know not, how can, next, the wave thus yield?'-
Such feeble reas'ners, in oppofing VOID,

A double voID confefs: for, first, perforce,

A void they own, where void was none before,
Betwixt the fubftance fever'd; and bring next
A proof furmountless that the air itself

Throng'd with a prior void: elfe how, to bounds

Of closer texture, could it e'er contract?' I. 75-79.

There are nearly three books of this light reading. The following passage we give in deference to Mr Good, who maintains that there is a beauty and precision in it that has seldom been. equalled. '

• Who holds that nought is known, denies he knows
E'en this, thus owning that he nothing knows.
With fuch I ne'er could reason, who, with face
Retorted, treads the ground juft trod before.
Yet grant e'en this he knows; fince nought exists
Of truth in things, whence learns he what to know,
Or what not know? what things can give him first
The notion crude of what is falfe, or true?

What prove aught doubtful, or of doubt devoid?' II. 71. 73. The following account of the composition of the soul, too, is a favourite with the translator.

Triple the fubftance, hence, the foul that builds;

Yet e'en the whole perception ne'er can form :
For nought in each subsists of pow'r t' excite
Thofe fenfile motions whence perception flows.
Hence fome fourth fubftance, doubtless, must we deem,
Conjoint exifting; which, though void of name,
Springs from minutest atoms, lightest most
And moft attenuate; deep-endow'd with power
Of fleetest speed, and hence, that firft begets
Those fenfile movements that the frame pervade.
This first begets, as form'd from subtleft feeds,
Next heat th' incipient action, vapour next
Partakes, and air pofterior, till the foul

Roufes throughout: then flows the blood, then feels,' &c. I. 413.415. The following illustration is frequently repeated by Lucretius; though he speaks only of words and letters-not types, as Mr Good has been pleased to call them. As we do not by any means pretend to understand the passage, we are really at a loss to know whether the ingenious translator means printers' types, or symbols.

• Mark but these fluent numbers; many a type
To many a term is common; but the terms,
The numbers cull'd, as diff'ring these from thofe,

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From

From different types evolve: not fo diverse
That the fame type recurs not through the whole,
Or that, recurring, it recurs alone

From types too bounded; but from types alike
Free to each term, yet ever new combin'd,

Flows the vast change, th' harmonious fyftem flows.
Thus, through the world, the primal feeds of all,
To all things common, re-arrang'd diverse,

In myriad forms fhoot forth; and herbs, and men,

And trees umbrageous own the same fixt fource.' I. 285-7. We must make an end of this now. We had noted several instances of false translation, and many of unaccountable obscurity; but our readers will easily judge of Mr Good's merits from what has already been laid before them. It is scarcely necessary to say that the ornamental epithets, which he has lent to his author in the didactic parts of his work, entitle him to no credit from his admirers. When Lucretius says humor or piscis, Mr Good should say water and fish; dimpling stream,' and chrystal lymph.' The race with glittering scales, the gilded tenants of the wave,' and even 'the aureate fish,' are all childish impertinencies.

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We have said nothing all this time of the notes, which occupy, we should conjecture, about two thirds of the book; and indeed it is not easy to give either a specimen, or a description of the vast miscellaneous assemblage which they exhibit. The imitations and parallel passages are by far too long and too numerous; and the worst of them are generally praised as much as the best. A considerable knowledge of antiquity is displayed throughout, though frequently introduced in the most fantastical manner, and on the slightest pretences. Thus, having occasion to mention the sinks or public sewers of Rome, he is led to observe that their contents were employed by the fullers in scouring woollen cloth; and this introduces a most minute and learned dissertation upon all the branches of the fullers' craft; the manufacturing of felts; the method of raising the nap;' and the different processes employed for glazing linen cloth ;-all which Mr Good sedulously pursues through six pages of double columns, while Lucretius is going on over his head with a poetical theory of dreaming. In the same way, Lucretius having glanced, in illustration of the power of the mind over the body, at the force the hand may acquire by machinery, Mr Good is irresistibly led to give his readers a copious account of the mechanical science and contrivances of the an cients, with a long historical narrative of the siege of Syracuse, and the inventions of Archimedes; which issues, we cannot well tell

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tell how, in a discourse on encaustic painting, and a proposition to substitute it for copper-sheathing in our navy.

In another passage, Lucretius having made an allusion to the beauty of Helen, and the war of Troy, his translator takes occasion to dissert thus learnedly in the notes.

The effect of love is variously described, as well as accounted for, by the poets. Generally, however, the inftrument fuppofed to be employed, is either a dart from the eye, producing a wound, as in v. 36. of the present book; or elfe a fpecies of fubtle and irrefiftible flame, eroding and confuming the bofom, as in the prefent paffage. In the opening of Book IV. of the Æneid, Virgil introduces both these me taphors.

• Vulnus alit venis, et cæco carpitur igni.

She feeds her wound, and pines with fecret fire.

• Petrarc follows our poet's latter image alone in the ensuing defcription.

6 I che l'efca amorofa al petto avea

Qual maraviglia se di fubito arfi ?

What wonder, that I burn and smart,

Since love's keen torch inflames my heart?

Solomon has beautifully and boldly introduced another fyftem of imagery, the elegance, and indeed the meaning of which, has feldom been fufficiently explained. Under his creative powers, the fafcinating fair becomes the furrounding wall of a fortified city; which was often erected with confummate fkill, beautified with all the ornaments of architecture, and over different parts of which were projected towers or turrets for the purpose of repelling the affailing foe; in whofe conftruction and finish the taste of the artist was principally exerted, and which were hence frequently denominated towers of ivory or of filver. The triumphant fair being thus generally refembled to the beautiful and ornamental wall of a defenfive city-her white and fwelling bofom is next compared to the white and fwelling turrets projected from its furface,-to thofe elegant, but dangerous prominences, which were equally formed for the purpose of attack or repulfion, and which no man, in either case, can approach without extreme peril. With this introductory explanation the paffage I refer to is equally exquifite and obvious.

• Call her a wall-" and " two towers of filver

Will we build upon her.

I myself am a wall,

And my bofom resembles two towers. Chap. viii. 9. 10. For a ftill further illustration, the reader may confult my verfion and notes upon this elegant fimile.-Sacred Idyls, p. 59. and 206. I. 87.88. These are but fair specimens of the excursive disposition of this commentator, and are taken without selection ad aperturam libri. His medical and metaphysical lucubrations are still more copious and irregular.

Upon

Upon the whole, this book is very dull, and, as a translation, very flat and unpoetical; yet it is evidently the work of a man of no ordinary vigour or intelligence: it contains a very correct edition of Lucretius, with more information on the subject of his poem, than could be gathered from all his other commentators put together. The version is sometimes pleasing, and sometimes vigorous; and Mr Good's own speculations, though often intruded rather awkwardly, are by no means despicable. It is a book, in short, which nobody but a reviewer will ever read through; but which, we think, all scholars would like to possess; and which, if it were a little cheaper, we should recommend all but poor scholars to buy.

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