Thus the Lord From land to land, throughout the regions, fpread Fell on all nations. per Man! obey thy God!' p. 190. From the copious extracts which we have given, our readers. will be able to judge for themselves of the merits of this formance. There is sweetness and delicacy in many passages; and an air of elegance throughout; but it is deficient in animation, in characters, and in action. Its beauties belong rather to pastoral and lyric poetry, than to epic; and are scarcely calcuÎated to strike with sufficient force to command the attention of this fastidious age. The work, however, is respectable, and cannot be perused without giving us a very pleasing impression; of the character and virtues of the author. 1 ART. XV. The Nature of Things: A Didactic Poem. Tranflated from the Latin of Titus Lucretius Carus, accompanied with the Original Text, and Illuftrated with Notes Philological and Explanatory. By John Mafon Good. 2 vol. 4to. pp. 1180. Longman. London. 1805. THE "HESE vast volumes are more like the work of a learned German profeffor, than of an ungraduated Englishman. They dif play extenfive erudition, confiderable judgment, and fome taste; yet, upon the whole, they are extremely heavy and uninteresting, and the leading emotion they excite in the reader, is that of sympathy with the fatigue the author must have undergone in the compilation, They contain, firft of all, a moft learned preface, giving an account of all the editions of Lucretius, and all the verfions which have been made of him into modern languages; then a life of this author, dilated by biographical sketches of all his ancestors and famous contemporaries, and of the state of literature in the ancient world, into upwards of eighty clofely printed pages: and this, again, is followed by an appendix of thirty pages more, containing a long analyfis and defence of the fyftem of Epicurus; a comparative view of all the other ancient fyftems of philofophy; and a fhort deduction from thefe, of all the celebrated theories of modern times, from the nominalism of Abelard, to the tranfcendentalism of Kant. Then comes the original text of Lucretius, correctly printed from Mr Wakefield's edition, with Mr Good's translation in blank verfe on the oppofite page; and underneath, a vast and most indigefted mass of notes, exhibiting not only a copious collection of parallel paffages, and alleged imitations, in Hebrew, Hebrew, Perfian, Arabic, Greek, Latin, German, Spanish, Italian, French and English, but an incredible quantity of incidental criticifm and differtation upon every poffible variety of fubject,metaphysics, manufactures, medicine, ethics, wool-dreffing, generation, government, husbandry and engineering. The mere defcription of fuch a commentary, is enough to give our readers an alarming idea of Mr Good's induftry and the extent of his reading; and when we add to this, that he neither reafons nor writes very ill upon moft of the fubjects he difcuffes, we fhall probably give an impreffion of the work fomething more favourable than we can confcientiously agree to fanction. The truth is, that Mr Good, though very intelligent, is very indifcrimate in the felection of his information; and though, for the most part, fufficiently candid and judicious in his remarks, is at the fame time intolerably dull and tedious. He has no vivacity; no delicacy of tafte or fancy; very little originality; and a gift of extreme prolixity. His profe is better than his poetry; his reafonings are more to be trusted to than his criticism; and his ftatements and explanations are of more value than his argument. We can afford to give but short specimens of his multifarious labours; but in a work of this magnitude it is fair that our readers fhould be enabled, in fome degree, to judge for themselves. In writing the life of the poet, it certainly was fcarcely neceffary for Mr Good to inform his readers, that, immediately upon the expulfion of the Tarquins, Spurius Lucretius was unanimoufly chofen interrex, or king for the time being, or to give an account of the library of Appellicon, or the labours of Sylla in correcting the text of Ariftotle. Some mention of Greek literature, however, was natural; and as Lucretius appears to have ftudied at Athens, the following elaborate encomium on that feat of learning is not perhaps altogether out of place. But the literature of Greece was, nevertheless, beft to be acquired in Greece itself; and the Romans, though they tranfplanted books, could not tranfplant the general tafte and fpirit that produced them. Athens, although confiderably fhorn of the glory of her original conftitution, and dependent upon Rome for protection, had ftill to boast of her fchools, her fcholars, and her libraries. Every fcene, every edifice, every converfation was a living lecture of tafte and elegance. Here was the venerable grove, in which Plato had unfolded his fubme myfteries to enraptured multitudes: here the awful lyceum, in which Ariftotle had anatomised the fprings of human intellect and action here the porch of Zeno, ftill erect and ftately as its founder: and here, the learned fhades and winding walks, in which Epicurus had delineated the origin and NATURE OF THINGS, and inculcated tranquillity and temperance and here too was the vaft and magnificent library that Pifiltratus firft eftablished, and endowed for the gratuitous ufe of his i countrymen. : countrymen. Here Homer fung, and Apelles painted here Sophocles. had drawn tears of tenderness, and Demofthenes fired the foul to deeds of heroifm and patriotic revenge. The monuments of every thing great or glorious, dignified or refined, virtuous or worthy, were ftill exifting at Athens and she had ftill philofophers to boast of, who were capable of elucidating the erudition that blazed forth more confpicuously in her earlier ages of independence.' I. xxix. xxx. This piece of biography, which, of itself, would fill a moderate volume, contains, we think, about three authenticated paffages : one is, that Lucretius ftudied at Athens; another is, that he lived a retired life, and did not mingle in the political contentions of his age; a third is, that he had a wife, or a miftress, of the name of Lucilia; and the last is, that he became infane, and deftroyed himself at the age of forty-four. Whether his madness was brought on by grief for the banishment of his friend Memmius, or by the unlucky operation of a love potion administered by Lucilia, is much and learnedly difputed by Eufebius, Giffenius, and Mr Good, who, of course, prefers the former and more creditable fuppofition./ We cannot undertake to give our readers even a fpecimen of the profundities that are difcuffed in the life and the appendix. They contain, among other things, a refolute defence of materialifm, and of almost every particular tenet of the school of Epicurus.. Mr Good has given, however, a very clear and accurate fummary of the atomical philofophy of that teacher, which we shall beg leave to extract, as by far the most confiftent and mafterly account we have ever met with of that comprehensive system. In its mere physical contemplation, the theory of Epicurus allows of nothing but matter and space, which are equally infinite and unbounded, which have equally exifted from all eternity, and from different combinations of which every individual being is created. Thefe existences have no property in common with each other; for, whatever matter is, that space is the reverse of; and whatever space is, matter is the contrary to. The actually folid parts of all bodies, therefore, are matter; their actual pores, fpace, and the parts which are not altogether folid, but an intermixture of folidity and pore, are fpace and matter combined. Anterior to the formation of the universe, space and matter existed uncombined, or in their pure and elementary ftate. Space, in its elementary flate, is pofitive and unfolid void: matter, in its elementary ftate, confifts of inconceivably minute feeds or atomsfo fmall that the corpufcles of vapour, light, and heat, are compounds of them; and fo folid that they cannot poffibly be broken, or made fmaller, by any concuffion or violence whatever. The exprefs figure of thefe primary atoms is various: there are round, fquare, pointed, jagged, as well as many other fhapes. These fhapes, however, are not diverfied to infinity; but the atoms themfelves, of each exiftent fhape, are in.. finite finite or innumerable. Every atom is poffeffed of certain intrinfic powers of motion. Under the old fchool of Democritus, the perpetual motions exhibited were of two kinds :-a defcending motion, from its own gravity; and a rebounding motion, from mutual concuffion. Befides thefe two motions, and to explain certain phenomena which the following poem develops, and which were not accounted for under the old fyftem, Epicurus fuppofed that fome atoms were occafionally poffeffed of a third, by which, in fome very small degree, they defcended in an oblique or curvilinear direction, deviating from the common and right line anomalously; and hence, in this refpect, refembling the ofcillations of the magnetic needle. • Thefe infinitudes of atoms, flying immemorially in fuch different directions, through all the immenfity of fpace, have interchangeably tried and exhibited every poffible mode of action,-fometimes repelled from each other by concuffion, and fometimes adhering to each other from their own jagged or pointed construction, or from the cafual in terflices which two or more connected atoms muft produce, and which may just be adapted to those of other configurations, as globular, oval, or fquare. Hence the origin of compound bodies; hence the origin of immenfe maffes of matter; hence, eventually, the origin of the world itfelf. When thefe primary atoms are clofely compacted together, and but little vacuity or space intervenes, they produce thofe kinds of subflances which we denominate folid, as ftones, and metals: when they are loofe and disjoined, and a large quantity of space or vacuity occurs between them, they produce the phenomena of wool, water, vapour. In one mode of combination, they form earth; in another, air; and in another, fire. Arranged in one way, they produce vegetation and irritability in another way, animal life and perception.-Man hence arifes-families are formed-fociety multiplies, and governments are infituted. The world, thus generated, is perpetually fuftained by the application of fresh elementary atoms, flying with inconceivable rapidity through all the infinitude of space, invifible from their minutenefs, and accupying the pofts of all thofe that are as perpetually flying off. Yet, nothing is eternal and immutable but these elementary feeds or atoms themfelves: the compound forms of matter are continually decompounding, and diffolving into their original corpufcles: to this there is no exception-minerals, vegetables, and animals, in this refpect all ake, when they lofe their prefent configuration, perifhing from existence for ever, and new combinations proceeding from the matter into which they diffolve. But the world itfelf is a compound, though not an organized being; fuftained and nourished like organized beings from the material pabulum that floats through the void of infinity. The world itself must therefore, in the fame manner, perifh: it had a beginning, and it will eventually have an end. Its prefent crafis will be decompounded; it will return to its original, its elementary atoms; and new worlds will arife from its deftruction. Space Space is infinite, material atoms are infinite, but the world is not infinite. This, then, is not the only world, or the only material fyftem that exifts. The cause whence this vifible fyftem originated is competent to produce others; it has been acting perpetually from all eternity; and there are other worlds and other fyftems of worlds exifting around us. In the vaft immenfity of space, there are alfo other be ings than man, poffeffed of powers of intellect and enjoyment far f perior to our own: beings who existed before the formation of the world, and will exift when the world fhall perifh for ever; whofe hap pinefs flows unlimited, and unallayed; and whom the tumults and paffions of grofs matter can never agitate. Thefe, the founder of the fyftem denominated gods :-not that they created the univerfe, or are poffeffed of a power of upholding it; for they are finite and created beings themselves, and endowed alone with finite capacities and powers;-but from the uninterrupted beatitude and tranquillity they enjoy, their everlafting freedom from all anxiety and care.' I. cviii.-cxi. Some such abstract as this, indeed, we conceive to be altogether indispensable to every English reader, who may have courage to venture upon this translation. The system is not developed in the original with any extraordinary regard to method or perspicuity; and we must say for Mr Good's prose, that it is infinitely more luminous, as well as more harmonious, than the greater part of his verse. The poetical merits of Lucretius have been a good deal obscured by the faults of his philosophy, and still more by their injudicious application to a system of so intricate and comprehensive a nature. It has been said of him, that when he put on the philosopher, he put off the poet; and laid aside his philosophy, in like manner, when he chose to be poetical. It would have been better for his reputation, in both capacities, if this had been true,-if he had reserved his poetry for episodes and introductions, and confined himself, in the body of the work, to an argumentative exposition of his system, which might have been in verse, without any disadvantage. But the boldness of his genius, his unfeigned enthusiasm for the subject he had undertaken, and the immature state of the critical and poetical art among his countrymen, effectually excluded such a distribution; and led him to incumber and embellish his reasonings with tender, sublime, and fanciful illustrations, while his genius was perpetually recalled from its flights by the details and intricacies of his philosophy. His work, therefore, is extremely unequal, and, in many places, insufferably tedious and fatiguing. But it is full of genius; and contains more poetry, we are inclined to think, than any other production of the Latin muse. With less skill-less uniform propriety-and less sustained dignity than Virgil, it has always appeared to us, that he had more natural genius |