i68 rOPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



skepticism. But his present vogue dates only from the middle of the 

 nineteenth century, when the great questions which he treated reached 

 again the acute stage of interest. The search into the constitution of 

 matter and the origin and development of living beings, and the sharp 

 antagonisms of science and theology, which have distinguished the past 

 lialf century, called out of obscurity the poet-scientist who, quite alone, 

 passed over the same path two thousand years before. On account of 

 this kinship of task and attitude Lucretius, to the modern man of 

 science, is better known than any other ancient poet. 



Professor Jowett used to say that all that was really known of 

 Shakespeare might be written on half a sheet of note-paper. Of 

 Lucretius very much less is known. Indeed, with the single exception 

 of Homer, there is no considerable writer of antiquity whose personal 

 history is so meager and vague. Two sentences by the Christian Father 

 Jerome and a single sentence by Donatus constitute his extant 

 biography. The statem.ents of Jerome are — that Lucretius was born 

 in the year B. C. 94; that, having been made insane by a love-potion, 

 he wrote, in the intervals of insanity, certain books wliich Cicero cor- 

 rected; and that he died by his own hand in the forty- fourth year of 

 his life. Donatus in his 'Life of Virgil' informs us that, on the day 

 when Virgil assumed the toga virilis, Lucretius died. By the help of 

 Donatus we can correct the birth-date given by Jerome, and fix it at 

 about the beginning of B. C. 98. The story of the philtre, insanity and 

 suicide is probably a legend with a historic germ of some unknown 

 tragedy in his life. Upon that legend Tennyson has made his poem of 

 'Lucretius,' which is a marvel at once of faithful portraiture and of 

 exquisite beauty. 



If we turn through the 'De Eerum ISTatura' in hope of chance self- 

 revelations of the author, we are disappointed. He is almost as im- 

 personal as Shakespeare. He lets fall no fact of his station or fortunes 

 in life. We do, however, discover some of his personal characteristics. 

 Here is an austere and serious student of the problems of nature and 

 of human life and destiny. He is, as he says himself,* not only a 

 philosophical teacher and a poet, but also a moral reformer, and so 

 ardent is his zeal to effect his practical aim of emancipating men from 

 the bonds of superstition that he subordinates to it both his philosophy 

 and his poetic passion. His praise of the tranquil, obscure life suggests 

 that he knew and loved it. We are warranted in inferring that he 

 was the social equal of C. Memmius to whom his poem is addressed 

 and that accordingly he was of the governing class. But we catch 

 liints here and there that the political history of the last years of the 

 Eepublic only repelled and distressed him, and, having no leaning 



* I. 931-934. 



