- 1808.] 
does not too much restrain, the quickness 
of his fancy. He would no doubt have 
been every where as poetical, as he is in 
his descriptions, and in the moral part of 
his philosophy, had he not aimed more to 
instruct the reader in his system of nature, 
than to delight him by the richness of his 
sentiments or the glow of his imagery, 
He was determined to make Memmius a 
materialist, and teach him to defy an in- 
visible power; in short, he was so much 
an atheist, that he sometimes forgot to be 
a poet. There are many parts of' the 
poem, indeed, which in their own nature 
eould not be capable of ornament. He 
is employed on subjects in themselves 
not susceptible of beauty, and which in 
other hands would hardiy have been sus- 
ceptible of regularity. But there are 
also many others, in, which all that the 
poet’s art can reach, tis successfully dis- 
played. Where nature isthe theme, he 
has risen to heights, beyond which no 
poet has ever soared. We are happy to 
find these observations conhimed by the 
opinion of the late Dr. Warton. “ The 
merit of Lucretius as a poet, (says that 
acute and learned writer) has never yet 
been sufficiently acknowledged. He 
seems to have had more fire, spirit and 
energy, more of the vivida vis animi, 
than any of the Roman poets, not ex- 
cepting Virgil himself. Whoever ima- 
gines, with Tully, that he had nota great 
genius, is desired to cast bis eye on two 
pictures he has given us, at the beginning 
ofhis poem, The first, Venus with her 
Lover Mars, beautiful to the last degree, 
and more giowing than any picture paint- 
ed by Titian. Thesecond, of that terri- 
ble and gigantic figure, the demon of 
superstition, worthy the energetic pencil 
of M. Angelo. Nor do J think that the 
description which inmediately follows, 
of the sacrifice-of Ipheginia, was excelled 
by that famous picture of Timanthes, on 
the same subject, of which Pliny speaks 
so highly, in the 35th book of his Nat. 
Hist. especially the minute and moving 
circumstances, of her perceiving the grief 
of her father, and of the priest concealing 
his sacrificing knife, and of the specta- 
tors bursting into tears, aud her faling on 
her knees. Few passages even in Virgil 
himself, are so highly finished, contain 
such lively descriptions, or are more har- 
wnonious. in their versification, as where 
the poet speaks of the fertility occasioned 
by the vernal showers. 
Postremo pereunt imbres ubi eos pater AEther 
In gremium matris Terral pracipitavit ; 
Lyceum of Ancient Literature—Lueretius. 
311. 
At nitide surgunt fruges, ramcique virescunt 
Arboribus; crescunt ips, fetuque gravantar. 
Hinc aliter porro nostrum genus, atque ferae 
rum, : 
Hinc Jatas urbeis pueriim florere videmus, 
Frundiferasque novis avibus canere uncique 
sylvas: 
Hinc fesse pecudes, pingues per pabula lata / 
Corpora deponunt, et candens lacteus humor 
Uberibus manat distentis: hinc nova proles 
Axtubus infirmis teneras lasciva per herbas 
Ludit, lacte mero menteis perculsa novellas. 
Lib: lt. 251. 
To these passages cited by Dr. War- 
ton, we ‘may add, the description of a 
person in a deep lethargy, lib. in, 463; 
of the effects of drunkenness, lib. ii. 
475; of the falling sickness, lib. 111, 486; 
the noble pérsopoperia, lib, 11, 944, where 
Nature is introduced chiding ber ungrate- 
ful sons, for their folly and discontent ; 
and the conclusion of the same book, 
where the poet allegorizes all the puuish- 
ments of hell. Ofhis other descriptions, 
in which the richness of his vein appears 
in defiance of the dryness of his subject ; 
that of the island of Sicily, lib. 1, 718, is 
just and beautiful; the sacrifice of the 
calf, with the dam’s concern for its Joss, 
lib. 11, 352, is equally true and pathetic, 
and the short description of the shells 
that cover the sea-shore is the more re- 
markably beautiful, as it would appear 
rather a minute and trifling subject for 
the attention of the peet. . 
Coscherumque genus parili ratione videmus 
Pingere telluris gremium, gua mollibus undis 
Littoris incurvi bibulam pavit @quor arenam. 
li. S74. 
At the close of_the poem, the descrip- 
tion of the plague which infested Athens, 
is truly horrible. 
Hec ratio auondam morborum, & mortifer 
zstus 
Finibus Cecropiis funestcs reddidit agros, 
Vestavitque vias, exhausit civibus urbem. : 
Nam penitus veniens A®gyptie finibus ortus, 
Aeéra permensus multum, camposque natantes, 
Incubuit tandem populo Pandionis. vi, 1136. 
Tie has but few similies, the subject 
upon which he wrote scarcely admitting 
of any. But though he generally pursues 
with great steadiness the objects before 
him, at the beginning of every book; 
yet Ins genius seeins to shake offthose fet- 
-ters that would confine it, and rises with 
aspirit hardly equalled by any other wri- 
ter. Sometimes it discovers itself in a 
generous pity of the ignorance of man- 
kind, whom he supposes to be blinded by 
superstition and folly; or he triumphs in 
the 
