ed, because the things feen do not appear to be in their places; and even when the refraction is made, the images ceafe not nevertheless to tend directly into the eye: Befides, the whole or entire image does not fly through the glafs, for of the rays that conftitute the image, they only pafs through, that happen to fall into the pores or void spaces of the glass: but the others, that chance to light upon the folid parts of the glafs, are reflected. In this, therefore, confifts not the difference between an image and a voice. Ver. 622. The problems, relating to the tafte, are not in greater number, nor more difficult to explain, than those that concern the fight and hearing For we tafte, fays the poet, when the juice that is fqueezed out of fapid bodies, like water out of a sponge, penetrates the palate and the tongue. Which juice, if it consist of seeds figured in fuch a manner, that when they are poured upon the organ of the tafte, and enter into the pores of it, they exactly fit thofe little pores, and thus gently tickle, and pleasingly affect the organ, feems fweet: But if the figuration of the feeds be fuch, that when they come to enter into the little pores of the organ, they bear no due proportion and commenfuration with them, they then prick, hurt, tear, offend, and roughly move and affect the organ; and then the juice feems not weet to the taste, but either bitter, falt, acid, four, harsh, biting, &c. Epicurus took this opinion, as well as many others, from Democritus, who gave to every fort of tafte or favour, its particular figure: as may be feen in Theophraftus de caufis Plant. lib. vi. cap. 2. in thefe words: Anpingilos di xñux wigiΤιθεὶς ἐκράτω Γλυκὺν μὲν τὸν στρόγγυλον, δὲ εὐμεγέθη | τοῖς, Στρυφνὸν δὲ τὸν μεγαλόχημον, Τραχὺν δὲ τὸν πολυγώνιον καὶ ἀπεριφερῆ Δρομὺν δὲ τὴν περιφερή, δὲ λεπτον, καὶ γωνοειδῆ δὲ καμπύλον ̓Αλμυρὸν δὲ τὸν γωνοειδή, δὲ σκόλιον, δὲ ἰσοσκηλῆς πικρὸν δὲ τὸν περίφορῆ, καὶ λείαν ἔχοντα σκολιότητα, μέγεθος δὲ μικρόν· Λιπαρὴν δὲ τὸν λεπὸν, καὶ στρόγγυλον, δὲ μικρὸν. Ver. 632 For this reafon Nigrinus, in Lucian, makes a fcoff at those who were too curious in the fauces of their meat; and accused them of giving themselves a great deal of trouble, for the fake only of a very short and tranfient pleafure; fince the throat, through which the meat fliding down, would move them with any delight, is not above four inches in length: Nor did they find any pleasure in dreffing the meat, nor could they, after it was swallowed; but only in that inftant of time, while the meat is pafling through the throat. This made the voluptuous Polixenus afk of the gods to make his neck like a crane's, that he might receive the greater pleasure in eating, by the longer stay of the food- in the jaws and throat. Ver. 637. To this, and the two following veries, we may join what Epicurus writes to Menaceus in thefe words: Is rundi【eur &v iv rzī; ἁπλοῖς, καὶ ὁ πολυτέλεσε διαίταις καὶ ὑγιείας ἐστι συμπληρωτικὸν, καὶ πρὸς ἀναγκαίας τῷ βίω χρήσεις ἄικνον ποιῶν τὸν ἄνθρωπον. Ver. 640. In these forty-two verfes the poet Explains the reafon, why the fame meat is not only pleasant, but healthful alfo to one: and no only naufeous, but hurtful to another. The organ of the tafte is different in fome men, and in fome animals, from what it is in others; either in its texture, or configuration of the atoms; or of the spaces that intervene between them; even as the other parts of men or anitnals are different, efpecially the outward. But the different paffages or pores must neceffarily admit, and receive different corpufcies of juice: and every thing, out of which juice is fqueezed, contains feeds of different figures: and the corpuícles of all juices, by reason of their various figuration, do not agree with, and fit the organs of all animals. Hence it is, that what is nourishment to one.animal,, is poifon to another; and what is grateful to this is diftasteful to that. Nay, when by age, or by reason of any disease, the temper, or the frame of the organ is changed, the fame thing feems to have changed its tafte, even though nothing be changed in it. Thus a man in a fever thinks thofe things bitter, which a man in health takes to be tweet; because the texture of the organ being altered thofe corpufcles, that firted it before, are no lo ger fit for it; and therefore tear and hurt the org. | Ver. 645. Of this affertion our tranflator has omitted an instance, which Lucretius exprelles in these words: Eft utique, ut ferpens hominis contracta falivâ Difperit, at fefe mandendo conficit ipla. And that ferpents cannot fuffer; but fly from the fpittle of a man, we have the authority of Pliny, lib. vii. cap. 2. who there fays, " Et tamen omnibus hominibus contra ferpentes ineft venenum: feruntque eas ictum falivæ, tanquam aquæ ferventis contactum, fugere." But that it makes them fo furious, as to eat their own bodies, we have only the authority of Lucretius, that I know of : And Faber fays, it is commonly reported, and believed by many; but that, having often made the experiment of its he could never find it to be truc Ver. 646. Veratrum, in the original, fignifies the plant which the Greeks call hellebore, as Pliny witneffes, lib. v. c. 14 where he fays, there are two forts of hellebore, one white which the.Larins call veratrum album, white, heligbore; the other black, by fome called polyrbizon, by others, tomon, and by other's melampodium, either from Melampos, a fhepherd, the fon of Amythaon, and who was the first that discovered the virtues of that plant, by which he cured of madness the daughters of Protus, king of the Argives, having Grft obferved that goats ufed to purge themfelves with it; or from its black root; the root of a plant may, pot very improperly, be called the foot of it; whence the Latins call it, veratrum nis grum, black hellebore; Mart, will have it to be called so, because it is merè atrum, truly black: Sca liger derives it, à verare, to speak the truth, or to foretel, & quod eo purgarentur veratores et veram trices, qui pro infanis habebantur." The fame Pliny, lib. x cap. 12. fays, that the taking of cither of them is dangerous to men ; though boté of them fatten goats and quails; which is again | Herodotus, delivers the fame doctrine in these confirmed by Lucretius, lib. v. ver. 897. Quippe videre licet pinguefcere fæpe cicutâ nenum. Where we see the word, sicuta, is taken for hellebore: In which sense too Horat. lib. ii. epift. 2. ver. 53. Quæ poterant unquam fatis expurgare cicuta. And Avicenna calls the herb, cicuta, black hellebore: whence it is probable, that our hemlock is neither the veratrum nor the cicuta of the ancients. Therefore, instead of hemlock-juice, we may read hel'ebore. Ver. 657. For the different formations of the intervais of the pores answer to the various figuTations of the atoms, of which they are composed: fo that as fome atoms are trigonical, others quadrangular, others polygonical, &c. in like manner, fome of the intervals of the pores are trigonical, others quadrangular, others polygonical, &c. Ver. 661. The meaning is: fince what is fweet to fome, is bitter to others, it is credible, and fo far true, that the moft fleek and smootheft atoms, which are in the meat and drink, that affect the toi gi and palate with sweetness, do, as they enter into the pores, footh and tickle them: And, that, on the contrary, the rough atoms exafperate the tongue and palate of thofe, to whom the meat is bitter, but that the fame meat is fweet to fome, and bitter to others, proceeds from the difturbed or altered contexture of the atoms. Ver. 670. In these twelve verfes, he confirms the foregoing doctrine by an example. He has taught, that the bitterness of the fame meat and drink to fome, and the sweetness of it to others, proceed from the perturbation of the atoms in the bodies of animals: which perturbation or commutation is caused in fick perfons by the predominating bile, or fome other caufe, be it this or that, no matter. But then the whole body is difturbed and difordered; the fire and pofition of the atoms is changed; whence thofe, that before produced a fenfation of sweetness in the taste, pow produce a bitterness, by reason of the change that is made in their fite and order; and fo on the contrary. οι words, ἡ ὀσμὴ ἐκ ἂν ποτε πάθος ἐδὲν ἐργάζεται, ἐν με ὄγκοι τινὲς ἦσαν ἀπὸ τῇ πράγματος ἀποφερόμενοι σύμ μέρος πρὸς τὸ τῦτο τὸ αἰσθητήριον κινῶν, οἱ μὲν τοῖσι τεταραγμένως, καὶ ἀλλοτρίως, οἱ δὲ τοῖσι ἀπαράχει καὶ οἰκέως ἔχοντες. Thus both Epicurus and La. cretius afcribe the fole caufe why fome odours are grateful to fome men, or to fome of the other animals, and naufeous to others, to the va rious figurations and contextures of the organs that compose the fenforium of smell. Plurarch, too, is of the fame opinion, lib. i. adverf. Color. where he makes mention of two women, Berenice and another Spartan, who had an equal averfion, one of them for the fmell of butter, the other for that of ointment. Ver. 686 All creatures have an innate fundnefs for things with which they support their life: and nature has beftowed on each of them an inftinct and fagacity, to go in search of, and readily to find their nourishment. Thus the bee, more easily than other animals, discovers the hordes of honey, that her fellow-bees have gathered and laid up for their support, and fo eager is the in purfuit of it, that the avoids no danger to come at it. This is excellently described by Virg. Georg. iv. ver. 203. Attrivêre, ultroque animam fub fafce dederê, Sæpe etiam duris errando in cotibus alas Tantus amor florum, et generandi gloria mellis. Thus rendered by Dryden : Oft on the rocks their tender wings they tear, And fink beneath the burden which they bear, Such rage of honey in their bosom beats, And fuch a zeal they have for flow'ry sweets. Ver. 687. Pliny, lib. x. cap. 46. says, that vultures fly three days before to the place where dead bodies are to be, as if they perceived long before the odour of the carcafes. Thus Pluta in Trucul. "Jam quafi vulturii triduo prius prz divinabant, quo die efurituri fient." In which they are both mistaken; for the vultures do not affemble themselves together to the places where any great flaughters are to be made by any natural and prophetic inftin&; and, in all appearance, this tradition took rise from their having been ob ferved to follow and keep with marching armies; not as foreseeing the day of battle, but because in the march of an army, there are always fome men, fome horses, and other beasts that drop here and there by the way. Job fays the fame thing of the eagle, chap. ix. ver. 30. And where the are, there is the. The vultures, from their devouring of dead bodies, were called ráfu iμýv x, living fepulchres. Ver. 682. Having finished his disputation of tafte and favours, he now enters upon the fubject of smell and odours. And first, in these ten verfes, he teaches that as images flow as found is emitted, and as favoury juices are squeezed out of things, fo odours are breathed from things like-lain wife. Now, the variety and diffimilitude of the figures (fee Book ii. ver. 398.) which do not move and affect the organs of all animals alike, are the cause that all animals do not equally perceive these odours that are continually exhaled and fent from bodies. Thus bees fnell from far the odour of honey; vultures of dead bodies; dogs of wild beafts; and geefe of a man. And yet thefe odours affect very weakly, or not at all, the noftrils of human kind. Epicurus, writing to Ver. 688. This is neither better nor worse than a downright barbarism. We fay not the train of a stag, but the trail, to trail the fag, &c. This our huntfmen know. Mr. Addison has gven us so fine a description of a hound in purfuit of a deer, that it well deferves to be transcribed. So the ftaunch hound the trembling deer pursues, And imells his footsteps in the tainted dews; The tedious track unrav'ling by degrees: But when the scent comes warm in ev'ry breeze, Fir'd at the near approach, he shoots away On his full ftretch, and bears upon his prey. Ver. 689, 690. In the year, U. C. 364. when the Gauls, under their leader Brennus had beaten the Romans at the river Allia, taken the city of Rome, and laid fiege to the capitol, as they were one night climbing up the precipices in order to scale the walls, fome geefe, that were confecrated to Juno, and which, for that reason, they had fpared during the famine they had fuffered in the fiege, fell a gaggling, and waked the foldiers, who, under Marcus Manlius, repulfed the Gauls: and these last, after a fiege of seven months, were at length forced to buy their peace with a great weight of gold, and were all flain, or driven out of the city by M. Camillus, who was afterwards dicator. For this fervice which the geefe had rendered the republic, the cenfors ordered them to be nourished at the public expence. This is attested by Pliny, lib. x. in these words: "Eft et anferis vigil cura Capitolio teftata defenfo, per id temporis canum filentio proditis rebus : Quamob rem cibaria anferum Cenfores imprimis locant." Cicero takes notice of this story in his oration for Rofcius Amarinus. And T. Liv. lib. v. in these words: "Galli nocte fubluftri tanto filentio in fummum evafêre, ut non cuftodes folum fallerent, fed ne canes quidem, follicitum animal ad nocturnes ftrepitus, excitarent. anferes non fefellêre," &c. Ver. 690 In these two verses the poet teaches, that odour is of a twofold advantage to man, and to the other animals: For, I. We difcern by their odours, the aliments that are fit and proper for us. II. By the fame means of odour, we avoid those that are hurtful to us. But were this generally true, poifon would not have made the havoc that it has done in the world. Ver. 692 In thefe eighteen verfes, he treats of the motion of odours, and affirms, that it moves more flowly through the air than found, that it is more cafily divided and diffipated, and that it is not diffused and spread fo far: the reafon of which is, because it flows from the most inward parts of an odorous body, or from the lowest profundity of the subject (for odorous bodies, the more they are bruifed, broken, &c. fmell the more), and alfo becaufe the principles of which it is compofed, are larger than the principles of found: fince thofe paffages, through which found penetrates, are too narrow for odours, and will not allow them a way. And, therefore, odour must neceffarily move more flow, and be more easily diffipated by the air it meets in its paffage. And this too is the reason why, though we can easily judge from what part a found comes to us, we cannot, with like facility, diftinguish on what fide of us the body is that diffuses an odour. Plato, in his Timæus, teaches, that odours are fmoke and mift: that that part of odours which is changed from air into water, becomes mift; but that which is changed from water into air, turns into smoke: whence he argues, that odour is more rare than water; but more denfe than air. One proof of which is, that if any one ftops his noftrils, he will, together with his breath, draw in air, but not odour. Ariftotle, lib. ii. de Anim, teaches, that the power and quality of odour is hot; and that the power and faculty of smelling is placed in hot and dry. Hence it is not ftrange, that cold and froft render odours dull and fpiritlefs. And he farther teaches, that, for that reason, odours con◄ tribute nothing to the nourishment of the body, nor ever excite an appetite of eating and drinking, but rather create a lothing of food: but that fweet odours are conducive to health, because they temper and dry the brain, which, of itself, and from the vapours of our food and nourishment, is moist and humid. Ver. 710. It is not in the leaft to be doubted, but that the fame tafte, and the fame fmell is pleafing to fome, and ungrateful to others. Now Lucretius, in thefe twelve verfes, teaches, that even the very images of things make different impreffions on the eyes of the beholders. The lion' himself is terrified at the fight of a cock (for Lucretius does not mean what fome interpreters make him fay, that it is the crowing of the cock that terrifies that wild animal), because the image of the cock is compofed of feeds that pierce into, and wound the eyes of the lion, so that he is not able to fix his fight against them. Plin. Nat. Hift. lib. viii. cap. 18 fays, that it is the comb of a cock that chiefly frights the lion. Ver. 712. It is certain that cocks generally crow at certain hours of the night, chiefly between midnight and break of day. Dryden says, More certain was the crowing of this cock, To number hours, than is an abbey clock; And fooner than the mattin-bell was rung, He clapp'd his wings upon his rooft, and fung. The naturalifts affign several reasons of this, but none that are convincing: the fafeft is to say, that the cock, like other animals, has certain times of fleeping and waking; and that when he is waked, either of himself, or by the crow of another, or by the noife of any thing, he fixes himself that he may not drop off his perch, claps his wings, and falls a crowing, which is natural and familiar to him, as well at certain hours of the night, as often likewife of the day. Shakspeare calls this animal, The trumpet of the morn, Who with his lofty and fhrill founding throat, Awakes the God of day. [Hamlet. And Milton, The crested cock, whofe clarion founds The filent hours. And the Romans, who began their natural day of twenty-four hours at midnight, named and distinguifhed fome parts of it by the crowing of the cock. The first part they called, “Media nox," which, as Cenforinus calls it, was indeed "Principium et Poftremum Dici Romani:" the fecond, "de media nocte:" the third, “ Gallicinium," when the cocks began to crow: the fourth, “Conicinium,” when they left off crowing: the fifth, ante lucem;" the fixth, "diluculum:" the feventh, "mane," &c. But in this computation there is but one cock-crowing mentioned in all; but Juvenal mentions different times of it, Sat. ix. ver. Ic6. Quod tamen ad cantum Galli facit ille fecundi. And, indeed, experience teaches us, that the cocks naturally crow at three particular times in the night efpecially: of which three feafons, one is about an hour before day, as our old Tuffer obferves in his Poetical Husbandry, page 123, where he particularly distinguishes the several seasons of the cock's crowing in the night, in thefe old fa fhioned verfes : through thofe large tracts of air whole and ta difturbed? Are they not as thin a fubftance a the Epicurean foul, and as easily diffolved? Ca they enter the pores of the body, and fill pre ferve their order, and the mind be accounted mortal for the fame way of paffage, and this be ufed as an argument against its infufion? Strange power of prejudice! that can blind the sharpe eyes, make them dull and unfit to be moved by thefe thick and almost palpable errors; but, per chance, there is no image of an abfurdity, and therefore we muft excufe the Epicurean: B some things are prefented to our imaginations, which there can be no image; a harp feems t found, when it lies filent in the cafe, when there is no brifk vibration of the ftrings to impel the ambient air, and create a found; for found d not confift of parts that fly from the body (2 Lucretius imagines); it is only an agitation the rigid parts of the air, as a thousand experments can evince; but two may fuffice. One taken from common obfervation. For, toach de founding wire of virginals at one end, and the noife ceafes, though the touch cannot hinder th flux of atoms from any part but that whichimmediately preffes. The other is known to who have heard, that a bell will not found in the exhaufted receiver, though the parts might thet fly off with greater eafe, they being not trouted with any ambient refitting air. Cock croweth at midnight times few above fix, With paufe to his fellow to anfwer betwixt : At three a clock thicker, and then as you know, Like all into mattins, near day they do crow. At midnight, at three, and an hour yet day, They utter their language as well as they may. Ver. 722 Thus he has concluded his difputation concerning the fenfes : but fince, when the fenfes are asleep. we imagine many things, ima gination is a fubject not unworthy a philofopher to treat of: He, therefore, to ver. 829 explains what imagination is, and the caufe of it. And first, in these twenty-fix verfes, he afferts, that many most subtle images, fome flowing from bodies, others formed in the air of their own accord, and others differently mixed of different things, are wandering up and down on all fides in the air: That thefe images penetrate into the mind; and, gently moving it, are the cause of imagina-being: But the images of fuch things come tion. Hence we think we fee Centaurs, Scyllas, and other monftrous things that never had a being; and likewife the ghofts and fhadows of the dead. Cicero, in the fifteenth book of his Epiftles, ad Familiar, writing to Caffiu, who had newly embraced the Epicurean doctrine, tells him, "Fit nefcio quid, ut coram, adeffe videaris, cum fcribo aliquid ad te, neque id καὶ εἰδώλων φαντασίας, ut dicunt amici tui novi, qui putant etiam ras diavolixans paracias, spectris Catianis excitari. Ver. 730. Fully, examining this opinion, fays, "Tota res, Vellei, nugatoria eft." This whole affair, "Velleius," is a trifle: and adds farther, "Quid eft quod minus probari poteft, quam omniuni in me incidere imagines, Homeri, Archilochi, Romuli, Numæ, Pythagoræ, Platonis, nec eâ formâ quâ illi fuerint? quomodo ergo illi??? What is there that can lefs be proved, than that the images of all men offer themfelves to me, of Homer, Archilochus, Romulus, Numa, Pythagoras, Plato, and yet not in the form in which they were? How then, was it they? Let us confider our dreams, where the powers of fancy and imagination are moft obfervable. These our poet explains, by entering images which pals through the body and frike the foul How deficient this is, any one may be latisfied from his own obfervation; for that will tell him that he dreams of things at a vail diftance, and not thought on for fome months. What then? Can the image pafs Ver. 732. That is to fay, in our dreams weft with the mind, and when awake, we believe vifion true: Yet never any Centaur, Scylla. Ce berus, or any monfter of the like nature, bas fhow then selves to our minds, from the fever images of feveral things joined in one image Ver. 733. The Centaurs were feigned to monsters with a human face, and the body horie. They were indeed, as fome fay, peopit » Theffalia, that inhabited the mountain Pd and the first that fought on horseback; wh gave rife to the fable. Hence they were als femiferi and bimembres; and nubigenæ, cloud-beg", ten, because they were begot by Ixion on a cle See more of them, Book V. ver. 930.. Scylla was feigned to be a moniter, whofe per parts refembled a woman, and her lower a company of dogs. Now Scylla was the daugh of Phorcus, with whom Glaucus fell in love; 45 being defpifed by her, he applied himself to t witch Circe, to procure a spell to make ber him. But Circe, who was herself in love w Glaucus, and enraged tha: he preferred Scyla fore her, infected a four tain in which Scylla uf to bathe, with poison of to noxious a nature, tScylla, going into it, inftantly found all the lew parts of her body transformed into the mouth barking dogs: Scared at this deformity, the mediately threw herself into the neighbour fea, on the oppofite coaft, of which they blew feigned Charybdis, to be changed into a rack. And there are now two dangerous whirlpools the Sicilian fea, called by the name of these tw fabulous moniters. See Book i, ver. 740. El But many accufes Virgil of confounding the two Per nos, Scylla patri cano furata capillos, This too was feigned to be a monftrous dog with three heads, who guarded the gates of hell; from whence Hercules is faid to have dragged him, having first bound him in chains. See Book III. ver. 1015. Ver. 736. The poet here mentions three forts cí images. 1. Thofe that fly from real things: Such are the images of a man, of a lion, of a horse, of a house, in a word, of all things that firike our eyes, and are the caufe of fight. II. Those which of their own accord are bred in the air and clouds: as the images of giants, mountains, huge beasts, and the like, which fometimes appear to us in the clouds. III. Thofe that are compofed of the conjoined figures of these images: And fuch are the images of Centaurs, Scyllas, Cerberus's, and the like. Of the two first forts he has already treated at large in the beginning of this book, and is going to treat of the third. Ver. 740. Here the poet teaches how the third fort of image is made, that is to fay, thofe that are composed of several images of things, joined in one image. For never Centaurs, Chimeras, or monsters of like nature lived, or had a being. But the image of a Centaur is made partly of the image of a man, partly of the image of a horfe. The image of a Chimæra is made of the image partly of a man, partly of a gcat, partly of a lion. And in like manner of all other monsters. Ver. 748. In these seven verfes, he proves, that imagination is caused by images; because a lion, for example, which we think we fee, is exactly like a lion that we fee with our eyes: And as fight is made by images, fo too is imagination, which is equal to fight, and differs from it in this only, that the mind fees objects that are invifible to the eye. Though our tranflator has in this paffage fully enough expreffed the doctrine of Lucretius, yet he has omitted the example the poet brings to illuftrate his argument: Let us fancy, fays he, that we see a lion rather than any other animal. Certainly a lion is not feen by the eyes any otherwife than by his image: But cogitation is made in the fame manner as fight is: Therefore cogitation is made by the appulfion of an image, which image, nevertheless, is indeed of a more tenuious nature, by reafon of the more tennious nature of the mind. Ver. 755. In these fifteen verses, he observes, that the images of the dead feldom offer themfelves to men who are awake, but generally to those who fleep: The reafon of which, he tells us, is, because the images that are continually wandering to and fro in all places, rush with such violence upon the fleeper, that, penetrating into his very mind, they shake and disturb it to fuch a degree, as begets in it an imagination of the very things whofe images they are. And the reason why we believe perfons long fince dead to be actually prefent with us, is, because the fenfes, by which alone we diftinguish between true and falfe, being lulled and ftupified in fleep, cannot perform their functions: Befides, the memory too is ftupified, and we do not at that time even recollect that the perfon who feems to be prefent with us is dead. : Ver. 770. But thefe images which appear to us in our fleep, run, leap, and dance up and down; of which the poet, in thefe ten verfes, gives this reafon Becaufe, fince we continue fome time in the fame imagination, it is not all that while the fame image that is before our mind; but many images that offer themfelves fucceffively, image after image, in a never-cealing and continual flow. Now, if all thefe images.remain in the fame pofture, the thing we imagine with our felves to fee will feem without motion, but if the pofture of the images vary, it muft of neceflity feem to move. Ver. 775. This and the following verfe are rendered from three verfes, which fome copies' have, but the interpreters generally reject them. They are thefe: Tanta eft mobilitas, et rerum copia tanta, The |