Ver. 70. The atoms, which Lucretius held with Epicurus to be the principles of all things. Ver. 71. He means chimæras, fcyllas, centaurs, hermaphrodites, &c.

Ver. 77. Lucret.

Fana, lacus, lucos, aràs, fimulacraque divûm.

The temples, lakes, groves, altars, and images of the gods.

Ver. 81. Lucretius fays, " natura gubernans," and means what he calls afterwards," fortuna gubernans," ver. 108, which our trandator there calls chance: And indeed Lucretius means nothing elfe in this place. Pliny, it is true, calls nature the parent and maker of all things. And Seneca, lib. iv. de Benef. makes her the god by whom all things are made and governed. "Quid enim," fays he, aliud eft natura, quam Deus, et divina ratio toti mundo ac partibus inferta?" But Lucretius was of another opinion, and makes her other than God, and means in effect nothing more by ruling nature, than the power and motion of the atoms, that fortuitoufly and without defign huddled and joined themselves together in

to this frame of the world.

The motions of the planets may well be compared to a dance, from the regular meafures of them.

Ver. 85. Epicurus himself to Herodotus: θεια δύναμις πρὸς ταῦτα μὴ προσαγίσθω, ἀλλὰ ἀλει πέργητος διατηρείσθω, καὶ ἐν τῇ πάσῃ μακαριότητα ὡς ἐἰ μὴ τότο πραχθήσεται, ἅπασα περὶ τῶν μετεώρων απ τιολογία μάταια ἔται.

Ver. 86. The horfes of the fun are faid to be four in number: Pyrocïs, fo called from ùg, fire; Eous, from us, the morning; Æthon, from ald, I burn, or I heat; and Phlegon, from @iya, I burn. Lucretius mentions them not, but owes this verfe to his tranflator.

Ver. 87. This and the twelve following verfes are repeated in Book vi. ver. 51. and feq. And in Book i. ver. 78. and Book ii. ver. 6c6, he teaches almoft the fame doctrine.

Ver. 90. Horace, the Epicurean, manifeftly drew from this fountain, when he said: Nil admirari prope res eft una, numici, Solaque quæ poflit facere et fervare beatum: Hunc folem, et ftellas, et decedentia certis Tempora momentis, funt qui formidine nullâ Imbuti fpectent.

Explain that paffage of Horace by this of Lucretins, and you will be more in the right than the other interpreters. Moreover, this is exactly the doctrine of Socrates; and therefore this faying, The things that are above us are nothing to us, which is commonly afcribed to Socrates by others, is by Tertullian afcribed to Epicurus: "Sed Epicurus qui dixerat, quæ fuper nos nihil ad nos, cum et ipfe cœlum atpicere defiderat, folis orbem pedalem apprehendit,' &c. hb. ii. ad Nationes.

Ver. 94. In the fecond book, he calls them, "Dominos fuperbos," proud, imperious lords. And Velleius, in Cicero, lib. i. de Nat. Deor. fays the fame thing: "Dum Deum rerum authorem

facitis, impofuiftis in cervicibus noftris Domi fempiternum, quem dies et noctes timerima Quis enim non timeat omnia providentem, et gitantem, et animadvertentem, et omnia ad fe per tinere putantem, curiofam et plenum nege Deum?" By making God the author of all things, you fet over us an eternal Lord, of whom we muft day and night stand in awe. For who c not but dread a God, who overfees all, preva for all, thinks of all, takes notice of all, and be lieves that all belongs to him, in fhort, a m dling, inquifitive, and never idle God?

Ver. 100. In these nineteen verses, he at length falls upon his subject; which, he fays, is a notic one indeed, but intricate, and to which he ha find it difficult to gain belief; for men do aut eafily give credit to what they are unwilling “ believe; and who would willingly regard ruin of the world, of which he cannot be a w nefs without his own deftruction? The poet h felf feems to commiferate so great a misfortune. tria talia, texta

Una dies dabit exitio ver. 95.

Which he did certainly dread, when he said, Quod procul à nobis flectat fortuna gubernas Ver. 1 &

All-ruling chance, avert it far from us. Moreover, upon the words of Lucretius above," Tria, talia," &c. Faber obferves, ha Ovid pays him a compliment in his own con: Carmina fublimis tunc funt peritura Lucreti Exitio terras cum dabit una dics.

Ver. 104. This is denied by Ariftotle, E. de Calo, and by Plato in Timæus, though." difagree in the manner of it: For Plato y # world had a beginning, and that God creat but denies it will ever have an end; not that immortal in its own nature, but because it w be unworthy of the wildom of God, whole w manfhip it is, to diffolve fo glorious a fram to foffer it to be diffolved. But Ariftotle that whatever has had a beginning, may, have an end; but that the heavens never created, and will never be diffolved: Nor Aristotle alone to boaft that he afferted a w uncreated and eternal, for before him Xenop Parmenides, Meliffus, Philolaus, Ocellus, Ar the Chaldeans, and others, taught the famed In like manner, not Epicurus alone of all t cient philofophers gave the world a bug for Empedocles, Heraclitus, Anaximander, menes, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, Diogenes, L pus, Democritus, the Brachmans, the b and others, were of the fame opinion, to w Pliny too fubfcribes, in thefe words: "N effe mundum credi par eft, æternum, ina neque genitum, teque interiturum g Nat. Hift lib. ii. cap. 1. Thus pic with us, that the world had a beginning; `erred in teaching that God was not the a it: And we know for certain, that, “ in ja

pio creavit Deus cœlum et terram." And both Epicurus, and the other philofophers with him, were mistaken, when they taught, that the world was not created out of nothing, but made of a pre-exifting matter. Lucan, in Pharfal. lib. i. ver. 73. defcribes the future diffolution of the world, in the following verfes:

-Sic cum, compage folutâ,
Sæcula tot mundi fuprema coegerit hora,
Antiquum repetens iterum chaos, omnia miftis
Sydera fyderibus concurrent; ignea pontum
Aftra petent; tellus extendere littora nolet,
Excutietque fretum: fratri contraria Phoebe
Ibit, et obliquum bigas agitare per orbem
Indignata diem pofcet fibi: totaque difcors
Machina divulfi turbabit fœdera mundi.

Which May has not amifs interpreted in the following verfes:

So when this knot of nature is diffolv'd,
And the world's ages in one hour involv'd
In their old chaos; feas with fkies fhall join,
And ftars, with ftars confounded, lose their shine.
The earth no longer fhall extend its fhore,
To keep the ocean out: the moon no more
Follow the fun; but, fcorning her old way,
Crofs him, and claim the guidance of the day :
The falling world's now jarring frame, no peace,
No league fhall hold, &c.,

Ver. 109. For all men give moft credit to thofe things which they fee or touch, and fight is the chief inlet of knowledge: Therefore, Milton, complaining of his being blind, fays finely,

Thus with the year

Seafons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the fweet approach of ev'n and morn,
Or fight of vernal bloom, or fummer's rofe,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine:
But cloud inftead, and ever-during dark
Surround me, from the cheerful ways of man
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Prefented with an univerfal blank
Of nature's works, to me expung'd and raz'd;
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

Ver. 119. But because the folly of the Stoics, the ignorance of others, and the fuperftition of the generality of men had opposed many objections to this opinion, Lucretius removes them all, and firft, in thirty-nine verfes, confutes the Stoics, who held, that the fun, the fea, the earth, in short, the univerfe, being animated by a spirit infufed through the whole, is God. Thus Manilius, lib. i. ver. 238.

Hoc opus immenfi conftructum corpore mundi,
Membraque naturæ diverfâ condita formâ
Aeris, atque ignis, terræ, pelagique jacentis
Vis animæ divina regit, facroq. meatu
Confpirat Deus, et tacitâ ratione gubernat.
Which Creech thus renders:

To this vaft frame in which four parts confpire,
Of diff'rent form, air, water, earth, and fire,

United God, the world's almighty foul,
By fecret methods, rules and guides the whole;
By unfeen paffes he himself conveys
Through all the mass, and ev'ry part obeys.

But thefe men the poet defpifes, and treats them and their foolish doctrine with the utmost contempt and indignation.

Ver. 121. See the note upon ver. 758, Book i. from whence this and the foregoing verfe are repeated. And to what is there faid on them, I will here add fome farther particulars concerning the oracle of Apollo, who was called Pythius, from his killing the python, a huge ferpent, which had its name arò rèv wuts, becaufe he was engendered of the putrefaction of the earth, and fprung from the filth that the flood of Deucalion had left behind it. Ovid Metam. i. ver. 438.

-Te quoque, maxime Python, Tum genuit; populifque novis, incognite ferpens, Terror eras: tantum fpatii de monte tenebas: Hunc Deus arciteneus,

Mille gravem telis, exhauftâ pene pharetrâ, Perdidit, effufo per vulnera nigra veneno. Now the perfon, or prophetefs, who, instead of Apollo, pronounced the oracle, and gave answer to thofe that came to confult the god, was a maid, and the first that performed it was Phenomcë, the daughter of Apollo. The oracle was delivered from a place in the temple, called the Adytum, which was the most fecret and retired part of it, and into which none but the prophetess was permitted to enter; and, according to the defcription Strabo gives of it, it was a deep and crooked cave, with a mouth or entrance, but indifferently large, and out of which the answer of the god was.thought to afcend, and inspire the prophetefs. Over the mouth of this cave ftood the tripod, upon which, when the prophetess got up, fhe was immediately tranfported with a fpirit of divination, and then gave the answer, fometimes in profe, fometimes in verfe. Du Choul, in his treatise de la Religion des anciens Romains, gives us the form of the tripod, with a crow fitting on it, as a bird facred to Apollo, and with a harp and laurel at the feet of it. To which we may add, that in Conftantine's oration, ad Sacrorum Cœtum, in Eufebius there is mention made, cap. xviii of a ferpent alfo twining about the tripod, and of a diadem with which the prophetels was adorned. Lee, in the tragedy of Mithridates, defcribes the agony of the Pythian, when, infpired by the god, the was about to pronounce the oracle.

—At Delphi, when the glorious fury Kindles the blood of the prophetic maid, The bounded Deity does fhoot her out, Draws ev'ry nerve, thin as a spider's thread, And beats the skin out like expanded gold.

And Dryden, in dipus, makes the old Tirefias fay,

Now the god fhakes me! he comes! he comes! -1 feel him now

Like a frong fpirit, charm'd into a tree,
That leaps, and moves the wood without a wind:
The roufed god, as all this while he lay
Entomb'd alive, ftarts, and dilates himself:
He firuggles, and he tears my aged trunk
With holy fury; my old arteries burst;
My rival'd fkin,-

Like parchment, crackles at the hallow'd fire:
I fhall be young again, &c.

To both of whom Virgil fhowed the way, in his defeription of the convulfive rage of the Cumaan Sybil. Æneid. vi.

Ver. 124. Pythagoras, Plato, Trifmegiftus, and many others of the ancient philofophers, imagined the world to be endowed with a rational foul, and to partake of the nature of the God that made it. They were induced to this belief, by confidering the admirable order and connection of all the parts of the univerfe, which, they were perfuaded, could not be fuftained but by a foul intrinsically informing, ordering, difpofing, and connecting them. This foul Plato, indeed, did not believe to be God himfelf, but the work of the fupreme God; but Pythagoras and Thales, as we learn from Minutius Felix, afferted it to be God himself: To this opinion the Hermetic philofophers feem likewife to fubscribe, and explain it in this manner: They tell us, that the Divine Spirit, which produced the world out of the first water, being infused, as by a continual infpiration, into all the works of nature, and largely diffuted through them, by a certain fecret and continual act, moving the whole, and every individual part of it, according to its kind, is the foul of the world. Plato, and the old academics, as we find their opinion delivered by Cicero, in Acad. Queft. lib. 1. fay thus of it: The feveral parts of the world, and all things contained in them, are kept together by a fenfitive nature, which is endowed likewife with perfect realon. It is alfo fempiternal; because there is nothing more strong, by the power or force of which it can be diffolved. And this nature is the power which is called the foul of the world. Plutarch, de Placitis Philofoph. lib. iv. cap. I. teaches, that Heraclitus affirmed the foul of the world to be an exbalation of the humid parts of it. Varro, on the contrary, would have it to be fire, but means, perhaps, the fame thing with Chalcidius in the Timæus, where he calls Vefla the foul of the universal body; or with Pliny, who afferts the fun to be the foul of this world: "Hunc mundi totius effe animam, ac plane mentem, hunc principale naturæ regimen, ac numen credere decet," fays he, lib. ii. cap. 6. But the Stoics went yet farther, and held, that every one of the celestial bodies that have motion, is to be efteemed in the number of the gods; and this opinion they grounded on the conitancy they had obferved in the revolutions of the heavens, and in the courfes of the stars, whence they concluded their motion to be voluntary, and, confequently, that they are gods. Thus the Stoic Lucilius, in Cicero, fays, Hanc igitur in ftellis conftantiam, hanc tantam

in tam variis cafibus, in æternitate convenientiam temporum, non poffum intelligere, fine mente, ratione, confilio: Quæ cum in fyderibus effe videamus, non poffumus ea ipfa in deorum numero non ponere." De Natur. Deor. lib. iii. And a little higher, he says, Reftat ut motus aftrorum fit voluntarius: quæ qui videat, non indocte fo lum, verum etiam impie faciet, fi deos effe neget." But Lactantius retorts their very argu ment upon these philofophers, and says, that the conftant and fixed revolutions and courses of the celestial bodies, are an evident argument that they are not gods; for, if they were, they would not be determined to, nor prefcribed any certain motions, but, like animals upon earth, whofe will is free, would move wherever they lift. " Quid, quod argumentum illud, quo colligunt univerfa cœleftia deos effe, in contrarium valet? Nam û deos effe idcirco opinatur, quia certos et rationa biles curfus habent, errant: ex hoc enim apparet deos non effe, quod exorbitare illis, à præftitutis itineribus non licet. Cæterum fi dii effent, huc atque illuc paflim fine uliâ neceffitate ferrentur, ficunt animantes in terrâ; quorum quia libera funt voluntates, huc atque illuc vegantur, ut li buit, et quo quemque mens duxerit, eò fertur." De Orig. Error. cap. 5. Now the reason why Lucretius lafhes the authors of thefe opinions, and treats them with fo much scorn and indignation, is, because their belief of the foul of the world, profles hard his impious hypothefis, concerning the Divine Providence: For, release but the foul from that union, which these philofophers have thus foolishly afligned, and then to hold a foul of the world, and an all-ruling Providence will be all one and the fame thing.

Ver. 128 The giants, who fought against the gods at Phlegra, and attempted to scale heaven, by heaping one on another the hills of that coun try, and of Theffalia. Virgil, Georg. . . 281. See likewife the note on Book i. ver. 243 To which I add that Phlegra was fo called dri Talgsoda, to burn, perhaps, because of the giants being deftroyed there chiefly by lightning; or, as others, from baths of hot water that arife thereabouts. Euftathius fays, it was likewile called Pallene; and that the wick dncfs of the inhabitants gave occafion to the fable of the giants fight Now, what Lucretius here fays, is this: Left you should think that all thofe, who by their arguments endeavour to prove the world to be mortal, equally deferve to be punished for their impiety, as were the impious giants of old, who, in their way, did likewife all they could to destroy heaven, and durft to wage war with the gods. Whoever defires to be fully inftructed concerning giants, may confult the learned Caffa rion, who has treated of them at large. I will only add, that the ancient heathens drew the o cafion of this, and of many of their other fables, from the Mofa:cal hiftory, which they wretchedly profaned and depraved by their childish fictions: And that too the rather, if it be true what Boul due, a French capuchin, in a treatite printed not long ago, and intituled, De Ecclefiâ ante legem,

lls us, in lib. i. cap. 9. that the names Raphaim, mim, Zuzin, and others, as he fays, commonly fcripture taken for giants, ought not to be pounded in that fenfe. Then he affirms, that e title of giant was anciently a name of honour, which they diftinguifhed fuch perfons as in fe days were reftorers of piety; and that the emblies of giants, were colleges of instruction, that age of the world. Thus he endeavours prove, that Nimrod was, in that fenfe, a giant, man inftructed by God himself; and this he uld make good out of Methodius. But these rtions of his, and the curious proofs he alleges m their Hebrew titles, are new and daring ghts of fancy.

Ver. 130. That the heavens are immutable incorruptible, nay, even inmaterial, and contently no ways obnoxious to the catastrophe ich Lucretius here afferts has always been the gar opinion, as well as the belief of Ariftotle, iophanes, Averroes, Cicero, and indeed of of the philofophers. And though experience f of the visible mutations that fometimes hapin them, for example, the new ftar that apred in Caffiopeia, in 1573, and vanished the following, are abundantly fufficient to cone them, by natural reafon, of the erroneoufof that opinion; yet fome men are fo given even to the most reprobate fenfe of Ariftotle, not the Divine Authority itself can draw n from it, as in this point particularly, Suarez, many others, are fo far from believing the veus to be corruptible and mutable, that they allow them to be changed only accidentally, hey call it, and not fubftantially, at the last Upon which Maldon, on St. Matthew fays well, that he had rather believe Chrift, who ns it, than Ariftotle, who denies it.

er. 134. In thefe twenty-four verfes, he fays, its fo far from being true, that what he is It to teach of the future diffolution of the

ld, will derogate from the power and divinity he immortal gods, that, on the contrary, it evince their dignity, and the excellence of nature, because it will help us to diftinguish seen what is endowed with a divine body,

what is not

for what can be more difre

tiel and injurious to the gods, than to declare d that the heavens, the earth, the fea, the the moon, and the ftars, are endowed with immortality, eternity, and divine underding, as they most manifeftly do who hold n to be immortal? Especially, fince they are pable even of being animated with the breath sie: For a foul can no more be in them, than ee in the air, a cloud in the fea, or a fish upon ground. And as every thing has a proper Ce affigned it, to be produced and live in, fo her can the foul be produced or exift without ody. This opinion is both impious and remant to true reafon; but fince we have aldy fully anfwered, in the third book, all the curean objections against the immortality of foul, we will not trouble our reader with the etition of them. Besides, the drift of Lucre

tius is, to prove, that heaven, earth, fea, &c. are mortal, and confequently will be diffolved, and perish.

Ver. 136. Neither ] None, not one of them: we generally fay neither of them, when we speak but of two.

Ver. 140. You will find this and the following eleven verfes, Book iii. ver. 755.

Ver. 144. This and the four following verfes are rejected by Faber, who imagines they were by mistake brought to this place, together with the five preceding verfes, from the third book, where we find them all together; but his fuppofition is without reafon; for they seem to be a part of this argument, and as much to the purpofe as the other verfes of it. For, fays the poet, if even in our bodies, which are compofed of veins, nerves, blood, &c. there be certain and appointed places, where the mind and foul are born, and exift apart by themfelves, it is in vain for any one to pretend that there is a mind and a foul in the heavens, the earth, the sea, and other bodies that have no organs whatever.

46

Ver. 156. To this purpose. Velleius, in Cicero, lib i. De Nat. Deor. fays, Qui mundum ipfum animantem fapientemque effe dixerunt, nullo modo animi naturam intelligentes viderunt, in quam naturam cadere poffit." They who faid that the world is an animal, and endowed with understanding, did not in the least know the nature of the mind, nor into what nature it can be infufed.

Ver. 158. Since the gods are immortal and eternal, they muft of neceflity have abodes that are fo too; therefore, all men place the gods in the heavens, which, for that reafon, say they, can never be destroyed. To this the poet answers, in these eleven verfes, that this is only the invention of poets, or of the ignorant vulgar: For the nature of the gods is too fubtle to touch fuch thick bodies as the heavens; and therefore we muft not believe them to be the manfions of the

gods. Nay, fays he, no part of the univerfe is, or can be their abodes; for whatever has an abode, or is in any place, both touches and is touched; for place, and the thing placed, as they call them, are bodies; and body can both touch and be touched; but the gods neither touch nor are touched. They are not touched, because their nature is fo fubtle that it is wholly imperceptible to our fenfes, and therefore we ought to believe, that their abodes are anfwerable to their nature, and far different from ours, that is, from thofe that are commonly affigned to the gods; that is to fay, that they are of fo fubtle a nature as renders them wholly imperceptible likewife to our fenies. But all the parts of the world are perceivable to our fenies, therefore none of them can be the abode of the gods. And fince the gods are not touched, it neceffarily follows, that they do not touch:

Tangere enim non quit, quod tangi non licet ipfum.

Lucr.

For nothing can touch but what may be touched