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beccamorti fopravenuta di minuta gente, che chi-
amar fi facevano Becchini, la quale quefti fcruigi
prezzolata faceva, fottentravano alla bara, e quella
on frettolofi paffi, non à quella chiefa, che effo
aveva anzi la morte difpofto, ma alla più vicina.
e più volte il portavano, dietro à quattro, ò fei |
clerici con poco lume, e tal fiata fenz' alcuno, li
quali con l'aiuto di detti Becchini, fenza fatigarfi
En troppo lungo ufficio, ò folenne, in qualunque
epultura difoccupata trovavano, più tosto il met-
cevano. J. Boccacio, in Proem. Becam.

Ver. 1254. Thus too Ovid, who has moft hap-
pily imitated both Thucydides and our author:
Ante facros vidi projecta cadavera poftes;
Ante ipfas, quo mors foret invidiofior, aras:
Pars animam laqueo claudunt, mortifque timorem
Morte fugant, ultroque vocant venientia fata :
Corpora miffa neci nullo de more feruntur
Funeribus: neque enim capiebant funera portæ ;
At inhumata premunt terras, aut dantur in altos
ndotata rogos; et jam reverentia nulla eft;

que rogis pugnant, alienifque ignibus ardent : Qui lacryment defunt, indefletæque vagantur Natorumque, virumque animæ, juvenumque fenumque:

Jec locus in tumulis, nec fufficit arbor in ignes.
Metam. lib. 8.
Which a late ingenious perfon has thus rendered:
Death stalk'd around with fuch refiftless sway,
he temples of the gods his force obey;
nd fuppliants feel his ftroke, while yet they
pray.

he reft, grown mad, and frantic with despair,
rge their own fate, and fo prevent the fear :
range madness that! when death purfu'd so fast,
anticipate the blow with impious hafte.
To decent honours to their urns are pay'd;
for could the graves receive the num'rous dead:
or, or they lay unbury'd on the ground,
r, unadorn'd, a needy fun'ral found:
all rev'rence pafs'd, the fainting wretches fight
or fun'ral piles that are another's right:
Inmourn'd they fall; for who furviv'd to mourn?
and fires and mothers unlamented burn:
'arents and fons fuftain an equal fate; [meet
and wand'ring ghofts their kindred shadows
The dead a larger space of ground require;
Nor are the trees fufficient for the fire.

All which calamities may the Almighty avert far
rom us; and not from us only, but from the uni-
erfal fociety of all mortals; nor let us unchari-
ably join in wishes with the heathen poet, who

ings,

Dü meliora piis, erroremque hoftibus illum.

ANIMADVERSION,

BY WAY OF RECAPITULATION, ON THE SIXTH
BOOK OF LUCRETIUS.

In this book, Lucretius reafons of many thing
excellently well, but has mifcarried in his main
defign, and does not fo much as ftagger the be-
lief of Divine Providence, which he attacks with
his utmoft force: for let it be granted, that the
caufes he affigns of meteors are perfpicuous and
true; that he has rightly explained the reason of
thunder, lightning, and earthquakes; in a word,
that all things proceed from natural caufes, and
are continued and carried on by them: yet there
is no nature without a Lord, nor does the herself
at least reject or difown a ruler. For nature is
only that difpofition and order of the particles of
fenfelefs matter, which is the caufe of thefe cf-
fects we call natural. Now, if that difpofition
was introduced by chance, it does not confute
and overthrow Providence; and if it was the
work of reafon and wifdom, it confirms it. There-
fore thefe explications may amufe and delight na-
tural philofophers; but they cannot in the leaft
avail atheifts.

No man has more accurately collected, none more ingeniously explained, the ancient philofophers opinions concerning meteors: the modern. it is true, have added a few things to them; but not better. And indeed, as this prefent age does, fo many fucceeding ages likewife will, feem to difpute, face to face, with Lucretius, concerning meteors. And this is what Vitruvius faid long before me.

What he teaches of earthquakes, and of the fea is fo rational, that the things themfelves approve and confirm his doctrine: only there are fome earthquakes that feem to furpass the strength of the caufes he affigns them.

Ætna is a noble fubject, but difficult: and in this the poet flags a little. But then he reasons of the increase of the Nile, of the Averni, and of the wonderful fountains, as if truth itfelf were fpeaking but it may be obferved that he does not give full fatisfaction concerning the fabulous fpring of Jupiter Ammon: for Lucretius always explains nature better than fables.

He would have written more at large of the loadstone, and have left us many things that we fhould read with pleafure, if the wonderful power of that ftone had been known in his days. The explication he gives of plagues and difeafes is per

tinent and ufeful: and laftly, he interprets Thucydides in fuch a manner, that he expreffes the energy, and furpaffes the majesty, of that hiftorian; nor is the narration of Thucydides so clear or fet off with fo much brightness or wit.

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SIR,

GRAINGER'S TIBULLUS.

TO JOHN BOURRYAU, Esq.

WHEN I first thought of prefixing your name to this tranflation of Tibullus, I found myself confiderably embarraffed; as I would choofe to avoid the ftrain of adulation, fo common in addreffes of this kind, on the one hand, without fuppreffing the juft fenfe I have of your rifing merit, on the other. I shall not, however, I flatter myself, incur the imputation of the first, by declaring, even in this public manner, my fatisfaction at the progrefs you have made in every branch of useful and polite literature and this too, at a time of life, when young men of fashion are generally engroffed by the idle amufenients of an age abounding in all the means of diffipation.

If your maturer years anfwer, as I am convinced they will, fo favourable a dawn, I need not a moment to hefitate, to foretel the happiness of your friends, in an agreeable companion, and polite fcholar, and of your country, in a principled and unfhaken patriot.

It is with particular pleasure, Sir, that I dwell, though but in idea, on this part of your future character. The time is not far off, when you will have finished the plan of your education, by a furvey of foreign countries: and as it will then, of courfe, be expected from one of your opulent and independent fortune, you will, I hope, devote the fruits of your induftry to the fervice of the public: Hunc precor, hunc utinam nobis Aurora niten

tem

Luciferum rofeis candida portet equis.

Tibull

When you become a member of the most august affembly of the nation, every wellwifher to the community will exult to see you unawed by

power, undazzled by riches, and unbiaffed by faction: an impartial affertor of the just preroga tives of the crown, and the liberties of the people: equally a foe to corruption, and a friend to virtue.

Such, Sir, are the hopes which all your friends at prefent conceive of you and as your talents, both natural and acquired, feem ftr ngly to confirm these hopes, the more inexcufable you will prove, should they be hereafter disappointed.

In regard to the tranflation, with which I here take the liberty to prefent you; I will not pretend to fay, I fet no value upon it. My offering it to you is a proof of the contrary,-Indeed, the chief merit it has with me, is, that it formerly pleafed you. It ferved alfo, to make many of my hours pafs agreeably, which otherwife would have been extremely irkfome, amid the din of arms, and hurry of a camp life.

But while you perufe Tibullus as a poet, let not
his integrity, as a member of the commonwealth,
be forgotten. In this light he merits your highest
regard for though he justly obtained a diftin-
guifhed rank among the great writers of the Au-
guftan age; yet ought it more efpecially to be re-
membered to his honour, that neither the frowns
of a court, nor the diftreffes of fortune, could ever
induce him to praise those powerful but wicked
men, who had fubverted the liberties of his coun-
try and this, at a time, when the practice of the
poets his cotemporaries might have countenanced
in him the most extravagant adulation.
1 am, Sir,

Your most obedient
humble fervant,
JAMES GRAINGER,

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE following version of Tibullus was begun and completed feveral years ago, when the author was in the army. A military man, even in the moft active campaign, has many hours of leifure, and as thefe caunot be spent more rationally than in fome literary purfuit, he employed that part of his time, which was not devoted to his profeffion, in perufing the claffics,

Time and place influence us more in our opinions of, and relish for, particular writers, than is commonly imagined. Amid the horrors of war, the translator could moft readily fympathise with, and beft account for, his poet's averfion to a military life and while expoted to all the hurry and tumult of a camp, could not but taite with a peculiar relifh all defcriptions of the unruffled and

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