beccamorti fopravenuta di minuta gente, che chi- Ver. 1254. Thus too Ovid, who has moft hap- 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. he reft, grown mad, and frantic with despair, All which calamities may the Almighty avert far ings, Dü meliora piis, erroremque hoftibus illum. ANIMADVERSION, BY WAY OF RECAPITULATION, ON THE SIXTH In this book, Lucretius reafons of many thing 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. 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 Your most obedient 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 |