inspires anger; vapour (which is cold), fear; and air diffuses through the whole frame serenity and ease.

How the distance of objects from the eye is ascertained, is a subject which has employed both opticians and metaphysicians. Certain alterations take place in the configuration of the eye, and the inclination of the optic axes, which, when the objects are near, enable us to ascertain pretty accurately, their respective distances. And with respect to more distant objects, we must form as near a conjecture as we can from the apparent degradation of colour and diminution of size, in the object itself, and from the number of other objects intervening between it and the such seems to be the result of modern observations and reasonings. But hear the curious theory of Lucretius:

'Tis by the image that our eyes discern
Each visual body, and its distance learn.
Freed from the frame, it rushes to our eyes,
And drives the air before it as it flies:

Forced to our sight the aerial currents flow,

Grate on the tender ball, and urge their passage through.
Our vision, hence, a useful knowledge gains,
The object's actual distance ascertains;
Since as more air these images propel,

And the chafed eyeballs longer currents feel,
Between our station and the object's place,

eye;

Longer will be the intervening space.-Vol. ii. b. iv. p. 20. We now know that sound is propagated by pulses of the air, which spread from the sonorous body much in the same way as the circles upon water from the point where a stone has been thrown in. But Lucretius considers sound as matter; and his argument for it is worth observation.

For sound is substance, as experience shows,
Since to the sense impulsively it flows:

Since oft the passing voice the glottis wears,

The trachea roughens, and the bronchia tears.

Through the small ducts when crowd the seeds of sounds,
And swiftly issue from their narrow bounds,
Oppressed with corpuscles, each vessel frets,
Nor in mellifluous tones the voice emits :
The rushing atoms rend the suffering throat,
And grating Hoarseness lifts his tuneless note.

Sounds, then, the vocal organs tear and wound;

Resistless proof that bodies dwell in sound.'-p. 41.

The comparison of the heavens to the wheel of a water-mill, among the endeavours to account for the diurnal motion of the heavenly bodies, must not be passed over.

Now, whence the starry motions, Muse display;

Those motions, circling the cerulean way;

And first-if move the Heaven's vast orb around,
Strong floods of air, perchance, the surface bound,
And press the poles; the yielding fabric hurl,
And with a two-fold stream its concave whirl.
The airs above, that o'er the zenith play,
Down to the west the rolling skies convey,
That bear the world's great planets on their way:
While adverse currents, as beneath they flow,
Upheave the concave as they press below;
Just as the streamlet actuates the mill,

And drives the eternally-revolving wheel.'-pp. 42, 43.

}

It is but fair, however, to give at the same time the poet's philosophical and elegant account of the phases of the moon,though he mentions it as but one guess among many to account for the phenomenon.

. With radiance borrowed from the splendid sun
The ever-varying moon her course may run,
To us each night exhibit broader fires,
As from his beam her spreading orb retires,
Till, full-opposed, full-orbed, she gives his rays,
And to the world a paler sun displays;

In chastened splendour climbs the shining East,
And views him setting in the lower West;
Then backward gradually again she glides,
And gradually her waning lustre hides,

As through the opposing signs her circuits run,
And measure her advances to the sun.'—p. 57.

Mr. Locke, we believe, hints something like a modest query, whether sweetness in any substance may not arise from the roundness and smoothness of the component particles. Lucretius is sure of the matter.

Those things, 'tis obvious, which our palate soothe,
Are formed of particles more round and smooth;
While what we bitter and disgusting find,
Are hooked in figure, and more closely twined.
Hence, through the pores they rend their painful way,
And on the sense their torturing powers display.
Those things which wound us, in our taste or sight,
And those which touch our organs with delight
Differ in form: nor canst thou e'er suppose
Those bodies which the grating sounds compose
Of whetted saws, are made of parts as smooth,
As round, as those the melting soul which soothe,
When skilled musicians heavenly descant make,
Sweep the soft lute, and all its powers awake.' Vol. i. B. ii.

pp. 29-30. There are one or two other points, less doubtful, in which the reader will be surprized with the coincidence of Locke and

Lucretius. Thus each of them proves the existence of vacuum by the motion of bodies:

'I desire any one,' says Locke, so to divide a solid body, of any dimensions he pleases, as to make it possible for the solid parts to move up and down every way freely within the bounds of that superficies, if there be not left in it a void space, at least as big, &c.'

Yes, there are voids (as nature's actions prove)
Intangible; or how could bodies move?

Opposing power would every where prevail,

All things would all resist, and motion fail.' Vol. i. B. i. p. 25. Another of Locke's arguments for a vacuum is, that there must be a void beyond the utmost bounds of body.

If body be not supposed infinite, which I suppose no one will affirm, I would ask, whether, if God placed a man at the extremity of corporeal beings, he could not stretch his hand beyond his body? If he could, then he would put his arm where there was before space without body: ** if he could not, &c.' Who would expect to meet with this strange dilemma in metre? Yet Lucretius has made use of the same fancy to prove the infinity of space.

But this GREAT WHOLE if boundaries comprise,
Raise me some Mortal to yon utmost skies;
Thence, forward, if a forceful dart he throw,
'Twill stop resisted, or 'twill further go.
Choose as you list, my argument will hold;
No limits, thou must grant, the world infold:
Whether some obstacle oppose its might,
Or through the void it wing its rapid flight,
Still o'er this utmost limit something lies:

Substance that checks, or void through which it flies.

Then here, where'er thy bounds I firmly stand:

What of thy dart becomes, I still demand.

Ope lie the world's illimitable fields,

And boundless space an endless passage yields.' Vol. i. B. i.

P. 66.

We add one more sample of our poet's philosophy. It is the explication of magnetic attraction.

Ceaseless effluvia from the Magnet flow;
Effluvia, whose superior powers expel

The air that lies between the stone and steel;
A vacuum formed, the steely atoms fly
In a linked train, and all the void supply;
While the whole ring to which the train is joined
The influence owns, and follows close behind.
Since nought consists of more entangled seed
Than that from which cold, stubborn, steel is bred,

No miracle (as we've observed before)
That when the loose, chalybeate atoms pour
Into the void, the seeds behind should spring
To the same goal, and draw the obedient ring;
Till near and nearer brought, it touch at last,

And the stone's secret bondage holds it fast.' vol.ii. b.vi.pp. 74-5. Our readers will have seen by this time that the poem of Lucretius was never formed to be popular, either in latin or english. The philosopher looks for sound science; the general reader for agreeable fictions; and the philosopher meets with unscientific fictions, and the general reader with dry philosophy. Considering this, we suppose, the present translator has forgotten the multitude in his publication, and accommodated his work to the tastes of the few who read every thing, and the purses of the few who fill their libraries with the handsomest works: we do not know how otherwise to account for the farrago of notes, and the superb style in which the book is got up.

Let us not, however, be understood as speaking disrespectfully of Lucretius, either as a philosopher or a poet. If, in his philosophy, he rather conceives a theory and accommodates it to existing phenomena, than collects phenomena and thence infers a theory; let it be remembered that he only does as all philosophers did before Bacon pointed out the method of induction, as the only safe one in all endeavours to account for the wonders of the material world. There will be found in the work of Lucretius an eager inquisitiveness after knowledge, a subtle ingenuity, a comprehensive selection of facts, and considerable sagacity in the application of them, in the way of analogy, to the purpose in hand. One is sometimes tempted to smile at the meanness of the facts called up to account for the most magnificent phenomena. Thus, the ocean never increases, though perpetually receiving the tributes of rains and rivers :-because, says the poet, the sun sucks up a portion, just as he dries the linen on an old washer-woman's line; and the winds brush away a portion, just as they dry the puddles in our streets. There is a still humbler circumstance made use of in the theory of dreams,-which we leave to nurses and chambermaids.

As a poet, the characteristic of Lucretius is energy of thought: there are passages of beauty and of tenderness; but vigour is the predominant quality. It is time that we enable our readers, by a few quotations, to form a judgement for themselves of the poetry of the original and of the translation.

The subject of the first passage that we shall bring forward is quite a common-place of poetry, but has seldom been more vigorously executed.

-What pure delight,

From Wisdom's citadel to view, below,
Deluded mortals, as they wandering go
In quest of happiness! ah, blindly weak!
For fame, for vain nobility they seek;
Labour for heapy treasures, night and day,
And pant for power and magisterial sway.

Oh, wretched mortals! souls devoid of light,
Lost in the shades of intellectual night!
This transient life they miserably spend,
Strangers to Nature, and to Nature's end:
Nor see all human wants in these combined ;-
A healthful body, and a peaceful mind.

But little our corporeal part requires,
To soothe our pains, and feed our just desires.
From simplest sources purest pleasure flows,
And Nature asks but pleasure and repose.
What though no sculptured boys of burnished gold
Around thy hall the flaming torches hold,
Gilding the midnight banquet with their rays,
While goblets sparkle, and while lustres blaze;
What though thy mansion with no silver shine,
Nor gold emblazon with its rich design;*
No fretted arch, no painted dome, rebound
The rapturous voice, and harp's exulting sound;
Yet see the swains their gliding moments pass
In sweet indulgence on the tender grass,

Near some smooth limpid lapse of murmuring stream,
Whose bordering oaks exclude the noon-tide beam.
Chiefly when Spring leads on the smiling hours,

And strews the brightened meads with opening flowers,

In grateful shades, soft seats of peace and health,

Calmly they lie, nor dream of needless wealth.' Vol. i. B. ii.

pp. 24.

To this we may subjoin the pleasures of a country life from another part of the poem.

Thus Music's charms rejoiced the vocal plains,

And cheared the banquets of the labouring swains;

Their simple feast with rustic rapture crowned,

When, stretched at ease, they pressed the flowery ground;
With hearts at rest, indulged the leisure hour,

By some smooth stream; or, lulled in shady bower,

Contented lay, with peace and rosy health,

Nor tasted care, nor dreamed of needless wealth!

Chief when the Spring on gladdened nature smiles,
Pleasure the hours of rural ease beguiles:

This couplet is very awkward. If we understand the construction, 'mansion' is, in the first line, exprest in the nominative, and in the second understood in the accusative.