owed in those
places where Lucretius has most laboured, and some of his very lines
he has transplanted into his own works, without much variation. If I
am not mistaken, the distinguishing character of Lucretius, (I mean
of his soul and genius,) is a certain kind of noble pride, and
positive assertion of his opinions. He is every where confident of
his own reason, and assuming an absolute command, not only over his
vulgar reader, but even his patron Memmius. For he is always bidding
him attend, as if he had the rod over him; and using a magisterial
authority while he instructs him. From his time to ours, I know none
so like him as our poet and philosopher of Malmesbury. This is that
perpetual dictatorship which is exercised by Lucretius, who, though
often in the wrong, yet seems to deal _bona fide_ with his reader and
tells him nothing but what he thinks; in which plain sincerity, I
believe, he differs from our Hobbes, who could not but be convinced,
or at least doubt of some eternal truths, which he has opposed. But
for Lucretius, he seems to disdain all manner of replies, and is so
confident of his cause, that he is beforehand with his antagonists;
urging for them whatever he imagined they could say, and leaving
them, as he supposes, without an objection for the future; all this
too, with so much scorn and indignation, as if he were assured of the
triumph before he entered into the lists. From this sublime and
daring genius of his, it must of necessity come to pass, that his
thoughts must be masculine, full of argumentation, and that
sufficiently warm. From the same fiery temper proceeds the loftiness
of his expressions, and the perpetual torrent of his verse, where the
barrenness of his subject does not too much constrain the quickness
of his fancy. For there is no doubt to be made, but that he could
have been every where as poetical as he is in his descriptions, and
in the moral part of his philosophy, if he had not aimed more to
instruct, in his system of nature, than to delight. But he was bent
on making Memmius a materialist, and teaching him to defy an
invisible power; in short, he was so much an atheist, that he forgot
sometimes to be a poet. These are the considerations which I had of
that author, before I attempted to translate some parts of him.