me reasoning have looked in
prose? His controversy with Stillingfleet shows--but so so. Does Lucretius
write from a strong heart and a seduced understanding? Or, is it now to be
quoted as a blameable unbelief that ridded itself of the Greek and Roman
Heaven and Hell? There is one great and essential difference on the side
of the Epicurean. An original poet, he seems to speak from a sweeping
contemplation of the universe. We grudge that the boundless exuberance of
painting should go to decorate the argumentation of an unfruitful system
of doctrine. We want the sympathy with the purpose of the poet, that
should for us harmonize the poem. He often strikes singularly high tones.
Witness, among many other great passages, his argument on death, and his
thunderstorm. And had the description of the heifer bemoaning and seeking
her lost calf been Virgil's, we should have thought it had sprung from the
heart of rural simplicity and love. Dryden and Lucretius agree in the
negligent indifference which they show, when mere argumentation is in
hand, to smoothness and ornament, and also in the wonderful facility with
which they compel logical forms to obey the measure. There they are indeed
truly great.

Lucretius's magnificent opening has invited Dryden to put forth his
happiest strength. The profuse eloquence and beauty of the original is
rendered. The passage, which may compete with any piece of translation in
the language, is, with Dryden, a fragment:--

"Delight of human kind, and gods above,
Parent of Rome, propitious Queen of Love;
Whose vital power, air, earth, and sea supplies,
And breeds whate'er is born beneath the rolling skies;
For every kind, by thy prolific might,
Springs, and beholds the regions of the light.
Thee, goddess, thee the clouds and tempests fear,
And at thy pleasing presence disappear;
For thee the land in fragrant flowers is drest;
For thee the ocean smiles, and smooths her wavy breast,
And heaven itself with more serene and purer light is blest.
For when the rising spring adorns the mead,
And a new scene of nature stands display'd,
When teeming buds, and cheerful greens appear,
And western gales unlock the lazy year;
The joyous birds thy welcome first express,
Whose native songs thy genial fire confess;
Then savage beasts bound o'er their slighted food,
Struck with thy darts, and tempt the raging flood.
All nature is thy gift; earth, air, and sea;
Of all th