if not to all his contemporaries, fell upon an age in which
he felt himself strange and forlorn, and in consequence of this
made the most singular mistake in the selection of a subject. The system
of Epicurus, which converts the universe into a great vortex of atoms
and undertakes to explain the origin and end of the world as well as
all the problems of nature and of life in a purely mechanical way,
was doubtless somewhat less silly than the conversion of myths
into history which was attempted by Euhemerus and after him by Ennius;
but it was not an ingenious or a fresh system, and the task
of poetically unfolding this mechanical view of the world
was of such a nature that never probably did poet expend life
and art on a more ungrateful theme. The philosophic reader censures
in the Lucretian didactic poem the omission of the finer points
of the system, the superficiality especially with which controversies
are presented, the defective division, the frequent repetitions,
with quite as good reason as the poetical reader frets
at the mathematics put into rhythm which makes a great part
of the poem absolutely unreadable. In spite of these incredible defects,
before which every man of mediocre talent must inevitably have succumbed,
this poet might justly boast of having carried off from the poetic
wilderness a new chaplet such as the Muses had not yet bestowed on any;
and it was by no means merely the occasional similitudes,
and the other inserted descriptions of mighty natural phenomena
and yet mightier passions, which acquired for the poet this chaplet.
The genius which marks the view of life as well as the poetry
of Lucretius depends on his unbelief, which came forward
and was entitled to come forward with the full victorious power
of truth, and therefore with the full vigour of poetry, in opposition
to the prevailing hypocrisy or superstition.

-Humana ante oculos foede cum vita iaceret
In terris oppressa gravi sub religione,
Quae caput a caeli regionibus ostendebat
Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans,
Primum Graius homo mortalis tendere contra
Est oculos ausus primusque obsistere contra.
Ergo vivida vis animi pervicit, et extra
Processit longe flammantia moenia mundi
Atque omne immensum peragravit mente animoque-.

The poet accordingly was zealous to overthrow the gods,
as Brutus had overthrown the kings, and "to release nature
from her stern lords." But it was not against the lo