Chapter XI: Part 11

These powerful protectors enabled him to satirize the vicious without restraint or fear of punishment. In his writings he drew a genuine picture of himself, acknowledged his faults, made a frank confession of his inclinations, gave an account of his adventures, and, in short, exhibited a true and spirited representation of his whole life. Fresh from business or pleasure, he seized his pen while his fancy was yet warm, and his passions still awake,—while elated with success or depressed by disappointment. All these feelings, and the incidents which occasioned them, he faithfully related, and made his remarks on them with the utmost freedom:—

“Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim
Credebat libris; neque si male gesserat, usquam
Decurrens aliô, neque si bene: quo fit ut omnis
Votivâ pateat veluti descripta tabellâ
Vita senis(400).” ——

Unfortunately, however, the writings of Lucilius are so mutilated, that few particulars of his life and manners can be gleaned from them. Little farther is known concerning him, than that he died at Naples, but at what age has been much disputed. Eusebius and most other writers have fixed it at 45, which, as he was born in 605, would be in the 651st year of the city. But M. Dacier and Bayle(401) assert that he must have been much older, at the time of his death, as he speaks in his satires of the Licinian law against exorbitant expenditure at entertainments, which was not promulgated till 657, or 658.

Satire, more than any other species of poetry, is the offspring of the time in which it has its birth, and which furnishes it with the aliment whereon it feeds. The period at which Lucilius appeared was favourable to satiric composition. There was a struggle existing between the old and new manners, and the freedom of speaking and writing, though restrained, had not yet been totally checked by law. Lucilius lived amidst a people on whom luxury and corruption were advancing with fearful rapidity, but among whom some virtuous citizens were still anxious to stem the tide which threatened to overwhelm their countrymen. The satires of Lucilius were adapted to please these staunch “_laudatores temporis acti_,” who stood up for ancient manners and discipline. The freedom with which he attacked the vices of his contemporaries, without sparing individuals,—the strength of colouring with which his pictures were charged,—the weight and asperity of the reproaches with which he loaded those who had exposed themselves to his ridicule or indignation,—had nothing revolting in an age when no consideration compelled to those forbearances necessary under different forms of society or government(402). By the time, too, in which Lucilius began to write, the Romans, though yet far from the polish of the Augustan age, had become familiar with the delicate and cutting irony of the Greek comedies of which the more ancient Roman satirists had no conception. Lucilius chiefly applied himself to the imitation of these dramatic productions, and caught, it is said, much of their fire and spirit:

“Eupolis, atque Cratinus, Aristophanesque, pöetæ,
Atque alii, quorum comœdia prisca virorum est,
Si quis erat dignus describi, quod malus, aut fur,
Quod mœchus foret, aut sicarius, aut alioqui
Famosus, multa cum libertate notabant.
Hinc omnis pendet Lucilius, hosce secutus,
Mutatis tantum pedibus numerisque(403).” ——

The Roman language, likewise, had grown more refined in the age of Lucilius, and was thus more capable of receiving the Grecian beauties of style. Nor did Lucilius, like his predecessors, mix iambic with trochaic verses. Twenty books of his satires, from the commencement, were in hexameter verse, and the rest, with exception of the thirtieth, in iambics or trochaics. His object, too, seems to have been bolder and more extensive than that of his precursors, and was not so much to excite laughter or ridicule, as to correct and chastise vice. Lucilius thus bestowed on satiric composition such additional grace and regularity, that he is declared by Horace to have been the first among the Romans who wrote satire in verse:—

“Primus in hunc operis componere carmina morem.”

But although Lucilius may have greatly improved this sort of writing, it does not follow that his satires are to be considered as altogether of a different species from those of Ennius—a light in which they have been regarded by Casaubon and Ruperti; “for,” as Dryden has remarked, “it would thence follow, that the satires of Horace are wholly different from those of Lucilius, because Horace has no less surpassed Lucilius in the elegance of his writing, than Lucilius surpassed Ennius in the turn and ornament of his.”

The satires of Lucilius extended to not fewer than thirty books; but whether they were so divided by the poet himself, or by some grammarian who lived shortly after him, seems uncertain: He was a voluminous author, and has been satirized by Horace for his hurried copiousness and facility:—

“Nam fuit hoc vitiosus: In horâ sæpe ducentos,
Ut magnum, versus dictabat, stans pede in uno:
Garrulus, atque piger scribendi ferre laborem;
Scribendi recte: nam ut multum, nil moror(404).”

Of the thirty books there are only fragments extant; but these are so numerous, that though they do not capacitate us to catch the full spirit of the poet, we perceive something of his manner. His merits, too, have been so much canvassed by ancient writers, who judged of them while his works were yet entire, that their discussions in some measure enable us to appreciate his poetical claims. It would appear that he had great vivacity and humour, uncommon command of language, intimate knowledge of life and manners, and considerable acquaintance with the Grecian masters. Virtue appeared in his draughts in native dignity, and he exhibited his distinguished friends, Scipio and Lælius, in the most amiable light. At the same time it was impossible to portray anything more powerful than the sketches of his vicious characters. His rogue, glutton, and courtezan, are drawn in strong, not to say coarse colours. He had, however, much of the old Roman humour, that celebrated but undefined _urbanitas_, which indeed he possessed in so eminent a degree, that Pliny says it began with Lucilius in composition(405), while Cicero declares that he carried it to the highest perfection(406), and that it almost expired with him(407). But the chief characteristic of Lucilius was his vehement and cutting satire. Macrobius calls him “Acer et violentus poeta(408);” and the well-known lines of Juvenal, who relates how he made the guilty tremble by his pen, as much as if he had pursued them sword in hand, have fixed his character as a determined and inexorable persecutor of vice. His Latin is admitted on all hands to have been sufficiently pure(409); but his versification was rugged and prosaic. Horace, while he allows that he was more polished that his predecessors, calls his muse “pedestris,” talks repeatedly of the looseness of his measure, “Incomposito pede currere versus,” and compares his whole poetry to a muddy and troubled stream:—

“Cum flueret lutulentus erat quod tollere velles.”

Quintilian does not entirely coincide with this opinion of Horace; for, while blaming those who considered him as the greatest of poets, which some persons still did in the age of Domitian, he says, “Ego quantum ab illis, tantum ab Horatio dissentio, qui Lucilium fluere lutulentum, et esse aliquid quod tollere possis, putat(410).” The author of the books _Rhetoricorum_, addressed to Herennius, and which were at one time attributed to Cicero, mentions, as a singular awkwardness in the construction of his lines, the disjunction of words, which, according to proper and natural arrangement, ought to have been placed together, as—

“Has res ad te scriptas _Luci_ misimus _Æli_.”

Nay, what is still worse, it would appear from Ausonius, that he had sometimes barbarously separated the syllables of a word—

“Villa _Lucani_—mox potieris _aco_.
Rescisso discas componere nomine versum;
Lucilî vatis sic imitator eris(411).”

As to the learning of Lucilius, the opinions of antiquity were different; and even those of the same author appear somewhat contradictory on this point. Quintilian says, that there is “Eruditio in eo mira.” Cicero, in his treatise _De Finibus_, calls his learning _mediocris_; though, afterwards, in the person of Crassus, in his treatise _De Oratore_, he twice terms him _Doctus_(412). Dacier suspects that Quintilian was led to consider Lucilius as learned, from the pedantic intermixture of Greek words in his compositions—a practice which seems to have excited the applause of his contemporaries, and also of his numerous admirers in the Augustan age, for which they have been severely ridiculed by Horace, who always warmly opposed himself to the excessive partiality entertained for Lucilius during that golden period of literature—

“At magnum fecit, quod verbis Græca Latinis
Miscuit:—O seri studiorum!”

It is not unlikely that there may have been something of political spleen in the admiration expressed for Lucilius during the age of Augustus, and something of courtly complaisance in the attempts of Horace to counteract it. Augustus had extended the law of the 12 tables respecting libels; and the people, who found themselves thus abridged of the liberty of satirizing the Great by name, might not improbably seek to avenge themselves by an overstrained attachment to the works of a poet, who, living as they would insinuate, in better times, practised, without fear, what he enjoyed without restraint(413).

Some motive of this sort doubtless weighed with the Romans in the age of Augustus, since much of the satire of Lucilius must have been unintelligible, or at least uninteresting to them. Great part of his compositions appears to have been rather a series of libels than legitimate satire, being occupied with virulent attacks on contemporary citizens of Rome—

—— “Secuit Lucilius urbem,
Te Mute, te Lupe, et genuinum fregit in illos(414).”

Douza, who has collected and edited all that remains of the satires of Lucilius, mentions the names of not fewer than sixteen individuals, who are attacked by name in the course even of these fragments, among whom are Quintus Opimius, the conqueror of Liguria, Cæcilius Metellus, whose victories acquired him the sirname of Macedonianus, and Cornelius Lupus, at that time _Princeps Senatus_. Lucilius was equally severe on contemporary and preceding authors; Ennius, Pacuvius, and Attius, having been alternately satirized by him(415). In all this he indulged with impunity(416); but he did not escape so well from a player, whom he had ventured to censure, and who took his revenge by exposing Lucilius on the stage. The poet prosecuted the actor, and the cause was carried on with much warmth on both sides before the Prætor, who finally acquitted the player(417).

The confidence of Lucilius in his powerful patrons, Scipio and Lælius, inspired this freedom; and it appears, in fact, to have so completely relieved him from all fear or restraint, that he boldly exclaims—

—— “Cujus non audeo dicere nomen?
Quid refert dictis ignoscat Mutius, an non?”

It is chiefly to such support that the unbridled license of the old Roman satirists may be ascribed—

—— “Unde illa priorum
Scribendi quodcunque animo flagrante liberet
Simplicitas(418).” ——

The harsh and uncultivated spirit of the ancient Romans also naturally led to this species of severe and personal castigation; and it was not to be expected that in that age they should have drawn their pictures with the delicacy and generality which Horace has given to Offellus.

Lucilius, however, did not confine himself to invectives on vicious mortals. In the first book of his satires, he appears to have declared war on the false gods of Olympus, whose plurality he denied, and ridiculed the simplicity of the people, who bestowed on an infinity of gods the venerable name of father, which should be reserved for one. Near the commencement of this book he represents an assembly of the gods deliberating on human affairs:

“Consilium summis hominum de rebus habebant.”

And, in particular, discussing what punishment ought to be inflicted on Rutilius Lupus, a considerable man in the Roman state, but noted for his wickedness and impiety, and so powerful that it is declared—

“Si conjuret, populus vix totus satis est.”

Jupiter expresses his regret that he had not been present at a former council of the gods, called to deliberate on this topic—

“Vellem concilio vestrûm, quod dicitis, olim,
Cælicolæ; vellem, inquam, adfuissem priore
Concilio.” ——

Jupiter having concluded, the subject is taken up by another of the gods, who, as Lactantius informs us, was Neptune(419); but being puzzled with its intricacy, this divinity declares it could not be explained, were Carneades himself (the most clear and eloquent of philosophers) to be sent up to them from Orcus:

“Nec si Carneadem ipsum ad nos Orcus remittat.”

The only result of the solemn deliberations of this assembly is a decree, that each god should receive from mortals the title of father—

“Ut nemo sit nostrûm, quin pater optumus divûm;
Ut Neptunus pater, Liber, Saturnu’ pater, Mars,
Janu’ Quirinu’ pater, nomen dicatur ad unum.”

The third book contains an account of the inconveniences and amusements of a journey, performed by Lucilius, along the rich coast of Campania, to Capua and Naples, and thence all the way to Rhegium and the Straits of Messina. He appears particularly to have described a combat of gladiators, and the manifold distresses he experienced from the badness of the roads—

“Præterea omne iter hoc est labosum atque lutosum.”

Horace, in the fifth satire of his first book, has, in imitation of Lucilius, comically described a journey from Rome to Brundusium, and like him has introduced a gladiatorial combat. The fourth satire of Lucilius stigmatizes the luxury and vices of the rich, and has been imitated by Persius in his third book. Aulus Gellius informs us, that in part of his fifth satire he exposed, with great wit and power of ridicule, those literary affectations of using such words in one sentence as terminate with a similar jingle, or consist of an equal number of syllables. He has shown how childish such affectations are, in that passage wherein he complains to a friend that he had neglected to visit him while sick. In the ninth satire he ridicules the blunders in orthography, committed by the transcribers of MSS., and gives rules for greater accuracy. Of the tenth book little remains; but it is said to have been the perusal of it which first inflamed Persius with the rage of writing satires. The eleventh seems to have consisted chiefly of personal invectives against Quintus Opimius, Lucius Cotta, and others of his contemporaries, whose vices, or rivalship with his patron Scipio, exposed them to his enmity and vengeance. The sixteenth was entitled _Collyra_, having been chiefly devoted to the celebration of the praises of Collyra, the poet’s mistress(420). Of many of the other books, as the 12th, 13th, 18th, 21st, and four following, so small fragments remain, that it is impossible to conjecture the subject; for although we may see the scope of insulated lines, their matter may have been some incidental illustration, and not the principal subject of the satire. Even in those books, of which there are a greater number of fragments extant, they are so disjoined that it is as difficult to put them legibly together as the scattered leaves of the Sibyl; and the labour of Douza, who has been the most successful in arranging the broken lines, so as to make a connected sense, is by many considered as but a conjectural and philological sport. Those few passages, however, which are in any degree entire, show great force of satire; as for example, the following account of the life led by the Romans:—

“Nunc vero a mane ad noctem, festo atque profesto,
Totus item pariterque dies, populusque patresque
Jactare indu foro se omnes, decedere nusquam,
Uni se atque eidem studio omnes dedere et arti;
Verba dare ut caute possint, pugnare dolose,
Blanditia certare, bonum simulare virum se,
Insidias facere, ut si hostes sint omnibus omnes.”

The verses in which our poet bitterly ridicules the superstition of those who adored idols, and mistook them for true gods, are written in something of the same spirit—

“Terricolas Lamias, Fauni quas, Pompiliique
Instituere Numæ, tremit has, his omnia ponit:
Ut pueri infantes credunt signa omnia ahena
Vivere, et esse homines; et sic isti omnia ficta
Vera putant: credunt signis cor inesse ahenis—
Pergula pictorum, veri nihil, omnia ficta(421).”

On this passage Lactantius remarks, that such superstitious fools are much more absurd than the children to whom the satirist compares them, as the latter only mistake statues for men, the former for gods. There are two lines in the 26th book, which every nation should remember in the hour of disaster—

“Ut populus Romanus victus vi, et superatus præliis
Sæpe est multis; bello vero nunquam, in quo sunt omnia(422).”

But the most celebrated and longest passage we now have from Lucilius, is his definition of _Virtus_—

“Virtus, Albine, est, pretium persolvere verum,
Queis in versamur, queis vivimus rebus, potesse:
Virtus est homini, scire id quod quæque habeat res;
Virtus, scire homini rectum, utile, quid sit honestum,
Quæ bona, quæ mala item, quid inutile, turpe, inhonestum;
Virtus, quærendæ rei finem scire modumque:
Virtus, divitiis precium persolvere posse:
Virtus, id dare quod re ipsa debetur honori;
Hostem esse atque inimicum hominum morumque malorum,
Contra, defensorem hominum morumque bonorum,
Magnificare hos, his bene velle, his vivere amicum:
Commoda præterea patriæ sibi prima putare,
Deinde parentûm, tertia jam postremaque nostra(423).”

Lactantius has cavilled at the different heads of this definition(424), and perhaps some of them are more applicable to what we call wisdom, than to our term virtue, which, as is well known, does not precisely correspond to the Latin _Virtus_.

If we possessed a larger portion of the writings of Lucilius, I have no doubt it would be found that subsequent Latin poets, particularly the satirists, have not only copied various passages, but adopted the plan and subjects of many of his satires. It has already been mentioned, that Horace’s journey to Brundusium is imitated from that of Lucilius to Capua. His severity recommended him to Persius and Juvenal, who both mention him with respect. Persius, indeed, professes to follow him, but Juvenal seems a closer imitator of his manner. The jingle in the two following lines, from an uncertain book of Lucilius—

“Ut me scire volo mihi conscius sum, ne
Damnum faciam. Scire hoc se nescit, nisi alios id scire scierit,”

seems to have suggested Persius’ line—

“Scire tuum nihil, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter.”

The verses, “Cujus non audeo dicere nomen,” &c. quoted above, are copied by Juvenal in his first satire, but with evident allusion to the works of his predecessor. A line in the first book—

“Quis leget hæc? mîn’ tu istud ais? nemo, Hercule, nemo,”

has been imitated by Persius in the very commencement of his satires—

“O curas hominum! O quantum est in rebus inane!
Quis leget hæc? mîn’ tu istud ais? nemo, Hercule, nemo.”

Virgil’s phrase, so often quoted, “Non omnia possumus omnes,” is in the fifth book of Lucilius—

“Major erat natu; non omnia possumus omnes.”

Were the whole works of Lucilius extant, many more such imitations might be discovered and pointed out. It is not on this account, however, that their loss is chiefly to be deplored. Had they remained entire, they would have been highly serviceable to philological learning. They would have informed us also of many incidents of Roman history, and would have presented us with the most complete draught of ancient Roman manners, and genuine Roman originals, which were painted from life, and at length became the model of the inimitable satires of imperial Rome.

Besides satirizing the wicked, under which category he probably classed all his enemies, Lucilius also employed his pen in praise of the brave and virtuous. He wrote, as we learn from Horace, a panegyric on Scipio Africanus, but whether the elder or younger is not certain:—

“Attamen et justum poteras et scribere fortem
Scipiadam, ut sapiens Lucilius(425).”

Lucilius was also author of a comedy entitled _Nummularia_, of which only one line remains; but we are informed by Porphyrion, the scholiast on Horace, that the plot turned on Pythias, a female slave, tricking her master, Simo, out of a sum of money, with which to portion his daughter.

Lucilius was followed in his satiric career by Sævius Nicanor, the grammarian, who was the freedman of one Marcius, as we learn from the only line of his poetry which is extant, and which has been preserved by Suetonius, or whoever was the author of the work _De Illustribus Grammaticis_:—

“Sævius Nicanor Marci libertus negabit.”

Publius Terentius Varro, sirnamed Atacinus, from the place of his birth, also attempted the Lucilian satire, but with no great success as we learn from Horace:—

“Hoc erat, experto frustra Varrone Atacino.”

He was more fortunate, it is said, in his geographical poems, and in that _De Bello Sequanico_(426).

We may range among the satires of this period, the _Diræ_ of the grammarian, Valerius Cato, who, being despoiled of his patrimony, especially his favourite villa at Tusculum, during the civil wars of Marius and Sylla, in order to make way for the soldiery, avenged himself, by writing poetical imprecations on his lost property. This poem is sometimes inscribed _Diræ in Battarum_, which is inaccurate, as it gives an idea that Battarus is the name of the person who had got possession of the villa, and on whom the imprecations were uttered. There is not, however, a word of execration against any of those who had obtained his lands, except in so far as he curses the lands themselves, praying that they may become barren—that they may be inundated with rain—blasted with pestiferous breezes, and, in short, laid waste by every species of agricultural calamity. Joseph Scaliger thinks that Battarus was a river, and Nic. Heinsius that it was a hill. It seems evident enough from the poem itself, that Battarus was some well known satiric or invective bard, whom the author invokes, in order to excite himself to reiterated imprecations(427):—

“Rursus et hoc iterum repetamus, Battare, carmen.”

The concluding part of the _Diræ_, as edited by Wernsdorff(428), is a lamentation for the loss of a mistress, called Lydia, of whom the unfortunate poet had likewise been deprived. This, however, has been regarded by others as a separate poem from the _Diræ_. Cato was also author of a poem called _Diana_, and a prose work entitled _Indignatio_, in which he related the history of his misfortunes. He lived to an advanced age, but was oppressed by extreme poverty, and afflicted with a painful disease, as seems to be implied in the lines of his friend Furius Bibaculus, preserved in the treatise _De Illustribus Grammaticis_:—

“Quem tres calculi, et selibra farris,
Racemi duo, tegula sub unâ,
Ad summam prope nutriunt senectam(429).”

The stream of Roman poetry appears to have suffered a temporary stagnation during the period that elapsed from the destruction of Carthage, which fell in 607, till the death of Sylla, in 674. Lucilius, with whose writings we have been engaged, was the only poet who flourished in this long interval. The satirical compositions which he introduced were not very generally nor successfully imitated. The race of dramatists had become almost extinct, and even the fondness for regular comedy and tragedy had greatly diminished. This was a pause, (though for a shorter period,) like that which was made in modern Italy, from the death of Petrarch till the rise of its bright constellation of poets, at the end of the 15th century. But the taste for literature which had been excited, and the luminous events which occurred, prevented either nation from being again enveloped in darkness. The ancient Romans could not be electrified by the fall of Carthage as their descendants were by the capture of Constantinople. But even the total subjugation of Greece, and extended dominion in Asia, were slower, at least in their influence on the efforts of poetry, than might have been anticipated from what was experienced immediately after the conquest of Magna Græcia. Any retrograde movement, however, was prevented by the more close and frequent intercourse which was opened with Greece. There, Athens and Rhodes were the chief allies of the Roman republic. These states had renounced their freedom, for the security which flattery and subservience obtained for them; but while they ceased to be considerable in power, they still continued pre eminent in learning. A number of military officers and civil functionaries, whom their respective employments carried to Greece—a number of citizens, whom commercial speculations attracted to its towns, became acquainted with and cherished Grecian literature. That contempt which the ancient and severe republicans had affected for its charms, gave place to the warmest enthusiasm. The Roman youth were instructed by Greeks, or by Romans who had studied in Greece. A literary tour in that country was regarded as forming an essential part in the education of a young patrician. Rhodes, Mitylene, and Athens, were chiefly resorted to, as the purest fountains from which the inspiring draughts of literature could be imbibed. This constant intercourse led to a knowledge of the philosophy and finest classical productions of Greece. It was thus that Lucretius was enabled to embody in Roman verse the whole Epicurean system, and Catullus to imitate or translate the lighter amatory and epigrammatic compositions of the Greeks. Both these poets flourished during the period on which we are now entering, and which extended from the death of Sylla to the accession of Augustus. The former of them,

TITUS LUCRETIUS CARUS,

was the most remarkable of the Roman writers, as he united the precision of the philosopher to the fire and fancy of the poet; and, while he seems to have had no perfect model among the Greeks, has left a production unrivalled, (perhaps not to be rivalled,) by any of the same kind in later ages.

Of the life of Lucretius very little is known: He lived at a period abounding with great political actors, and full of portentous events—a period when every bosom was agitated with terror or hope, and when it must have been the chief study of a prudent man, especially if a votary of philosophy and the Muses, to hide himself as much as possible amid the shades. The year of his birth is uncertain. According to the chronicle of Eusebius, he was born in 658, being thus nine years younger than Cicero, and two or three younger than Cæsar. To judge from his style, he might be supposed older than either: but this, as appears from the example of Sallust, is no certain test, as his archaisms may have arisen from the imitation of ancient writers; and we know that he was a fond admirer of Ennius.

A taste for Greek philosophy had been excited at Rome for a considerable time before this era, and Lucretius was sent, with other young Romans of rank, to study at Athens. The different schools of philosophy in that city seem, about this period, to have been frequented according as they received a temporary fashion from the comparative abilities of the professors who presided in them. Cicero, for example, who had attended the Epicurean school at Athens, and became himself an Academic, intrusted his son to the care of Cratippus, a peripatetic philosopher. After the death of its great founder, the school of Epicurus had for some time declined in Greece: but at the period when Lucretius was sent to Athens, it had again revived under the patronage of L. Memmius, whose son was a fellow-student of Lucretius; as were also Cicero, his brother Quintus, Cassius, and Pomponius Atticus. At the time when frequented by these illustrious youths, the Gardens of Epicurus were superintended by Zeno and Phædrus, both of whom, but particularly the latter, have been honoured with the panegyric of Cicero. “We formerly, when we were boys,” says he, in a letter to Caius Memmius, “knew him as a profound philosopher, and we still recollect him as a kind and worthy man, ever solicitous for our improvement(430).”

One of the dearest, perhaps the dearest friend of Lucretius, was this Memmius, who had been his school-fellow, and whom, it is supposed, he accompanied to Bithynia, when appointed to the government of that province(431). The poem _De Rerum Natura_, if not undertaken at the request of Memmius, was doubtless much encouraged by him; and Lucretius, in a dedication expressed in terms of manly and elegant courtesy, very different from the servile adulation of some of his great successors, tells him, that the much desired pleasure of his friendship, was what enabled him to endure any toil or vigils—

“Sed tua me virtus tamen, et sperata voluptas
Suavis amicitiæ, quemvis ecferre laborem
Suadet, et inducit nocteis vigilare serenas.”

The life of the poet was short, but happily was sufficiently prolonged to enable him to complete his poem, though, perhaps, not to give some portions of it their last polish. According to Eusebius, he died in the 44th year of his age, by his own hands, in a paroxysm of insanity, produced by a philtre, which Lucilia, his wife or mistress, had given him, with no design of depriving him of life or reason, but to renew or increase his passion. Others suppose that his mental alienation proceeded from melancholy, on account of the calamities of his country, and the exile of Memmius,—circumstances which were calculated deeply to affect his mind(432). There seems no reason to doubt the melancholy fact, that he perished by his own hand.

The poem of Lucretius, _De Rerum Natura_, which he composed during the lucid intervals of his malady, is, as the name imports, philosophic and didactic, in the strictest acceptation of these terms. Poetry, I think, may chiefly be considered as occupied in three ways.—1. As describing the passions of men, with the circumstances which give birth to them.—2. As painting images or scenery.—3. As communicating truth. Of these classes of poetry, the most interesting is the first, in which we follow the hero placed at short intervals in different situations, calculated to excite various sympathies in our heart, while our imagination is at the same time amused or astonished by the singularity of the incidents which such situations produce. Those poems, therefore, are the most attractive, in which, as in the _Odyssey_ and _Orlando_, knights or warriors plough unknown seas, and wander in strange lands—where, at every new horizon which opens, we look for countries inhabited by giants, or monsters, or wizards of supernatural powers—where, whether sailing on the deep, or anchoring on the shore, the hero dreads—

“Lest Gorgons, rising from infernal lakes,
With horrors armed, and curls of hissing snakes,
Should fix him, stiffened at the monstrous sight,
A stony image in eternal night.”

These are the themes of surest and most powerful effect: It is by these that we are most truely moved; and it is the choice of such subjects, if ably conducted, which chiefly stamps the poet—

“Humanæ Dominum mentis, cordisque Tyrannum.”

So strongly, indeed, and so universally, has this been felt, that in the second species of poetry, the _Descriptive_, our sympathy must be occasionally awakened by the actions or passions of human beings; and, to ensure success, the poet must describe the effects of the appearance of nature on our sensations. “In the poem of the _Shipwreck_,” says Lord Byron, “is it the storm or the ship which most interests?—Both much, undoubtedly; but without the vessel, what should we care for the tempest(433)?” Virgil had early felt, that without Lycoris, the _gelidi fontes_ and _mollia prata_ would seem less refreshing and less smooth—he had found that the grass and the groves withered at the departure, but revived at the return of Phyllis. The most soothing and picturesque of the incidents of a woodland landscape,—the blue smoke curling upwards from a cottage concealed by the trees, derives half its softening charm, by reminding us—

“That in the same did wonne some living wight.”

Of all the three species above enumerated, _Philosophical_ poetry, which occupies the mind with minute portions of external nature, is the least attractive. Mankind will always prefer books which move to those which instruct—_ennui_ being more burdensome than ignorance. In philosophic poetry, our imagination cannot be gratified by the desert isles, the boundless floods, or entangled forests, with all the marvels they conceal, which rise in such rapid and rich succession in the fascinating narrative of the sea tost Ulysses(434); nor can we there have our curiosity roused, and our emotions excited, by such lines as those with which Ariosto awakens the attention of his readers—

“Non furo iti duo miglia, che sonare
Odon la selva, che gli cinge intorno,
Con tal rumor et strepito che pare
Che tremi la foresta d’ogni intorno.”

Besides, as has been observed by Montesquieu, reason is sufficiently chained, though we fetter her not with rhyme; and, on the other hand, poetry loses much of its freedom and lightness, if clogged with the bonds of reason. The great object of poetry (according to a trite remark,) is to afford pleasure; but philosophic poetry affords less pleasure than epic, descriptive, or dramatic. The versifier of philosophic subjects is in danger of producing a work neither interesting enough for the admirers of sentiment and imagination, nor sufficiently profound for philosophers. He will sometimes soar into regions where many of his readers are unable to follow him, and, at other times, he will lose the suffrage of a few, by interweaving fictions amid the severe and simple truth.

It is the business of the philosopher to analyze the objects of nature. He must pay least attention to those which chiefly affect the sense and imagination, while he minutely considers others, which, though less striking, are more useful for classification, and the chief purposes he has in view. The poet, on the other hand, avoiding dry and abstract definitions, rather combines than analyzes, and dwells more on the sensible phænomena of nature, than her mysterious and scientific workings. Thus, what the botanist considers is the number of _stamina_, and their situation in a flower, while the Muse describes only its colours, and the influence of its odours—

“She loves the rose, by rivers loves to dream,
Nor heeds why blooms the rose, why flows the stream—
She loves its colours, though she may not know,
Why sun-born Iris paints the showery bow.”

But though philosophic poetry be, of all others, the most unfavourable for the exertion of poetical genius, its degree of beauty and interest will, in a great measure, depend on what parts of his subject the poet selects, and on the extent and number of digressions of which it admits. It is evident, that the philosophic poet should pass over as lightly as may be, all dry and recondite doctrines, and enlarge on the topics most susceptible of poetical ornament. “Le Tableau de la Nature Physique,” says Voltaire, “est lui seule d’une richesse, d’une varieté, d’une etendue à occuper des siécles d’étude; mais tous les details ne sont pas favorable à la poésie. On n’ exige pas du poete les meditations du physicien et les calculs de l’astronomie: c’est à l’observateur à déterminer l’attraction et les mouvemens des corps celestes; c’est au poete à peindre leur balancement, leur harmonie, et leurs immuables révolutions. L’un distinguera les classes nombreuses d’etres organisés qui peuplent les elémens divers; l’autre décririra d’un trait hardi, lumineux et rapide cette echelle immense et continue, ou les limites des regnes se confondent. Que le confident de la nature develope le prodige de la greffe des arbres—c’est assez pour Virgile de l’exprimer en deux beaux vers—

“Exiit ad cœlum ramis felicibus arbos,
Miraturque novas frondes et non sua poma(435).”

With regard, again, to digressions, Racine, (le Fils) in speaking of didactic poetry, says there are two sorts of episodes which may be introduced into it, and which he terms episodes of narrative and of style, (_De Recit et de Style_,) meaning by the former the recital of the adventures of individuals, and by the latter, general reflections suggested by the subject(436). Without some embellishment of this description, most philosophic poems will correspond to Quintilian’s account of the poem of Aratus on astronomy, “Nulla varietas, nullus affectus, nulla persona, nulla cujusquam, est oratio(437).” From what has already been said concerning the extreme interest excited by the introduction of sentient beings, with all their perils around, and all their passions within them, it follows, that where the subject admits, episodes of the first class will best serve the purposes of poetry, and if the poet choose such dry and abstruse topics as cosmogony, or the generation of the world, he ought to follow the example of Silenus(438), by embellishing his subject with tales of Hylas, and Philomela, and Scylla, and the gardens of the Hesperides—the themes which induce us to listen to the lay of the poet—

“Cogere donec oves stabulis, numerumque referre,
Jussit, et invito processit Vesper Olympo.”

It is, however, with the second class of episodes—with declamations against luxury and vice—reflections on the beauty of virtue—and the delights of rural retirement, that Lucretius hath chiefly gemmed his verses.

The poem of Lucretius contains a full exposition of the theological, physical, and moral system of Epicurus. It has been remarked by an able writer, “that all the religious systems of the ancient Pagan world were naturally perishable, from the quantity of false opinions, and vicious habits, and ceremonies that were attached to them.” He observes even of the barbarous Anglo Saxons, that, “as the nation advanced in its active intellect, it began to be dissatisfied with its mythology. Many indications exist of this spreading alienation, which prepared the northern mind for the reception of the nobler truths of Christianity(439).” A secret incredulity of this sort seems to have been long nourished in Greece, and appears to have been imported into Rome with its philosophy and literature. The more pure and simple religion of early Rome was quickly corrupted, and the multitude of ideal and heterogeneous beings which superstition introduced into the Roman worship led to its total rejection(440). This infidelity is very obvious in the writings of Ennius, who translated Euhemerus’ work on the Deification of Human Spirits, while Plautus dramatized the vices of the father of the gods and tutelary deity of Rome. The doctrine of materialism was introduced at Rome during the age of Scipio and Lælius(441); and perhaps no stronger proof of its rapid progress and prevalence can be given, than that Cæsar, though a priest, and ultimately Pontifex Maximus, boldly proclaimed in the senate, that death is the end of all things, and that beyond it there is neither hope nor joy. This state of the public mind was calculated to give a fashion to the system of Epicurus(442). According to this distinguished philosopher, the chief good of man is pleasure, of which the elements consist, in having a body free from pain, and a mind tranquil and exempt from perturbation. Of this tranquility there are, according to Epicurus, as expounded by Lucretius, two chief enemies, superstition, or slavish fear of the gods, and the dread of death(443). In order to oppose these two foes to happiness, he endeavours, in the first place, to shew that the world was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, and that the gods, who, according to the popular theology, were constantly interposing, take no concern whatever in human affairs. We do injustice to Epicurus when we estimate his tenets by the refined and exalted ideas of a philosophy purified by faith, without considering the superstitious and polluted notions prevalent in his time. “The idea of Epicurus,” (as is observed by Dr Drake,) “that it is the nature of gods to enjoy an immortality in the bosom of perpetual peace, infinitely remote from all relation to this globe, free from care, from sorrow, and from pain, supremely happy in themselves, and neither rejoicing in the pleasures, nor concerned for the evils of humanity—though perfectly void of any rational foundation, yet possesses much moral charm when compared with the popular religions of Greece and Rome. The felicity of their deities consisted in the vilest debauchery; nor was there a crime, however deep its dye, that had not been committed and gloried in by some one of their numerous objects of worship(444).” Never, also, could the doctrine, that the gods take no concern in human affairs, appear more plausible than in the age of Lucretius, when the destiny of man seemed to be the sport of the caprice of such a monster as Sylla.

With respect to the other great leading tenet of Lucretius and his master—the mortality of the soul, still greater injustice is done to the philosopher and poet. It is affirmed, and justly, by a great Apostle, that life and immortality have been brought to light by the gospel; and yet an author who lived before this dawn is reviled because he asserts, that the natural arguments for the immortality of the soul, afforded by the analogies of nature, or principle of moral retribution, are weak and inconclusive! In fact, however, it is not by the truth of the system or general philosophical views in a poem, (for which no one consults it,) that its value is to be estimated; since a poetical work may be highly moral on account of its details, even when its systematic scope is erroneous or apparently dangerous. Notwithstanding passages which seem to echo Spinosism, and almost to justify crime(445), the _Essay on Man_ is rightly considered as the most moral production of our most moral poet. In like manner, where shall we find exhortations more eloquent than those of Lucretius, against ambition and cruelty, and luxury and lust,—against all the dishonest pleasures of the body, and all the turbulent passions of the mind.

In versifying the philosophical system of Epicurus, Lucretius appears to have taken Empedocles as his model. All the old Grecian bards of whom we have any account prior to Homer, as Orpheus, Linus, and Musæus, are said to have written poems on the driest and most difficult philosophical questions, particularly the generation of the world. The ancients evidently considered philosophical poetry as of the highest kind, and its themes are invariably placed in the mouths of their divinest songsters(446). Whether Lucretius may have been indebted to any such ancient poems, still extant in his age, or to the subsequent productions of Palæphatus the Athenian, Antiochus, or Eratosthenes, who, as Suidas informs us, wrote poems on the structure of the world, it is impossible now to determine; but he seems to have considerably availed himself of the work of Empedocles. The poem of that sumptuous, accomplished, and arrogant philosopher, entitled Περι φυσεως, and inscribed to his pupil Pausanias, was chiefly illustrative of the Pythagorean philosophy, in which he had been initiated. Aristotle speaks on the subject of the merits of Empedocles in a manner which does not seem to be perfectly consistent(447); but we know that his poem was sufficiently celebrated to be publicly recited at the Olympic games, along with the works of Homer. Only a few fragments of his writings remain; from which, perhaps, it would be as unfair to judge him, as to estimate Lucretius by extracts from the physical portions of his poem. Those who have collected the detached fragments of his production(448), think that it had been divided into three books; the first treating of the elements and universe,—the second of animals and man,—the third of the soul, as also of the nature and worship of the gods. His philosophical system was different from that of Lucretius; but he had discussed almost all the subjects on which the Roman bard afterwards expatiated. In particular, Lucretius appears to have derived from his predecessor his notion of the original generation of man from the teeming earth,—the production, at the beginning of the world, of a variety of defective monsters, which were not allowed to multiply their kinds,—the distribution of animals according to the prevalence of one or other of the four elements over the rest in their composition,—the vicissitudes of matter between life and inanimate substance,—and the leading doctrine, “mortem nihil ad nos pertinere,” because absolute insensibility is the consequence of dissolution(449).

If Lucretius has in any degree benefited by the works of Empedocles, he has in return been most lavish and eloquent in his commendations. One of the most delightful features in the character of the Latin poet is, the glow of admiration with which he writes of his illustrious predecessors. His eulogy of the Sicilian philosopher, which he has so happily combined with that of the country which gave him birth, affords a beautiful example of his manner of infusing into everything a poetic sweetness, _Musæo contingens cuncta lepore_,—

“Quorum Agragantinus cum primis Empedocles est:
Insula quem Triquetris terrarum gessit in oris:
Quam fluitans circum magnis anfractibus, æquor
Ionium glaucis aspergit virus ab undis,
Angustoque fretu rapidum, mare dividit undis
Æoliæ terrarum oras a finibus ejus:
Hîc est vasta Charybdis, et hîc Ætnæa minantur
Murmura, flammarum rursum se conligere iras,
Faucibus eruptos iterum ut vis evomat igneis,
Ad cœlumque ferat flammäi fulgura rursum.
Quæ, quum magna modis multis miranda videtur
Gentibus humanis regio, visundaque fertur,
Rebus opima bonis, multa munita virûm vi;
Nil tamen hoc habuisse viro præclarius in se,
Nec sanctum magis, et mirum, carumque, videtur.
Carmina quin etiam divini pectoris ejus
Vociferantur, et exponunt præclara reperta;
Ut vix humana videatur stirpe creatus.”—Lib. I. 717.

It was formerly mentioned, that Ennius had translated into Latin verse the Greek poem of Epicharmus, which, from the fragments preserved, appears to have contained many speculations with regard to the productive elements of which the world is composed, as also concerning the preservative powers of nature. To the works of Ennius our poet seems to have been indebted, partly as a model for enriching the still scanty Latin language with new terms, and partly as a treasury or storehouse of words already provided. Him, too, he celebrates with the most ardent and unfeigned enthusiasm:—

“Ennius ut noster cecinit, qui primus amæno
Detulit ex Helicone perenni fronde coronam,
Per genteis Italas hominum quæ clara clueret.
Et si præterea tamen esse Acherusia templa
Ennius æternis exponit versibus edens;
Quo neque permanent animæ, neque corpora nostra;
Sed quædam simulacra modis pallentia miris;
Unde, sibi exortam, semper florentis Homeri
Commemorat speciem, lacrumas et fundere salsas
Cœpisse, et RERUM NATURAM expandere dictis.”—I. 122.

These writers, Empedocles and Ennius, were probably Lucretius’ chief guides; and though the most original of the Latin poets, many of his finest passages may be traced to the Greeks. The beautiful lamentation,—

“Nam jam non domus accipiet te læta, neque uxor
Optuma, nec dulceis occurrent oscula nati
Præripere, et tacitâ pectus dulcedine tangunt,” ——

is said to be translated from a dirge chaunted at Athenian funerals; and the passage where he represents the feigned tortures of hell as but the workings of a guilty and unquiet spirit, is versified from an oration of Æschines against Timarchus.

In the first and second books, Lucretius chiefly expounds the cosmogony, or physical part of his system—a system which had been originally founded by Leucippus, a philosopher of the Eleatic sect, and, from his time, had been successively improved by Democritus and Epicurus. He establishes in these books his two great principles,—that nothing can be made from nothing, and that nothing can ever be annihilated or return to nothing; and, that there is in the universe a void or space, in which atoms interact. These atoms he believes to be the original component parts of all matter, as well as of animal life; and the arrangement of such corpuscles occasions, according to him, the whole difference in substances.

It cannot be denied, that in these two books particularly, (but the observation is in some degree applicable to the whole poem,) there are many barren tracts—many physiological, meteorological, and geological details—which are at once too incorrect for the philosophical, and too dry and abstract for the poetical reader. It is wonderful, however, how Lucretius contrives, by the beauty of his images, to give a picturesque colouring and illustration to the most unpromising topics. Near the beginning of his poem, for example, in attempting to prove a very abstract proposition, he says,—

“Præterea, quur vere rosam, frumenta calore,
Viteis auctumno fondi suadente videmus.”

Thus, by the introduction of the rose and vines, bestowing a fragrance and freshness, and covering, as it were, with verdure, the thorns and briars of abstract discussion. In like manner, when contending that nothing utterly perishes, but merely assumes another form, what a lovely rural landscape does he present to the imagination!

—— “Pereunt imbres, ubi eos pater Æther
In gremium matris Terräi præcipitavit:
At nitidæ surgunt fruges, ramique virescunt
Arboribus; crescunt ipsæ, fœtuque gravantur.
Hinc alitur porro nostrum genus atque ferarum;
Hinc lætas urbeis puerûm florere videmus,
Frondiferasque novis avibus canere undique sylvas;
Hinc, fessæ pecudes, pingues per pabula læta,
Corpora deponunt, et candens lacteus humor
Uberibus manat distentis; hinc nova proles
Artubus infirmis teneras lasciva per herbas
Ludit, lacte mero menteis percussa novellas.”

“Whoever,” says Warton, “imagines, with Tully, that Lucretius had not a great genius(450), is desired to cast his eye on two pictures he has given us at the beginning of his poem,—the first, of Venus with her lover Mars, beautiful to the last degree, and more glowing than any picture painted by Titian; the second, of that terrible and gigantic figure the Demon of Superstition, worthy the energetic pencil of Michael Angelo. I am sure there is no piece by the hand of Guido, or the Carracci, that exceeds the following group of allegorical personages:

“It Ver, et Venus; et, veris prænuncius, ante
Pennatus graditur Zephyrus, vestigia propter,
Flora quibus Mater, præspargens ante viäi,
Cuncta coloribus egregiis et odoribus opplet.”

In spite, however, of the powers of Lucretius, it was impossible, from the very nature of his subject, but that some portions would prove altogether unsusceptible of poetical embellishment. Yet it may be doubted, whether these intractable passages, by the charm of contrast, do not add, like deserts to Oases in their bosom, an additional deliciousness in proportion to their own sterility. The lovely group above-mentioned by Warton, are clothed with additional beauty and enchantment, from starting, as it were, like Armida and her Nymphs, from the mossy rind of a rugged tree. The philosophical analysis, too, employed by Lucretius, impresses the mind with the conviction, that the poet is a profound thinker, and adds great force to his moral reflections. Above all, his fearlessness, if I may say so, produces this powerful effect. Dryden, in a well-known passage, where he has most happily characterized the general manner of Lucretius, observes, “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 own opinions. He is everywhere confident of his own reason, and assuming an absolute command, not only over his vulgar readers, but even his patron, Memmius.... This is that particular 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.... He seems to disdain all manner of replies; and is so confident of his cause, that he is before-hand 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, and need only enter into the lists.” Hence while, in other writers, the eulogy of virtue seems in some sort to partake of the nature of a sermon—to be a conventional language, and words of course—we listen to Lucretius as to one who will fearlessly speak out; who had shut his ears to the murmurs of Acheron: and who, if he eulogizes Virtue, extols her because her charms are real. How exquisite, for example, and, at the same time, how powerful and convincing, his delineation of the utter worthlessness of vanity and pomp, contrasted with the pure and perfect delights of simple nature!

“Si non aurea sunt juvenum simulacra per ædes,
Lampadas igniferas manibus retinentia dextris,
Lumina nocturnis epulis ut suppeditentur,
Nec domus argento fulget auroque renidet,
Nec citharæ reboant laqueata aurataque tecta;
Quum tamen inter se, prostrati in gramine molli,
Propter aquæ rivum, sub ramis arboris altæ,
Non magnis opibus jucunde corpora curant:
Præsertim, quum tempestas arridet, et anni
Tempora conspargunt viridantes floribus herbas:
Nec calidæ citius decedunt corpore febres,
Textilibus si in picturis, ostroque rubenti,
Jaceris, quam si plebeiâ in veste cubandum est.”—II. 24.