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

Thomas Hobbes, who was born at Malmesbury, April 5, 1588. He died at Hardwick, in Derbyshire, on the 4th of December, 1679.

argumentation, and that sufficiently warm. From the same firy 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 upon 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. And accordingly I laid by my natural diffidence and skepticism for a while, to take up that dogmatical way of his, which as I said, is so much his character, as to make him that individual poet. As for his opinions concerning the mortality of the soul, they are so absurd, that I cannot, if I would, believe them. I think a future state demonstrable even by natural arguments; at least to take away rewards and punishments, is only a pleasing prospect to a man who resolves beforehand not to live morally. But on the other side, the thought of being nothing after death is a burden unsupportable to a virtuous man, even though a heathen. We naturally aim at happiness, and cannot bear to have it confined to the shortness of our present being, especially

when we consider that virtue is generally unhappy in this world, and vice fortunate: so that it is hope of futurity alone, that makes this life tolerable, in expectation of a better. Who would not commit all the excesses to which he is prompted by his natural inclinations, if he may do them with security while he is alive, and be uncapable of punishment after he is dead! If he be cunning and secret enough to avoid the laws, there is no band of morality to restrain him: for fame and reputation are weak ties; many men have not the least sense of them. Powerful men are only awed by them, as they conduce to their interest, and that not always when a passion is predominant; and no man will be contained within the bounds of duty, when he may safely transgress them. These are my thoughts abstractedly, and without entering into the notions of our Christian faith, which is the proper business of divines.

But there are other arguments in this poem, which I have turned into English, not belonging to the mortality of the soul, which are strong enough to a reasonable man, to make him less in love with life, and consequently in less apprehensions of death. Such as are the natural satiety, proceeding from a perpetual enjoyment of the same things; the inconveniencies of old age, which make him incapable of corporeal pleasures; the decay of understanding and memory, which render him. contemptible and useless to others: these and many other reasons so pathetically urged, so beau

tifully expressed, so adorned with examples, and so admirably raised by the prosopopeia of Nature, who is brought in speaking to her children with so much authority and vigour, deserve the pains I have taken with them, which I hope have not been unsuccessful, or unworthy of my author: at least I must take the liberty to own, that I was pleased with my own endeavours, which but rarely happens to me, and that I am not dissatisfied upon the review of any thing I have done in this author.

It is true, there is something, and that of some moment, to be objected against my englishing the Nature of Love, from the fourth book of Lucretius: and I can less easily answer why I translated it, than why I thus translated it. The objection arises from the obscenity of the subject; which is aggravated by the too lively and alluring delicacy of the verses. In the first place, without the least formality of an excuse, I own it pleased me: and let my enemies make the worst they can of this confession. I am not yet so secure from that passion, but that I want my author's antidotes against it. He has given the truest and most philosophical account both of the disease and remedy, which I ever found in any author: for which reasons I translated him. But it will be asked why I turned him into this luscious English, for I will not give it a worse word. Instead of an answer, I would ask again of my supercilious adversaries, whether I am not bound when I translate an author, to do him all the right I can, and to translate him to the best advantage?

If, to mince his meaning, which I am satisfied was honest and instructive, I had either omitted some part of what he said, or taken from the strength of his expression, I certainly had wronged him; and that freeness of thought and words being thus cashiered in my hands, he had no longer been Lucretius. If nothing of this kind be to be read, physicians must not study nature, anatomies must not be seen; and somewhat I could say of particular passages in books which, to avoid prophaneness, I do not name: but the intention qualifies the act; and both mine and my author's were to instruct as well as please. It is most certain that barefaced bawdry is the poorest pretence to wit imaginable. If I should say otherwise, I should have two great authorities against me: the one is the ESSAY ON POETRY," which I publickly valued before I knew the author of it, and with the commendation of which my Lord Roscommon so happily begins his Essay on Translated Verse: the other is no less than our admired Cowley; who says the same

6 The Earl of Mulgrave's ESSAY ON POETRY, he tells us himself, was written in 1675; but, according to Antony Wood, was not printed till 1682. Probably, according to the fashion of that time, it was shewn about in manuscript, soon after it was written, and without the author's name, who was then but twenty-seven years old. In 1676 Dryden dedicated his AURENGZEBE to this nobleman.It is not quite clear, whether he means,-before he was acquainted with Lord Mulgrave, or, before he knew by whom the Essay was written.