England under a peculiar disadvantage; the commendation a man of taste had bestowed on it, previous to its representation here, perhaps raised too much expectation in some, and excited a spirit of envy and critical prejudice in others. Possibly, indeed, that gentleman, in some degree, sacrificed his taste to his friendship. However, if this was the case, he will sustain no great loss with regard to his reputation, since he may gain as much on the one hand, as he can lose on the other; the worst that can be said amounting only to this, that the benevolence of his disposition prevailed over the rectitude of his judgment. (1)

Scotsman should write a tragedy of the first rate, and that its merits were first submitted to them." The appearance, however, of a tragedy written by a clergyman, gave such offence to the Presbytery of Edinburgh, that the author, to escape degradation, abdicated his pulpit.]

(1) [" As we sat over our tea, at Inverary, Mr. Home's tragedy of Douglas was mentioned. I put Dr. Johnson in mind, that once, in a coffee-house at Oxford, he called to old Mr. Sheridan, How came you, Sir, to give Home a gold medal for writing that foolish play?' and defied Mr. Sheridan to show ten good lines in it. He did not insist that they should be put together; but that there were not ten good lines in the whole play. He now persisted in this. I endeavoured to defend that pathetic and beautiful tragedy, and repeated the following passage :

JOHNSON.

Sincerity.

Thou first of virtues! let no mortal leave

Thy onward path, although the earth should gape

And from the gulf of hell destruction cry,

To take dissimulation's winding way.'

That will not do, Sir, nothing is good but what is consistent with probability, which this is not. Juvenal, indeed, gives us a noble picture of inflexible virtue :

:

Esto bonus miles, futor bonus, arbiter idem,
Integer ambiguæ si quando citabere testis,
Incertæque rei, Phalaris licet imperet, ut sis
Falsus, et admoto dictet perjuria tauro,

Summum crede nefas animam præferre pudori,
Et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.'*

"He repeated the lines with great force and dignity; then added, ' And after this comes Johnny Home, with his earth-gaping, and his destructioncrying,'-pooh!'"-Boswell, vol. v. p. 106, edit. 1835.]

* [' "Be brave, be just; and, when your country's laws
Call you to witness in a dubious cause,
Though Phalaris plant his bull before your eye,
And, frowning, dictate to your lips the lie,
Think it a crime no tears can e'er efface,

To purchase safety, with compliance base,
At honour's cost, a feverish span extend,

And sacrifice for life, life's only end."-GIFFORD.]

385

VI.-CARDINAL DE POLIGNAC'S "ANTI-LUCRETIUS."

[From the Monthly Review, 1757. "Anti-Lucretius, of God and Nature; a Poem. Written in Latin by the Cardinal De Polignac. Rendered into English by the Translator of Paradise Lost." (1) 4to.]

It is a doubt whether the Cardinal de Polignac be better known to the statesmen of Europe as a politician, or to the learned as a poet: it is certain, his talent of persuasion in both capacities was extraordinary; and it is somewhat surprising, that amidst such a multiplicity of state negociations, as might seem sufficient to engross all his attention, he found leisure for the intricate disquisitions of philosophy. As neither his editor nor our translator have mentioned what first gave rise to this poem, it may not be improper to mention it here: "A seeming chance," as we are told, “first put Polignac upon this undertaking. The author, in his return from Poland, made some stay in Holland, where, becoming acquainted with M. Bayle, he asked him, which

(1) [John Dobson, of New College, Oxford. For translating Paradise Lost into Latin verse, Mr. Auditor Benson, who erected a monument to Milton in Westminster Abbey, gave him one thousand pounds. Dobson had acquired great reputation by his translation of Prior's Solomon, the first book of which he finished when he was a scholar at Winchester College. He had not, at that time, as he told me (for I knew him well), read Lucretius, which would have given a richness and force to his verses. Mr. Pope wished him to translate the Essay on Man; which he began to do, but relinquished on account of the impossibility of imitating its brevity in another language. Though he had so much facility in translating, his original poems, of which I have seen many, were very feeble and flat, and contained no mark of genius."-DR. JOSEPH Warton.

“There is one translation which I greatly admire. I mean Dobson's 'Paradisus Amissus :' my son studied, and, I believe, read every line of it. It is more true to the original, both in sense and spirit, than any other poetical version of length that I have seen. The author must have had an amazing command of Latin phraseology, and a very nice ear in harmony. All that I could ever hear of Dobson's private life was, that in his old age he was given to drinking. "DR. BEATTIE.]

6

of the sects in vogue he professed? Bayle eluded the ques tion, by repeating some lines out of Lucretius; and being closer pressed, he made no other answer than that he was a true Protestant. The Abbé still urging him, he answered with some emotion, Yes, Sir, I am a true Protestant, and to the utmost extent of the word, for I protest against all that is said or done;' which was followed by another more energetic repetition from Lucretius. The Abbé finding that le arned person far gone in the system of Epicurism, or at least of Scepticism, and that these notions were seducingly advanced in his celebrated Dictionary, immediately conceived a design of refuting those errors, and his two relegations (to the States) proved fortunate for the accomplishment.”

Certainly nothing can be a more proper antidote than the "Anti-Lucretius" against the mischievous doctrines of the charming poet, but indifferent philosopher, here controverted by our author. It must be confessed Lucretius has more poetic enthusiasm, and more frequently amuses his reader with the glowing descriptions of a fine imagination. Our author, with greater severity, seems always in quest of truth, and never loses the philosopher in the poet. Lucretius strikes his reader with the brilliancy of his arguments; the demonstrations of Polignac operate more slowly, but then they are sure to carry conviction. The one aims at instruction merely to please; the other pleases merely to instruct. In short, the fictions of the disciple of Epicurus seem to acquire additional graces from poetry, while poetry receives new graces from his antagonist, by being employed in the service of truth.

Lucretius has long ago been translated into our language. This, in some measure, implied a necessity for translating his opponent also; and the first book of the Anti-Lucretius in English verse, is here submitted, by the ingenious Mr. Dobson, as a specimen of his abilities for the whole. He

certainly seems every way equal to the laborious undertaking, if we may be allowed to judge from this part of his performance now before us. He ever preserves the sense, and very seldom loses the spirit of his original. Sometimes, however, he seems inferior to him in strength; thus, line 32, in the original :

"Incute vim dictis, propriamque ulciscere causam,"

he translates less energetically thus:

My song, and vindicate thy sovereign cause.' Where the poet rapturously cries out,

“O utinam, dum te regionibus infero sacris-"

the translator coolly says,

"Were mine the gift, as o'er the sacred clime

But that the reader may not rest solely upon our judgment, it may be proper to select a specimen or two of the original, to which subjoining the translation, we shall leave him to determine for himself. The author thus addresses the atheist :

"Si virtutis eras avidus, rectique bonique
Tam sitiens, quid Relligio tibi sancta nocebat?
Aspera quippe nimis visa est ? Asperrima certe

Gaudenti vitiis, sed non virtutis amanti.
Ergo perfugium culpæ, solisque benignus
Perjuris ac foedifragis, Epicure, parabas.
Solam hominum fæcem poteras devotaque furcis
Devincire tibi capita, indignæque patronus
Nequitiæ tantum scelerisque assertor haberi ;
Cui tales animos viresque atque arma ministras.
Degener ille bonis etenim non ingruit horror
Quem perimis: sibi nec restingui Tartara poscunt,
Quos bene gesta satis tranquillant; ipsaque morum
Integritas, et parta quies moderamine casto
Vindicat à miserâ longæ formidine pœnæ.

His procul anguicomæ strident crepitantque flagellis
Eumenides; procul his æterna incendia fumant."

"Were you with ardent love of virtue fir'd,
And did you thirst for equity and truth,

Why should Religion's sacred laws offend?
She's too severe. Severe she is to those
Whom Vice delights, but not to Virtue's friends.
For Vice, then, Epicurus, you contriv'd
A friendly refuge, to each miscreant kind,
Each perjur'd wretch. Hence to your banners hie
In droves, the dregs and outcast of mankind.
Hence are you styl'd th' assertor of the base,
Patron of villains; whom you thus supply
With impious courage, and ignoble arms.
For that degen'rate fear you boast to quell
Damps not the virtuous; whose ingenuous deeds
Becalm their minds, and chaste integrity
Wraps in soft peace, unconscious of alarms.

From these far distant, hiss and clash their thongs,

The snake-curl'd Furies; distant far from these

Burn the relentless flames that never die."

"Quid si autem invenies quod credimus, ultima cum te

Sustulerit tenebrisque perennibus obruerit nox,

Nempe Deum ultorem, quem non cognoveris ante,
Vel potius notum famâ neglexeris? Eheu!
Horresco reputans: tibi luditur alea, Quinti,
Magna nimis. Quoquò te vertas, fit tua pejor
Conditio nostrâ. Neque enim, si fallimur, hujus
Erroris dabimus poenas: sors æqua manebit
Nos omnes; uno simul involvemur inani :
Tu, si deciperis, contrà; sine fine futurus
Infelix.

Cur tanta igitur discrimina tentas ?”

"But should you find (what merits firmest faith),
When Death shall wrap thee in her sable shade,
Should you then find, with righteous vengeance arm'd,
That God you knew not once, or known, defied,
I shudder at the thought. Ah! Quintius, rash
Th' adventure; great the hazard you explore.
Shift as you please, in every light appears

Your state far worse than our's. What if we err?

That error no dread punishment attends.

One fate then all involves; we all shall sink

In one vast unessential void absorpt.

Err you? What fatal misery ensues!

Woe infinite!-Such perils who would prove?"

The Anti-Lucretius is not a refutation of Lucretius only, but of those in general who seem to have been favourers of