sion is for the most part a dull and lifeless performance; seldom rising above mediocrity, and generally falling below it. He does indeed preserve a likeness of Lucretius; but it is a clumsy statue or an aukward daubing. Too much, however, should not be expected from such a crabbed subject as Lucretius has chosen. Filled with the jargon of atomical absurdities, and obscure or absurd speculations, his poem defies the power of the English muse, and mocks the exercise of any intellect. What idea is conveyed to the reader by such a jumble of rhymes as the following?

Nisi erit minimum parvissima quaeque &c.

"Suppose no least, then seeds refined,

L. I. 609.

Too small for sense, nay, scarce perceived by mind,
Would still be full, still num'rous parts contain,

No end, no bound, but infinite the train;

And thus the greatest and the smallest frame
Would both be equal, and their bounds the same.

CREECH.

This is a fair specimen of the greater part of the first book of Creech's Lucretius; and the reader who peruses it through, deserves the same kind of praise, though not the same degree, as the labourer, who works faithfully at the machine, of whose mechanism he is wholly ignorant. It should be added, that this example is above the usual standard of the author's metrical abilities. In those parts of the poem that consist entirely of the gross, and obscure, and dogmatical philosophy of Lucretius, he often makes verses, which conform to no laws of English prosody.

The following detached lines, selected without diligent search, would hardly be suspected of having their rhyming fellows.

And can with safety trust her infant buds to the mild air.
For nature then would want fit seeds to work upon.

But their contexture or their motion disagrees.

But if men would live up to reason's rules.

They came, and brought with them additional flame.

Such rhymes as the following, were probably intended to relieve the reader amidst the dry speculations, by interspersing occasional amusement.

Next let's examine, with a curious eye,
Anaxagoras' philosophy,

By copious Greece termed homoeomery.
Not animals alone, but heav'n, earth, seas,
Are placed in their own proper species.
But grant the world eternal, grant it knew
No infancy; and grant it never new.

In the commencement of the second book of Lucretius, where it would be inexcusable to translate badly, a few lines are rendered in a tolerable manner :

Suave mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis,

E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem ;
Non quia vexari quemquam est jucunda voluptas,
Sed quibus ipse malis careas, quia cernere suave est.
Suave etiam belli certamina magna tueri

Per campos instructa, tuâ sine parte pericli;
Sed nil dulcius est, bene quam munita tenere,
Edita doctrinâ sapientum templa serena.*

L. II. 1. &c.

'Tis pleasant, when the seas are rough, to stand And view another's danger,-safe at land;

Not 'cause he's troubled, but 'tis sweet to see

Those cares and fears, from which ourselves are free.

'Tis also pleasant to behold from far

How troops engage, secure ourselves from war;

But above all 'tis pleasantest to get

The top of high philosophy, and sit

On the calm peaceful flourishing head of it.

Even in these few lines the translator has discovered his imbecility; and this too, when aiming to soar to the summit of philosophy. He was certainly giddy with the prospect, and never reached the intended height. Safer by far would he have been, if, with his accustomed servility, he had followed his master, and had not attempted to soar with such feeble wings.

* Dryden was happier than Creech in rendering these excellent lines of Lucretius, "Tis pleasant safely to behold from shore

VOL. VIII.

The rolling ship, and hear the tempest roar;

Not that another's pain is our delight,
But pains unfelt produce the pleasing sight.
'Tis pleasant also to behold from far,

The moving legions mingled in the war;

But much more sweet thy lab'ring steps to guide
To virtue's heights, with wisdom well supplied,
And all the magazines of learning fortified.

4

But it is seldom his good fortune, in three successive couplets, to avoid a flat, unmeaning, or prosaick line.

In the fourth book Creech rises above the ordinary level of his verse; and yet the very first line is a silly, disgusting interpolation.

I feel, I rising feel poetick heats.

In the description of the senses he has several passages about as luminous as those of his author, though in versification considerably inferiour to the mellifluous lines of Darwin upon similar subjects. The following lines partly exhibit the doctrine of images, adverted to in my last number.

Principio hoc dico, rerum simulacra vagari. &c.

L. IV. 728.

First then thin images fill all the air,
Thousands on every side, and wander there;
These, as they meet, in various dance will twine,
As threads of gold, or subtle spider's line:
For they are thin, for they are subtler far,
Than fairest things, that to the sight appear.
These pass the limbs; no narrow pores control,
They enter through, and strike the airy soul.
Hence 'tis we think we see, and hence we dread
Centaurs and Scyllas, Cerberus' monstrous head,
And many empty shadows of the dead.

}

At the close of the book, which treats of the nature of love, the translation before us evinces, that this part of Lucretius, to be decently interpreted, requires all the delicacy and art of a Gifford.

It would be gratifying to give credit to Creech for a happy paraphrase of the following lines, if the first couplet did not resemble Cowley, so much more than Lucretius, as to render it at least doubtful, to which of them he is indebted.

Pars etiam glebarum ad diluviem revocatur
Imbribus, et ripas radentia flumina rodunt.

L. V. 256.

And gentle rivers too, with wanton play,
That kiss their rocky banks, and glide away,
Take somewhat still from the ungentle stone,
Soften the parts, and make them like their own.

CREECH

The stream, with wanton play,

Kisses the smiling banks, and glides away.

COWLEY'S DAVIDEIS.

In describing the origin of musick, Creech seems to have felt some of its charms, and of a sudden attuned his loosestringed lyre.

At liquidas avium voces imitarier ore. &c.

The birds instructed man,

V. 1378.

And taught them songs, before their art began;
And while soft evening gales blew o'er the plains,
And shook the sounding reeds, they taught the swains;
And thus the pipe was framed, and tuneful reed;
And whilst the tender flocks securely feed,

The harmless shepherds tuned the pipes to love,
And Amaryllis sounds in every grove.

Of these lines, which are far from being faithful to the original, the last is a translation, entirely gratuitous, from the following lines in the first Eclogue of Virgil:

Formosam resonare doces Amaryllida silvas.

The plague of Athens, which forms an interesting and affecting conclusion of the poem of Lucretius, Creech has translated more uniformly well, than any other part of his author.* But he is justly charged with imitating the Bishop of Rochester (Dr. Sprat) on the same subject; forsaking that close adherence to the original, for which he is sometimes distinguish

In his account of the plague at Athens, Lucretius appears to have followed with tolerable exactness the history of the same fatal and loathsome disease, given by Thucydides. The symptoms with which it was attended, and its effects on the morals of the people, differ in no material point in the description of the poet, from that which was previously given by the historian. Yet so wonderfully is the power of poetry combined with the accuracy of history, that we are presented with a picture more striking, and approaching nearer to a sensible exhibition of the real objects portrayed, than could possibly be exhibited by the most exact narration of the mere historian.

The plague of Athens, as it is called, took place in the first year of the Peloponnesian war, and extended not only over the city of Athens, in which it first appeared, but also over the whole region of Attica.

ed.* The following couplet is a palpable example in point, and has not the least foundation in Lucretius :

The wind that bore the fate, went slowly on,
And, as it went, was heard to sigh and groan.

CREECH.

The loaded wind went slowly on,
And, as it passed, was heard to sigh and groan.

SPRAT.

Such an interpolation as appears in the second of the following lines is unpardonable, and gives an air of burlesque to the description of the excessive heat and thirst, that accompanied the disease above referred to, that is strangely misplaced :

In vain they drank; for when the water came
To th' burning breast, it hissed before the flame.

Lucretius indeed uses a figure fully adequate to his purpose:

Flagrabat stomacho flamma, ut fornacibus, intus;

But the imagination of Creech has furnished an experiment, which never occurred to Lucretius.

I have now done with Creech, and cannot think him deserving of those high commendations, that Duke and Dryden have so liberally bestowed on him.† Duke was a flatterer, and Dryden was willing to make even an aukward apology for any seeming interference as a translator. The praise of fidelity, in general, is due to Creech; though he has sometimes retrenched the original, and sometimes inserted matter of his own. His work, including as well his own annotations, as his version

* See notes on the sixth book of Creech's Lucretius; Anderson's British Poets, vol. 13.

The reader is here presented with this gross and unqualified panegyrick upon the translation of Creech from the pen of Duke.

What laurels should be thine, what praise thy due;
What garlands, mighty poet, should be graced by you?
Though deep, though wond'rous deep his sense does flow,

Thy shining style does all its riches show;

So clear the stream, that through it we descry

All the bright gems, that at the bottom lie.

Dryden calls him "the ingenious and learned translator of Lucre

tius, whose reputation is already established in that poet."

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