Not that another's danger foothes the foul,
But from fuch toil how fweet to feel fecure!
How fweet, at distance from the ftrife, to view
Contending hofts, and hear the clash of war!
But fweeter far on wifdom's heights ferene,
Upheld by truth, to fix our firm abode;
To watch the giddy crowd that, deep below,
For ever wander in purfuit of bliss;

To mark the ftrife for honours and renown,
For wit, and wealth, infatiate, ceaseless urg'd,
Day after day, with labour unreftrain'd.

"O wretched mortals! race perverfe and blind,
Through what dread dark, what perilous purfuits,
Pafs ye this round of being!-know ye not
Of all ye toil for nature nothing afks
But, for the body, freedom from disease,
And sweet, unanxious quiet for the mind?
"And little claims the body to be found:
But little ferves to fhow the paths we tread
With joys beyond e'en nature's utmost wish..
What though the dome be wanting, whofe proud walls
A thousand lamps irradiate, propt fublime

By frolic forms of youths in maffy gold,

Flinging their fplendours o'er the midnight feaft;
Though gold and filver blaze not o'er the board,
Nor mufic echo round the gaudy roof?
Yet liftlefs laid the velvet grafs along

Near gliding streams, by fhadowy trees o'erarch'd,
Such pomps we need not; fuch ftill lefs when spring
Leads forth her laughing train, and the warm year
Paints the green meads with rofeat flowers profuse.
On down reclin'd, or wrapp'd in purple robe,
The thirty fever burns with heat as fierce
As when its victim on a pallet pants."

This beautiful paffage, which Virgil has not difdained to copy, in its whole turn and defign, in one of the most finished paffages of his Georgics, affords a complete fpecimen of the ornamented parts of Lucretius. Between the merits of the two tranflations not a moment's queftion can be made. But let us try one of the dry parts, as generally confidered. Our philofophical specimen we will take from the part where the author opens the doctrine of images, which, according to the Epicureans, fly off continually from all bodies, and produce the perceptions of them, which are received by our fenfes.

"Since, then, our earlier ftrain the fact has prov'd Of feeds primordial; how, in various forms,

Oft

Oft differing each from each, at will they roam,
Urg'd on by ceaseless motion,-prov'd the mode
Whence all exifting, thence exits alone:

Since too the mind's deep nature we have trac'd,
Whence firft it fprings, with body how unites,
And how when fever'd, to primordial feeds
Again it lapfes-hafte we next t'unfold
Thofe forms minute, a theme connected close,
Term'd by the learned IMAGES OF THINGS:
Forms that, like pellicles, when once thrown off
Clear from the furface of whate'er exifts,
Float unreftrain'd through ether. Fearful thefe
Oft through the day, when obvious to the fenfe,'
But chief at midnight, when in dreams we view
Dire fhapes and apparitions, from the light
Shut out for ever, and each languid limb
With horror gaunt convulfing in its fleep.
For deem not thou the foul can e'er escape
From hell profound; that spectres of the dead
Can haunt the living; or that aught we feel
One hour furvives when once the ftroke of fate
Severs the mind from body, and remands
Each to th' appropriate atoms whence they fprang.
Hence hold we firin that effigies of things
Fine, filmy flofcules from the furface fly,
Like peels, or membranes, of whate'er exifts;
The form precife, how wide foe'er diffus'd,
Maintaining till the parent body boafts.
This e'en the dull may learn; fince fight itself
Marks the light film from many a substance urg'd
Oft loosely floating, as the fume impure
From crackling faggots, or the brighter blaze
Of red, refplendent furnace; oft compact,
And firm of nature as the filken veit

Thrown from the grass-hopper, when fummer wanes,
By many a month worn out; or that the calf
Cafts on his birth-day; or the fpotted robe
Rent from the fnake, that trembles on the briar,
The briar full oft with fpoils like thefe bedeckt.”

Vol. II. p. 9.

We cannot but be of opinion, that no more harfhnefs or obfcurity appears in this and fimilar paffages than is abfolutely infeparable from them in any language; and that probably no better vehicle for fuch arguments (profe excepted) exifts in any language, than our blank verfe.

5. The notes. Thefe are full of parallel paffages, and other illuftrations, from authors in the Greek, Latin, French,

8

German,

German, Italian, and Portuguese languages; with fome allo from the Oriental tongues, and from the original Hebrew Scriptures. Befides thefe, philofophical remarks are given whenever neceffary. Such a body of illuftration was, perhaps, never before appended to any claffic author; and the whole is connected, and prepared for ready reference by a tolerably copious index.

The great difficulty, as it appeared, of making Lucretius an author for general perufal in English arose from those parts of his work, where, with a degree of philosophical freedom, he has spoken of fubjects likely to raise impure ideas. This difficulty, however, was not fo great as it would naturally appear, to thofe whofe attention had been attracted by fome very offenfive fpecimens which Dryden chofe to lay before his countrymen. Dryden, who wrote these fpecimens early in life, unhappily chose to exaggerate and increase the impurity of them as much as poffible, and to make them even the vehicle of feductive poetry, the basest of all mifemployments of genius; which certainly was not at all the defign of the heathen poet. Mf. Good, after giving many reafons for not omitting thofe paffages, has taken the oppofite method. He has fo fubdued and fobered them by the moft guarded language, that nothing undoubt edly remains to feduce; though fome paffages (without omiffions were adopted) must always be unfit for those whofe imaginations are already in a feverish flate. But fince fuch perfons can draw corruption from every fource, it is perhaps but little worth while to guard against it in a philofophical work.

We have discovered few faults worthy of notice in this extensive and difficult work. The falfe accent of Iphigenia we noticed above: we have obferved also the érudite is accented erudite, Vol. I. p. 527; and prolix, prolix, Vol. II. 125. But faults of this or any other kind are extremely rare, and there cannot be a doubt that this tranflation of Lucretius, with its inftructive notes, will prove a great and lafting glory to the literature of our country. As the price of the prefent edition is, of neceffity, too high for many purchafers, we hope foon to fee it in octavo, without the original, which almost every fcholar poffeffes, but with all its valuable notes.

ART.

ART. VII. A complete Dictionary of practical Gardening, comprehending all modern Improvements in the Art, whether in the raifing of the various efculent Vegetables, or in the managing of different Sorts of Fruits and Plants, and that of laying out, ornamenting, and planting Gardens and PleafureGrounds; with correct Engravings of the neceffary Apparatus in Buildings and other Contrivances, as well as of the more rare and curious Plants; in Two Volumes. 4to. By Alexander M'Donald, Gardener. Price 31. 10s. plain; and 61. 6s. coloured, with 74 plates. Kear fley. 1807.

THE

HE author of this work inforins us, in his Preface, that "the execution of his undertaking, from the difficult and imperfect ftate of the art, has been attended with great labour and trouble; but that he hopes, from the practical knowledge which he poffeffes, and the various fources of information of which he has been able to avail himself, that it has been performed in a manner that will not be found lefs ufeful in directing the practical gardener, than those who are not fo converfant with the nature of the fubject; as bringing them more fully acquainted with the various methods that have been commonly employed, as well as thofe which have been fuggefted by modern experience."

On examining this publication, we perceive a fufficient degree of accuracy in the botanical department, divested, as much as poffible, of that formidable array of fcientific terminology which is apt to repel fo many readers, in confulting works of this nature. Confiderable affiftance must undoubtedly have been obtained from fome prior publica tions of the kind, among which must be numbered the great work of Miller, edited by the care of Profeffor Martyn.

Like most other Dictionaries, we obferve, that the prefent work has the failing (perhaps almoft unavoidable in a book of this nature) of fometimes referring the reader to a name. which, on examination, is not to be found. An instance of this kind occurs under the article Rhus Cobbe, where we are referred to Schmidelia, but, on turning for that title, no fuch name occurs. Again, under the article Anchovy Pear, we are referred to Grias, which is likewife wanting.

Of the plates accompanying this Dictionary we can hardly fpeak too highly. They are executed in a flyle of neatness and elegance, far furpaffing any we have yet obferved in fimilar publications. They are from drawings by that moft ingenious artift, Mr. Sydenham Edwards, whofe talents are

fo

fo confpicuoufly difplayed in the Botanical Magazine, and are engraved by Sanfom, whofe merit is equally confpicuous in that juftly admired publication. It is perhaps an objection, that plants of very different genera, occafionally appear together on the fame plate; but in a work of this nature it would have been hardly practicable to manage otherwife, confiftently with the price of the volumes.

We fhall give a flight extract or two from the work, by way of a fample of the general tenor of the descriptions. Thele muft be taken from the botanical department, thofe belonging to the horticultural branch being too long to admit of a proper fpecimen within the limits of our publication.

"Cerinthe. A genus which furnishes plants of the hardy, ornamental, flowering annual kind. The Honeywort.

"It belongs to the class and order Pentandria Monogynia, and ranks in the natural order of Afperifolia.

"The characters are: that the calyx is a five-parted perianthium; divifions oblong, equal, permanent: the corolla is monopetalous and bell-formed: tube fhort and thick: border tubebellied, rather thicker than the tube: mouth five-cleft; throat naked, pervious: the ftamina confift of five fubulate filaments, very fhort anthers acute, erect: the piftillum is a four-parted germ: ftyle filiform length of the ftamina: ftigma obtufe: there is no pericarpium: calyx unchanged: feeds two, bony, gloffy, fubovate, outwardly gibbous, and bilocular.

"The fpecies cultivated is the Cerinthe Major, Great Honey

wort.

"It rifes with ftems eighteen inches high and more, round, fmooth, branching, and leafy: the leaves are glaucous, becoming blue by age; fmooth, without prickles, but ciliated about the edge, and dotted with white: the branches are leafy and nodding; with flowers among the leaves, hanging on long peduncles: the tube of the corolla is yellow, but the border purple. It is a native of Italy, flowering in June, and the two following months. There are varieties with fmooth leaves and purple flowers, and with prickly leaves and yellow flowers.

"Culture. The plants are raised by fowing the feeds annually in the autumn or the early fpring months, in patches in the borders, clumps, or other parts. The autumn fowings fhould be made as early as poffible. They alfo rife from the felf-fown feeds. They should be managed as other hardy annuais. Thefe are plants proper for being planted about the Apiary, or in the Vol. I.

fmall beds or borders.

"Tradefcantia. A genus furnishing a plant of the hardy herbaceous perennial kind.

"It belongs to the clafs and order Hexandria Monogynia, and ranks in the natural order of Enfata.

Ff

BRIT, CRIT, VOL, XXIX, APRIL, 1857.

"The