the public in controversial treatises of elaborate verse. To reason powerfully not only in verse but rhyme, is no common achievement, and such fame is justly Dryden's; but how would the same reasoning have looked in prose? His controversy with Stillingfleet shows--but so so. Does Lucretius write from a strong heart and a seduced understanding? Or, is it now to be quoted as a blameable unbelief that ridded itself of the Greek and Roman Heaven and Hell? There is one great and essential difference on the side of the Epicurean. An original poet, he seems to speak from a sweeping contemplation of the universe. We grudge that the boundless exuberance of painting should go to decorate the argumentation of an unfruitful system of doctrine. We want the sympathy with the purpose of the poet, that should for us harmonize the poem. He often strikes singularly high tones. Witness, among many other great passages, his argument on death, and his thunderstorm. And had the description of the heifer bemoaning and seeking her lost calf been Virgil's, we should have thought it had sprung from the heart of rural simplicity and love. Dryden and Lucretius agree in the negligent indifference which they show, when mere argumentation is in hand, to smoothness and ornament, and also in the wonderful facility with which they compel logical forms to obey the measure. There they are indeed truly great. Lucretius's magnificent opening has invited Dryden to put forth his happiest strength. The profuse eloquence and beauty of the original is rendered. The passage, which may compete with any piece of translation in the language, is, with Dryden, a fragment:--