“Le Cardinal, oracle de la France, … Réunissant Virgile avec Platon, _Vengeur du Ciel et vainqueur de Lucrèce_.”[275] The last line of this remarkable eulogy has a movement and balance not unlike the Latin verse of Turgot, or that which suggested it in the poem of Polignac; but the praise it so pointedly offers attests the fame of the author. Nor was this praise limited to the “fine frenzy” of verse. The “Anti-Lucretius” was gravely pronounced the “rival of one of the greatest poems of ancient Rome,”--“with verses as flowing as Ovid, sometimes approaching the elegant simplicity of Horace and sometimes the nobleness of Virgil,”--and then again, with a philosophy and a poetry combined which “would not be disavowed either by Descartes or by Virgil.”[276] Turning now to the poem itself, we see how completely the verse of Turgot finds its prototype. Epicurus is indignantly described as denying to the gods all power, and declaring man independent, so as to act for himself; and here the poet says: “Assailing the thundering temples of heaven, _he snatched the lightning from Jove and the arrows from Apollo_, and, liberating the human race, bade it dare all things”:-- “Cœli et tonitralia templa lacessens, _Eripuit fulmenque Jovi, Phœboque sagittas_; Et mortale manumittens genus, omnia jussit Audere.”[277] To deny the power of God, and to declare independence of His commands, which the poet here holds up to judgment, is very unlike the life of Franklin, all whose service was in obedience to God’s laws, whether in snatching the lightning from the skies or the sceptre from tyrants; and yet it is evident that the verse picturing Epicurus in his impiety suggested the image of the American plenipotentiary in his double labors of science and statesmanship. The present story will not be complete without further reference to the poem of Antiquity supposed to have suggested the verse of Turgot, and which doubtless did suggest the verse of the “Anti-Lucretius.” Manilius is a poet little known. It is difficult to say when he lived or what he was. He is sometimes imagined to have lived under Augustus, and sometimes under Theodosius. He is sometimes imagined to have been a Roman slave, and sometimes a Roman senator. His poem, under the name of “Astronomicon,” is a treatise on astronomy in verse, recounting the origin of the material universe, exhibiting the relations of the heavenly bodies, and vindicating this ancient science. While describing the growth of knowledge, gradually mastering Nature, the poet says,-- “Eripuitque Jovi fulmen, viresque tonandi.”[278] The meaning of this line is seen in the context, which, for plainness as well as curiosity, I quote from a metrical version of the first book, entitled “The Sphere of Marcus Manilius made an English Poem, by Edward Sherburne, Esquire,” and dedicated to Charles the Second:--