The principal subject of the fifth book—a composition unrivalled in energy and richness of language, in full and genuine sublimity—is the origin and laws of the visible world, with those of its inhabitants. The poet presents us with a grand picture of Chaos, and the most magnificent account of the creation that ever flowed from human pen. In his representation of primeval life and manners, he exhibits the discomfort of this early stage of society by a single passage of most wild and powerful imagery,—in which he describes a savage, in the early ages of the world, when men were yet contending with beasts for possession of the earth, flying through the woods, with loud shrieks, in a stormy night, from the pursuit of some ravenous animal, which had invaded the cavern where he sought a temporary shelter and repose: —— “Sæcla ferarum Infestam miseris faciebant sæpe quietem; Ejecteique domo, fugiebant saxea tecta Setigeri suis adventu, validique leonis; Atque intempestâ cedebant nocte, paventes, Hospitibus sævis instrata cubilia fronde.”—V. 980. One is naturally led to compare the whole of Lucretius’ description of primeval society, and the origin of man, with Ovid’s _Four Ages of the World_, which commence his _Metamorphoses_, and which, philosophically considered, certainly exhibit the most wonderful of all metamorphoses. In his sketch of the Golden Age, he has selected the favourable circumstances alluded to by Lucretius—exemption from war and sea voyages, and spontaneous production of fruits by the earth. There is also a beautiful view of early life and manners in one of the elegies of Tibullus(454); and Thomson, in his picture of what he calls the “prime of days,” has combined the descriptions of Ovid and the elegiac bard. Most of the poets, however, who have painted the Golden Age, and Ovid in particular, have represented mankind as growing more vicious and unhappy with advance of time—Lucretius, more philosophically, as constantly improving. He has fixed on connubial love as the first great softener of the human breast; and neither Thomson nor Milton has described with more tenderness, truth, and purity, the joys of domestic union. He follows the progressive improvement of mankind occasioned by their subjection to the bonds of civil society and government; and the book concludes with an account of the origin of the fine arts, particularly music, in the course of which many impressive descriptions occur, and many delicious scenes are unfolded: “At liquidas avium voces imitarier ore Ante fuit multo, quam lævia carmina cantu Concelebrare homines possent, aureisque juvare. Et zephyri, cava per calamorum, sibila primum Agrestes docuere cavas inflare cicutas. Inde minutatim dulces didicere querelas Tibia quas fundit, digitis pulsata canentûm, Avia per nemora ac sylvas saltusque reperta, Per loca pastorum deserta, atque otia dia.”—V. 1378.