of a Classic ever made! I don’t understand the Latin punctuation, but I dare say there is good reason for it. The English Translation reads very fine to me: I think I should have thought so independent of the original: all except the dry theoretic System, which I must say I do all but skip in the Latin. Yet I venerate the earnestness of the man, and the power with which he makes some music even from his hardest Atoms; a very different Didactic from Virgil, whose Georgics, quoad Georgics, are what every man, woman, and child, must have known; but, his Teaching apart, no one loves him better than I do. I forget if Lucretius is in Dante: he should have been the Guide thro’ Hell: but perhaps he was too deep in it to get out for a Holiday. That is a very noble Poussin Landscape, v. 1370-8 ‘Inque dies magis, etc.’
I had always observed that mournful ‘Nequicquam’ which comes to throw cold water on us after a little glow of Hope. When Tennyson went with me to Harwich, I was pointing out an old Collier rolling by to the tune of
Trudit agens magnam magno molimine navem. [iv. 902.]
That word ‘Magnus’ rules in Lucretius as much as ‘Nequicquam.’ I was rejoiced to meet Tennyson quoted in the notes too, and my old Montaigne who discourses so on the text of
Pascit amore avidos inhians in te, Dea, visus. [i. 36.]
Ask Mr. Munro, when he reprints, to quote old Montaigne’s Version of
Nam veræ voces tum demum, etc. [iii. 57.]
‘A ce dernier rolle de la Mort, et de nous, il n’y a plus que feindre, il faut parler Français; il faut montrer ce qu’il y a de bon et de net dans le fond du pot.’ [219a] And tell him (damn my impudence!) I don’t like my old Fathers ‘dancing’ under the yellow and ferruginous awnings. [219b] . . .
There is a coincidence with Bacon in verses 1026-9 of Book ii. (Lucretius, I mean).
To John Allen.