coalition of Principles and some other sublime points of speculative Theologie which seems to concern or be any whit obnoxious to our Faith he hath a thousand more where amongst the rest of his most excellent Precepts and rare discourses he perswades to a life the most exact and Moral and no man I hope comes hither as a Spider to swell up his bag with poyson onely when with half that pains he may with the industrious Bee store and furnish his Hive with so much wholesome and delicious Honey Indignum profectò ob aliqua mala tam multa bona expungere ac rosetum exscindere quod spinas rosis intextas ferat ON MY Son Evelyns Translation OF THE FIRST BOOK of Lucretius IF Gulilaeus with his new found glass Former Invention doth so far surpass By bringing distant bodies to our sight And make it judge their shape by neerer light How much have you oblig'd us in whose mind Y'have coucht that Cataraect which made us blind And given our soul an optick can descrie Not things alone but where their causes lie Lucretius Englished Natures great Code And Digest too where her deep Laws so show'd That what we thought mysteriously perplext Translated thus both Comment is and Text This polisht â—ey opens and let 's us in To her Conclave Treasure and Magazin Where she majestick in bright rays appears Unvail'd o'ch' Cloud of seventeen hundred years That hoary mist of Ignorance is displaid And brought to light what lay involv'd in shade By this your Sacred Clue severely led Her intricat'st Meanders we do tread How spruce thus trimm'd Philosophy looks now Which was morose before in beard and brow What we abhorred then we now embrace A Nymph is seated in a Satyrs place And hath a Palace for her gloomy School That 's a clear stream which was a muddy pool With how much pleasure then we now rehearse The crabbed'st part of learning in your verse And with the Muses to this reed of thine We dance o're horrid clifts we could not clime Taking that wholsome pill with great deâ—ight Which until gilded thus did so affright Pedants â—arewel this to our years affords That whole half-age we lost in learning words Thus in the worlds decline the life of man Was but an Inch before is made a Span. Our infancy may now with milk and pap Suck in deep Science in our Mothers lap Whilst at such ease to be both learn'd and wise Be but born English and it doth suffice The North-west-passage would not prove so swiâ—â— Nor make abridgement like to this your gift In which to our immense content we find All that the Stagyrists envy burnt refin'd Thus to th' immortal glory of our Toung This British Phoenix from those ashes sprung The Atomes of those volumus lost in Greece Gather'd at Rome You have made Jasons fleece Each grain whereof like the Elixar doth Fruitful projection in our minds bring forth Of that rare skill which by the vulgar much Needs noâ— be valued nor by bulk but touch What we since him did pure invention deem Dilated memory not wit doth seem We now believe 't demonstratively true Under the Sun there 's nothing that is new And he that would no emptiness maintain Belyes himself the Vacuum's in his Brain Vain then it were to undertake to write All old mistakes error is infinite 'T is thus Inspir'd Lucretius alone Is th' Oracle of all that can be knowne Steward to Fate Creations Notary Truths Register Natures Secretary Proceed dear Youth and in thy noble Verse Perfect this Canon of the Universe For great example to thy self prefix That Architect which wrought from one to Six Richard Brown Knight and Baronet To his Worthy Friend Master EVELYN UPON HIS TRANSLATION OF LUCRETIUS LVCRETIVS with a Stork-like â—ate Born and translated in a State Comes to proclaim in English Verse No Monarch Rules the Universe But chance and Atomes make this All In Order Democratical Where Bodies freely run their course Without design or Fate or Force And this in such a strain he sings As if his Muse with Angels wings Had soaâ—'d beyond our utmost Sphere And other World 's discover'd there For his immortal boundless wit To nature does no bounds permit But boldly has remov'd those bars Of Heaven and Earth and Seas and Stars By which they were before suppos'd By narrow wits to be inclos'd 'Till his free Muse threw down the Pale And did at once dispark them all So vast this Argument did seem That the wise Author did esteem The Roman Language which was spred Ore the whole world in Triumph led A Tongue too narrow to unfold The Wonders which he would have rold This speaks thy Clorie noble Friend And British Language doâ—s commend For here Lucretâ—us whole we finde His Words his Musick and his mind Thy Art has to our Countrey brought All that he writ and all he thought Ovid translated Virgil too Shew'd long since what our Tongue could do Nor Lucan we nor Horace spar'd Onely Lucretius was too hard Lucretius like a Fort did stand Untoucht till your Victorious hand Did from his head this garland bear Which now upon your own You wear A Garland made of such new Bays And sought in such untrodden ways As no man's Temples ere did Crown Save this great Authors and your own Edmund Waller Non quia gente vales quae latè clara per Anglos Fixerit hinc illinc dives ubique Lares Nec tantùm quia communes nurtitus in artes Ingenii laudes quas sequor ipse tenes Idcirco quacunque moror quacunque morabor Ev'â—â—ni credam non meminisse nefas Cùm mihi nota fides moribus insita virtus A grato Saliâ—m vate sonandus eras Nil mediocre potes quicquid sub pectore volvis Sive sit ingenii seu pietatis opus Tu mihi Memmiades reliquis Lucretius audi Magna geris de te victor alta canis Natales Coelorum concrescentia Secla Et motis spatium rebus inane paras Quae nunquam loquimur nec adhuc bene novimus Angli Vnde datis mirar vocibus aucta refers Hos ego non ausim libros tentare profanus Nam metuens altum litora tuta lego Ergo age quod solus potes quod patria poscit O mulâ—um meritò culte colende mihi Rure vaces tantisper hortis utere cultor Ne Furnum doctaâ— polluat usque manus Fae mihi deducas ad mundi funera carmen Supremum vates quem canit adde rogum Non nisi cum coelo terrâque mariqâ— solutis Hoc opus impleri sive sperire potest Christophorus Wasi For my Honored FRIEND and KINSMAN John Evelyn Esq NOBLE COZEN YOurs of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 instant together with a Manuscript which your modesty is pleased to entitle An Essay upon the first Book of Lucretius found me out in this remote corner whereby I perceive a friend how clouded soever with absence and mifortunes can no more
Creon in the wars of Thebes to Mars Codrus in his generous disguise and Curtius in his vain-glorious precipitation Besides the Decii and infinite others of whom see Plutarchs Themistocles and Pausaniaâ— Lyctiorum in Creete the Lesbians and Phocoensis of which Clemens Alexand. in protreptico They used yearly to sacrifice a Gaul of either Sex to Jupiter and in some parts of Africa the immolated little babes to Saturn nay as Lactantius reports the Carthaginians sacrificed no less then two hundred Noblemens children at once to pacifie that Idol after their overthrow by Agathocles King of Sicily O dementian insanabilem quid illis isti dii amplius facere possent sâ—essent iratissitni c. as the Father there exclaims In Ponticus and Egypt in the rites of Busiris they sacrificed strangers as Throseus the Southsayer found upon sad experience And not long since what inhumane butcheries they exercised in the West-Indies at Montezumas Temple in Mexico the Spanish histories relate nay the madness it seems was so universal that even amongst our own Countreymen the Britains here Cruore Captivo adolere aras as Tacitus in Annal. 14. Pliny and others report Sed de Barbaris non est adeo mirandum quorum religio cum moribus congruit Since even the Romans themselves as much civilized as they boasted themselves to be suffered this brutish custom to prevail very long upon the world for it continued even to the time of the elder Pliny when it was a usual thing upon every finister event to cast multitudes of innocent Christiâ—ns into the River Tybur which devilish fury of theirs remaining to the days of Justinus and Tatian was with much difficulty at last redressed albeir these bloody Rites had been long before prohibited by a solemn decree of the Senaâ— Cornelius Lentuâ—us and Lucinius Crassus being Coss But to instance in what comes nearest our Poet we finde in Marius against the Cymbryans who sacrificed Calphurnia his daughter whom he had onely promised in a dream to obtain the victory over that people Certain it is that the vow of Jeptha so rhetoricaly related by Josephus out of Judges the 11. doth exceedingly resemble this story and divers other examples we could introduce of like barbarity not onely in prophane but even the sacred story particularly in the cruelty of the perplext King of Moab the very sight whereof moved the enemy to raise the siege and give over the enterprize and in what an horrible manner they used to fry their little ones in the seventh receptacle of the Idol Moloch Paulus Fagius doth somewhere describe not much unlike to the Phalarian Bull. In the present story it is very observable that when Timantes a famous Painter would represent the Sacrifice of Iphigenia whilst he expressed Chalcas Vlysses Menelaus and the rest of the Spectators with very sad and lugubrous countenaâ—ces to shew that the grief of her afflicted father quoniam summum illum luctum penicillo non posset imitari as Cicero very â—legantly in Orat. could by no Art of the Pencil be counterfeited most ingeniously drew Agamemnon with a vail over his face But I will enlarge no farther on this sad argument illustrable by a volume of like examples if I would give my self leave to stroy and weary the Reader onely as touching the Trivian Altar whereon this Cruelty is said to be perpetrated because it was dedicated to Diana Casalius in his ancient Egyptian Rites cap. 20. thinks it to be Isis taken frequently for the Moon whom they Hieroglyphiz'd with an head furnished with a triple ornament of Horns a Crown and Ears possent haec tria signa saith he denotare quod Isis sive Luna Trivia Tergemina seu triformis sit nuncupata And this shall suffice Tutemet à nobis jam quovis tempore vatum Terriloquis victus dictâ—â—s desciscere quaeres Quippe etenim quà m multa tibi me fingere possum Somnia Thy self so long with Poets frightful lies O'recome wilt our opinion soon dispise How many dreams yet could I to thee feign c. As if he should have said these doting Fables of the Poets such were the stories of Cerberus Acheron Tantalus Titius Sicyphus c. have so strangely possest you and the truth is I my self were capable to dash all the precious enjoyments that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 repose and tranquility of thy life were it my design to pursue those terriculamenta and old-wives fables Nor indeed saith he do men without reason believe them and are become thus superstitious whilâ—st they remain so ignorant of the nature and essence of their Souls which they suppose to be Immortal and yet know not what will become of them hereafter viz. Whether all their miseries shall determine in this world or not for indeed Epicurus totally denied the Immortality of this precious Particle and it is prodigious to consider onely the wonderful variety of mens opinions concerning it For to take but a shâ—re survey some as the Stoicks held that the Soul did insinuate into the body with which it was congenial and that per traducem Aristotle of old and Senertus of late were favorers of this tradition as if grated from the souls of the Parents it onely lurked in semine by which argument it cannot be preserved from perishing and expiring together with them The same Author will have some parts of the Soul which reside in corporeal receptacles to live and expire with them and in the mean time that the Intellect which enjoys no instrument of the body as perpetual is separated from that which is corruptible This notion I confess is hugely controverted Alexander Aphrodiseus peremptorily affirms that he hath hereby rendred the soul mortal and yet it is thought that Gregory Nazianzen favored this opinion But against these is Plato and of the Christians Tho Aquinas a stout Aristotelean who interprets the opinion altogether in favor of Immortality yet Averroes another Commentator upon this Prince of Philosophers supposeth that every man hath a peculiar soul which is mortal distinguished from the Minde which he calleth immortal The Platonists Pherecydes and old Academiques believed that the soul did precede the body eternally Crates the Theban admitted of no Soul ascribing onely a natural motion to bodies There are none of the Elements but some have fetched the soul from The great Hyppocrates will have it a tenuous spirit diffused through the body Asclepiades says plainly 't is Flesh Zeno makes it to be a quintescence or certain quality and complexion of the Elements Chrysippus Archelaus and Heraclytus Ponticus taught that it was light Nor are they at all agreed about the residence thereof for some place it in the head others in the heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Diagoras Epicurus in the stomach And there be who will assign it no dwelling at all but a thing secluded from any determinate fixure for of this conceit I finde Xenophanes Colophonius Aristoxenes and many others and hence
with Jupiter Juno Suadela and Diana to preside at Marriages In sine this is the Lady that became so desperately inamour'd with Anchises by whom she had Aeneas nor less it seems with Mars himself for therefore doth our Poet implore her intercession with that â—urious God Nam tu sola potes tranquilla pace juvare Mortalis quoniam belli fera moenera Mavors Armipotens regit in gremium qui saepe tuum se Reficit aeterno devinctus volnere amoris To Mortals Thou alone canst rest afford Since Mars who is of direful Wars the Lord On thy fair bosom resting oft his head With lasting wounds of Love is vanquished And even immerged in her luxurious embracements in which plight he could refuse his Mistris nothing such charms and puissant attracts had love even over the Gods themselves But to resolve the Mythologie to the purpose of out Author we understand by Venus here that universal Appetite of procreating its like which inclination for receiving its birth together with the world it self caused her to be feigned of so near relation to Coelum whence those who have affirmed that the humane soul descended from Heaven into our bodies and that again it passed from one Orb to another extract out of each Sphere divers particular affections as that the Soul hath from Venus besides many others all her câ—ncupiscible appetites c. She is affirmed to be born of the Sea not onely to represent the continual estuations of disorderly livers and lascivious persons but rather for that the salacious liquor aideth greatly to the generative vertue inciting the inclinations by its acrimonious mordacity Lastly she is supposed inamour'd with Adonis who is taken for the Sun because her embracements prove ineffectual without the assistance of a generative and fermenting heat for which cause were roses myrre c. sacred to her as allectives and incentives of pleasure yet not without their punctures blushes and fading for such is the nature and close of all sensual commerce and delights whatsoever And thus much of Venus or rather Nature it self which for giving Title to our Poets present works we did purposely illustrate But let us hear how Statius describes the Goddess Tellus in imitation of our Author O hominum divâ—inique aeterna creatrix Quae fluvios sylvasque animasque semina mundi Cuncta promethaeasque manus Pyrrhaeaque Saxa Gignis impastis quae prima alimenta dedisti Mutastique viros quae pontum ambisq vehisque Te penes pecudum gens mitis ira ferarum Eâ— volucrum reâ—â—ies â—irmum atque immobile mundi Robur inoccidui te velox machina Coeli Aere pendentem vacuo te currus uterque Circuit O rerum media indivisaque magnis Fratribus ergo simul tot gentibus alma tot altis Vrbibus ac populis subterque ac desuper una Sufficis Eternal source whence Gods and men proceed Who Sâ—ereams Woods Souls the universal seed Promethean clay and Pyrrhan stones indu'st With life â—â—ed'st Babeâ— and humane shapes renew'st Dost the vast Sea encompass and sustain Dost o're wilde Beasts and Milder Cattel reign And roosts of Birds the firm and stable world The heavens swift Orbs with rapid motion hurl'd Thee Stretching in the empty air thy wings With Sun and Moon daunce round O mâ—dst of things Amongst the mighty brothers thou dost stand Unshar'd and feed'st all Nations with thy hand On thy broad back and on thy equal chest So many Towers and high-built Cities rest c. Thus having invocated his Goddess in the next he deprecates the War during which neither could Poets well write nor Patrons have leisure to read for much about this time hapned those unfortunate broils and furious commotions wherein Claudius was slain by Milo the Gaules divided by Caesar and the whole Empire it self almost out of frame by the Conspiracies of Cateline and his bloody Complices during all which stirs and publique disaâ—lers Neque nos agere hoc patriai tempore iniquâ— Possumus aequo animo nec Memmi clara propago Talibus in rebus communi deesse saluti For whilst our Countrey thus afflicted lies With what conâ— enâ— can we Philosophise Nor may brave Meminiâ—s then wanting be To th'publique peace in such perplexiâ—y For Memmius he knew as a Loyal Cavalier could not but be engaged and it was this illustrous person to whom our Lucretius nuncupates his present work concerning whose extraction since a Name so frequently mentioned throughout this Author divers curious in Antiquities have taken the pains to deliver his Pedegree which some of them have out of his almost contemporary Mâ—â—e not blushed to derive even from the Trojans themselves Mox Italus Mnesiheus genus à quo nomine Memmi Certain it is he sprung from a very ancient stock C. Memmius recorded by Livy being created Praetor about the time of the war with Perses King of Macedonia obtained the Province of Sardinia and was â—nvested with many other dignities as Quaestor Aedile c. after which he was removed to the Praetory of Sicili And of this Memmius were two sons C. and L. Memmius so celebrated for their learning and eloquence by the father of Orators C. L. Memmii saith Cicero fuerunt Oratores mediocres accusatores acres atque acerbi c. Cajus as Orosius writes when for his integrity and parts he stood to be Consul was by one Saturnus a Tribune of the Commons who feared his Vertues barbarously murdered in Campo Martio There was also another Memmius of the same family supposed Brother or Cousin-German to the former by marriage allied to Pompeius with whom he went into Spain in the Expedition contra Sertorium where he valiantly lost his life in the Service as Cicero pro Balbo Plut. Orosius and others report But to come to that Memmius unto whom our Poet dedicates this Book he was as Cicero affirmeth son to the above-mentioned Lucius a person so studious in his youth that besides the name of Learned which he had acquired he was held in very great estimation with all the wisemen of his time It seems He and Lucretius had been Contemporaries at Athens when afterwards returning to Rome he was then by the favor of Pompeius advanced to eminent honor for being first made Praetor he went Governor of Bythinia in which voyage the Poet Catullus accompanied him and as it s believed our Carus also together with Curtius Nicas a famous and noble Grammarian of those times whom he exceedingly cherished as is related by Suetonius But quitting Bythinia upâ—n what occasion something uncertain though there be who lay his ill administration there to his charge he was shortly after accused by Cajus Caesar and others out of all which Memmius emerging he contends with Domitio Massallas Scaurus and others for the Consulat in which the difference grew so sharp that in conclusion there could be none elected for that year Sundry Interregnums in the mean time hapning as Cicero himself testifies for
it is I suppose that Xenocrates terms the Soul an automote-Number which is conformable to what the Chaldeans taught of old when they named it a Vertue void of any determinate form receptive yet of all heterogenious forms Aristotle happily stamped his Entelechia to express the perfection of a natural organick-Organick-body potentia vitam habentis c. Nor indeed were the Heathen the onely men who dissented about this Speculation The most learned Origen and others conceived that the Soul of the first man assumed its original with the Celestial Creatures and make it more ancient then the body Some there were fancied that one Soul produced another as one body procreates another of which opinion was Apollinaris Bishop of Laodicea Tertullian Cyrillus and Luciferanus who are all mainly oppugned by S. Hierom. The forecited T. Aquin. affirmeth that there is a quoâ—idian creation of Souls for that saith he it is the form of the body and cannot have a separate creation And to this opinion the Schools and many later Divines have generally assented amongst whom our Countreyman Occam affirms that there be two Souls in every man the Sensitive of the Parent and the Intellective of the Creator But others again confound them both together and will admit of no distinction In fine those who think they have neerest approached the truth besides such as ingenuously confess they understand it not for such I finde Seneca in Lactantius to have been will have the Soul to be a certain Divine Substance intire indivisible omnipresent to the parts and depending onely upon the vertue of the Agent and not of any matter Of this opinion besides sundry others were Plutarch Porphyrie Timeus Zoroastes Hermes Trismegistus Orpheus c. To conclude the more sollid define it to be a Substance or certain modus of the Body an Attribute c. not produced by any Seminal Traduction but by a Divine and Spiritual emanation Cicero in his 1. Tusc Qu. tells us of one conceited fellow we have already named him who denied that there was any soul at all or at least no more then was in a Fiddle comparing the Chords and Consent of the Instrument to the members and nerves of the body quo nihil dici delirius potest And then about the continuance of the Soul besides the Saduces Democritus our Poet and his Master the Brachmani Pythagorean-metempsycosists Essens and other Speculative men to abate the terror of death and render their Disciples couragious upon all adventures though they denied the Immortality of the Soul in the Christian notion yet taught they a certain immorral Transmigration thereof into the bodies of other creatures of which Xenophanes Timon Hermippus Lucian and divers others have discoursed at large nay Jamblicus with Trismegistus held that the Souls depart not onely from men to irrational creatures but from them to one another of the same kinde yea that they descend into Plants of which conceit are many modern Jews who talk of an Angel Turn-key to a certain Magazine of Spirits ready created for all the bodies that shall ever have being which Guardian Intelligence they call Intellectum agentem but to quit these differences and Turco-Jewish dreams it is believed that the Poet Ennius so exceedingly celebrated here by our Poet was the first that broached this Transmigration amongst the Latines who for all this tels us no news of either infernal places or pains Sed quaedam simulacra modis pallentia miris c. But some pale frightful Spectrum's Faint appa itions sading shadows and scarce visible images of Ghosts and Hobgoblins Vnde sibi exortam semper-florentis Hâ—meri Commemâ—rat speciem Which he of Homer doth Commemorâ—t Those who have written the life of S. Bruno founder of the Carchusians report that being returned from Hell aud being demanded what he had remaining of his knowledge He should answer that he remembred nothing but pain There are many other instances of Ghostly apparitions by which we might farther illustrate the certainty of the Souls Immortality The Oracle of Apollo Milesius is well known nor were the Epicureans so obstinate but that they understood there was then an art of raising spirits Sed quia non pervidebant animae rationem quae tam subtilis est ut oculos humanae mentis effâ—giat interire dixerunt for it seems in this they went no farther then the eye But here we might introduce that of the Druids delivered by Caesar and Strabâ— of the Brachmani whereof Porphyrie in his Book Prohibiting the eating of Flesh The same was affirmed likewise by the Egyptians who for that very respect did not burn their dead eodémque cura de infernis persuasio saith Tacitus speaking there of the Jews nor were the very Indians less religious saith Strabo where he discourseth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Judgements in the other world which likewise 't is reported those in America believed pointing to certain places beyond the mountains as to Elysian Fields where those who had behaved themselves well kept eternal Revels and enjoy'd their repose In all which I finde them to have been much better assured and more confident then even many great Philosophers for having spoken something in favor thereof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which yet they are very cautious of overmuch pressing and it is evident that Cicero exceedingly wavered therein Praeclarâ—m autem nescio quid adepti sunt quod dedicâ—runt se cùm tempus mortis venisset totos esse perituros quod ut ita sit nihil enim pugno quid habet ista res aut Laetabile aut gloriosum and as little assured was the Divine Seneca Et fortasse saith he si modò sapientum verae fama est recipitque nos locus aliquis quem putamus perisse praemissus est But to deliver this vast controversie over to the Divines as touching the Immortality thereof Christians are sufficiently instructed and meer Rationalists as sollidly convinced in that learned aud renowned Piece of the honorable Sir K. Digby It remains onely that we now close with and qualifie the opinion of our Poet who where he treats on this subject intends onely aâ— is conjectured the material soul not the Intellectual which he imagined to be corporeal as consisting of certain concurrent terse and smoth Atomes not much different from those whereof he makes fire to proceed Corporibus parvis levibus atque rotundis which being reduced into a tenuous and delicate Substance easily diffuseâ—h it self throughout the whole mass actuating and furnishing it with all its passions motions and faculties as might be demonstrated more clearly from certain passages in the third Book of our Abstruse Author who if whilst he thought to plant repose and recollection in the mindes of men he believed there was in earnest no Hell or other entertainment of the separated spirits nor therefore respects to be had to the Gods it undoubtedly proceeded from that infinite plurality of Deities Idols and abused fancies of