ues of
Plato's, appears to have been derived by Socrates from the popular
unphilosophic traditions, from Folk-lore in short, and to have been
raised by him to the rank of "pious opinion," if not of dogma. Now,
Lucretius represents nothing but the reaction against all this dread of
future doom, whether that dread was inculcated by Platonic philosophy or
by popular belief. The latter must have been much the more powerful and
widely diffused. It follows that the Romans, at least, must have been
haunted by a constant dread of judgment to come, from which, but for the
testimony of Lucretius and his manifest sincerity, we might have believed
them free.

Perhaps we may regret the existence of this Roman religion, for it did
its best to ruin a great poet. The sublimity of the language of
Lucretius, when he can leave his attempts at scientific proof, the
closeness of his observation, his enjoyment of life, of Nature, and his
power of painting them, a certain largeness of touch, and noble amplitude
of manner--these, with a burning sincerity, mark him above all others
that smote the Latin lyre. Yet these great qualities are half-crushed by
his task, by his attempt to turn the atomic theory into verse, by his
unsympathetic effort to destroy all faith and hope, because these were
united, in his mind, with dread of Styx and Acheron.

It is an almost intolerable philosophy, the philosophy of eternal sleep,
without dreams and without awakening. This belief is wholly divorced
from joy, which inspires all the best art. This negation of hope has
"close-lipped Patience for its only friend."

In vain does Lucretius paint pictures of life and Nature so large, so
glowing, so majestic that they remind us of nothing but the "Fete
Champetre" of Giorgione, in the Louvre. All that life is a thing we must
leave soon, and forever, and must be hopelessly lapped in an eternity of
blind silence. "I shall let men see the certain end of all," he cries;
"then will they resist religion, and the threats of priests and
prophets." But this "certain end" is exactly what mortals do not desire
to see. To this sleep they prefer even _tenebras Orci, vastasque
lacunas_.

They will not be deprived of gods, "the friends of man, merciful gods,
compassionate." They will not turn from even a faint hope in those to
the Lucretian deities in their endless and indifferent repose and divine
"delight in immortal and peaceful life, far, far away from us and
ou