Excerpt from The First Book of T. Lucretius Carus of the Nature of ThingsWhatever may be the defects of the translation the merit of the original will admit of no dispute. As a poet, Lucretius is Justly entitled to the first place among the votaries of the Ausonian muse. His work presents us with the most curious monu ment of ancient philosophy. Qit abounds in pro found argumentation, excellent moral re¿ections, and sublime descriptions - descriptions whose bor rowed splendour has shone in the Chaplet of many a poet, and whose beauty every man of taste must admire. Horace and Virgil, both of whom he sur passed in the grand characteristic of genius, invan. Tion, did not scorn to drink from the stream of his song. He excels in beauty and variety, but'he is chie¿y distinguished by a natural ease and simpli city, by a rapid ¿ow and inexhaustible exuberance of arguments on his favourite topic, and by thc'con stant exercise of a conscious superiority approach.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.