So, too, the peacock, saturate with sun
O'er all its sweep of trailing tail, is seen
To quiver in the light with varying dyes,
And all the hues inconstant in its eyes.'

And that we have all been formed out of lifeless atoms,

'Then learn

That what of us was taken from the dust
Will surely one day to the dust return;
And what the air has lent us heaven will bear
Away, and render back its own to air.'

Concerning the mind, he writes,

Again,

First, then, I say, the mind, which often we
Call also understanding, wherein dwells
The power that rules our whole vitality,
Is part of man, as is whatever else

Goes to make up his frame, as hands, feet, knees;
Nor is it, as a foolish Greek school tells,

A harmony of all the members, spread
As health is, everywhere from feet to head.
It follows, then, that when this life is past,
It goes an outcast from the body's door,
And dies like smoke along the driving blast.
We with the flesh beheld it born and rise

To strength; and with the flesh it fades and dies.'

'Even in the body thus the soul is troubled,

And scarce can hold its fluttering frame together;
How should it live, then, when, with force redoubled,
Naked it feels the air and angry weather?
For why should souls, if they can cast away
Their mortal carcasses, and still live on,
Thus toil to build themselves a den of clay?
Since when with bodies they are clothed upon
They straight grow heirs to sickness and decay,
And through them all the body's grief is borne.'

In his description of the senses, he thus illustrates the illusions of vision:

'The ship in which we sail seems standing still,
And those that ride at anchor drifting by;

And, when we hold to seaward, field and hill

Seem to drop far astern; and in the sky
The stars we steer by seem immovable,

And yet go moving on assiduously.'

And the philosophy of sound as follows,—

'Now, to proceed, you need not wonder how

It is that voices come and beat the ears

Through things through which the eyesight cannot go ;
Because of this the reason plain appears—

Full many a thing that lets the voice go through,
The visual film to a hundred pieces tears,
'Tis of so fine a texture.'

Of the imperfections of the world he writes

'But even had the science ne'er been mine
Of first beginnings, and how all began,

I could show clearly that no power divine
Helped at the work, and made the world for man;
So great the blunders in the vast design,

So palpably is all without a plan.

For if 'twere made for us its structure halts

In every member, full of flaws and faults.

Look at the earth; mark then, in the first place,
Of all the ground the rounded sky bends over,
Forests and mountains fill a mighty space,
And even more do wasteful waters cover,
And sundering seas; then the sun's deadly rays
Scorch part, and over part hard frosts prevail,
And nature all the rest with weeds would spoil,
Unless man thwarted her with wearying toil.
Mark, too, the babe, how frail and helpless, quite
Naked comes it from its mother's womb,
A waif cast hither on the shores of light,
Like some poor sailor, by the fierce sea's foam
Washed upon land, it lies in piteous plight,
Nor speaks; but soon, as it beholds its home,
Bleats forth a bitter cry, oh meet presage

Of its life here, its woeful heritage.'

k

Having described the heavens as formed from igneous ether, he proceeds,

'And this same ether rising, in its wake

Full many a seed of vivid fire up-drew.

Thus when we see the low red morning break,

Along the grasses rough and gemmed with dew,

Does a grey mist go up from off the lake,

And from the clear perennial river too;

And even at times the very meadows seem

From their green breasts to breathe a silvery stream.'

Next came vegetation,―

'In the beginning, then, the clods gave forth
All kinds of herbage, and a verdant sheen
Was glossy on the hills; and flowery earth
Laughed over all her meadows glad and green;
Then bushes thick, and trees of greater girth,
Orderly rising into air were seen;

Which things came forth spontaneous everywhere,
Like a bird's feathers, or a horse's hair.'

'But hardier far than we were those first races
Of men, since earth herself did them produce,
And braced them with a firmer frame than braces
Us now, and strung their arms with mightier thews.
Nor sun nor rain on them left any traces,

Nor sickness. And they never learnt the use
Of arts for ages; but like beasts they ran
Wild in the woods, the early race of man.

Their strong arms knew not how to guide the plough,
Or how to plunge the spade, and till the plain,
Or from the trees to lop the failing bow.

But what the sun had given them, and the rain,
They took, and deemed it luxury enow;
Nor knew they yet the fatal greed of gain;
But in the woods they sought their simple store,
And stripped the trees, and never asked for more.'

Passing on to explain the origin of storms, he says,

'For do but note what time the storm-wind wild
Comes carrying clouds like mountains through the air;
Or on the mountains' sides the clouds are piled
Motionless, and each wind is in its lair,

Then may you mark those mountain masses proud,
And huge caves built of hanging rocks of cloud.'

He also tells how

'The mighty thunderbolt

Goes through the walls of houses like a shout;'

and the causes of most of the other phenomena of nature. Treating, lastly, of diseases, the poem concludes with an appalling picture of the great plague at Athens, as described by Thucydides, when death seized those who neglected their sick, and

'They too who stayed to tend the beds of death,
Themselves anon were seen to droop and die,
Drawing infection from the tainted breath
That thanked them for their kindness piteously.'

Mallock.

Thus it will be seen that, though full of scientific teaching, there is very little poetry in his verses; but still there are several very picturesque descriptions, always true to nature, and indications of great powers of observation and imagination. On the other hand, many of his theories are crude and imperfect, and some of his conceptions puerile and absurd.

Unsatisfying, however, as his philosophy is, it serves to teach us how little real advance has been made by modern thinkers in solving the great mystery of life, and how much that pertains both to our present and future existence altogether passes man's understanding.

CÆSAR.

DIED B.C. 44.

M

OST persons of any education are more or less familiar with the name of Julius Cæsar, as the invader of Britain, and afterwards the first Roman Emperor. His 'Commentaries' are memoirs written by himself, descriptive of his campaigns in various parts of Europe, first against the enemies of Rome, and afterwards, from the time when he crossed the Rubicon, as an aspirant for supreme power in opposition to the actual rulers of the Republic. Unlike other historians he wrote only of what happened under his own eyes, and of his own deeds; and with his works it may be said that the certainty of modern history commences. It is also the generally acknowledged opinion of mankind that, of all men whose deeds are known, there is none whose name is so great as that of Julius Cæsar. Born of a noble family, he held successively all the higher offices of State, until, at the age of forty-one, he became Consul, and, with Pompey and Crassius, formed the first triumvirate. The following year he succeeded to the government of Gaul and Illyria, and it was from this period that · he commenced the notes from which his Commentaries were composed. His style of writing is described by Cicero as simple, straightforward, agreeable, and free from rhetorical ornament. It is, however, so condensed that thrice as many words are needed in translating as he used, and skipping, or hurrying through any portion, are out of the question. The