E PICURUS and Lucretius, the one nursed in the very cradle of refinement and philosophy, born among a people in whom genius, taste, and intellectual beauty seemed to be hereditary, and universally diffused; the other, a member of the patrician order, in whose mind the flames of genius burned with their clearest lustre, gifted from nature with a strong and penetrating judgment; that genius, and that judgment, fostered and matured by all the learning his age and country afforded. Yet, with all these brilliant talents and powerful advantages, those extraordinary men, un-illumined by the beams of a divine dispensation, lacking the ministration of a celestial gos gospel; seduced, the one by his own delusive theory, and the other by the adventurous enthusiasm of his genius, and his idolatrous admiration of Epicurus, were betrayed into a labyrinth of error, and wandered with blind and misguided steps through the pathless wilderness of a visionary and treacherous philosophy. We condemn, while we admire; but compassionate, while we condemn. cause he did not create, and fashion to their present form, the materials requisite for the erection of the structure, as withhold from Epicurus the eulogia he is justly entitled to, as the founder of the philosophical fabric exhibited with such strength and majesty, such rich and brilliant colouring, such lucidus ordo, in the splendid production of the Roman Pa trician. The Epicurean system was arranged in a triplicate division of parts; the Canonical, the Physical, and the Ethical. The Canonical included the rules by which the judgment was to be guided in its discriminations; and the senses, pas sions, and anticipations, were constituted, in defiance of logical argoment and deduction, the sovereign arbiters of our conceptions and reasonings. Sensual perception is infallible in its apprehensions, perpetually veracious in its information to the intellect: the faithful minister of the mind, and invariably furnishing it with correct and indubitable reports of all external objects, whether palpable to the touch-cognizable by the sight-ascertainable by the taste-sub servient to the hearing-or demonstrable by the smell. All opinion, as resulting from images which the mind creates to itself, independent on exterior evidence, is subject to the jurisdiction of sense; and its truth, or fallacy, hangs in the balance of material demonstration. The sovereignty of sense over the operations of intellect, is absolute and paramount; governing the impulses of mind with limitless controul, and immutable in its decisions: the speculative conclusions of the mind indispensably require the corroboration of sensual testimony; harmoniously ar It has been contended, that Epicurus was not the author of the Philosophical System, which for twenty centuries has been recognized by the appellation of Epicurean: if it be admitted, that from the works of Democritus, he drew the Principia of the Atomic or Corpuscular Doctrine; it will assuredly be granted, that he was the first who collected, arranged, and combined them into a well-ranging with the deductions of sense, digested system, and extended their application to the universal forms, changes, combinations, and phenomena of nature, ananate and inanimate. In Democritus, he most probably discovered just so much as sufficed to stimulate a mind in itself great, ardent, and reflective, to the extension of its enquiries into a broader, deeper, and more lengthened channel of investigation, and fuller developement of those principles which, in his conception, constituted the secrct, but all powerful springs, and sources of motion in the immense machine of the universe; and with as reasonable a pretext, in viewing some extraordinary specimen of architectural genius and skill, might we deteriorate the powers of the artist, be 3 they stand on a secure and indestructible foundation; clashing with the unerring dictates of sensate evidence, their frail and rebellious nature sinks in the confict, and perishes beneath the omnipotence of their adversary. The Physical deduces all material ex istence from the conjunctions of Atoms; those minute and final resolutions of substance, which are indivisible and eternal in their nature-furnishing to perpetuity the varieties of being-sustaining, preserving, and renovating the boundless regions of creation. These, dispersed and wandering through the immensity of space, descending by their gravity through the vacuous medium, meeting, concussing, rebounding-attracting, ar ranging 1813.] Translation of Lucretius. 519 ranging, combining-at length concurred his wishes and pursuit; but the first in the formation of innumerable worlds and systems, progressively increasing, changing, and again relapsing to their primitive and corpuscular essences. Such, according to Epicurus, is the unchange. able order of things; the universe is incessantly diminished by the flight of some of its constituent particles, perpetually renovated by fresh supplies of auxiliary seeds. The Ethical treats on what I may, not inaptly, denominate the moral law -the code of virtue-or pleasure-vice -or pain the immutable canons establishing the boundaries of right and wrong-illuminating the paths of felicity with the divine lustre of truth, and guiding the sage in his pursuit of genuine happiness, by the clear and unchangeable light of virtue. "Pleasure is the sovereign Good." All pleasure hath its origin in virtue. The most virtuous individual will con sequently enjoy the greatest share of pleasure. All pleasure, unalloyed by pain, or vice, constitutes a state of happiness, All pain, uumingled with pleasure, is obnoxious to felicity, and sedulously to be shunned. All pleasure, precluding a more exquisite delight, or attended with an over balancing pain, becomes a comparative evil, and is to be avoided. All pain, banishing a greater pain, or producing an excess of pleasure, becomes a comparative good, and is to be embraced. I have thus presented an abstract of the Atomic System. I have adopted the Scholastic arrangement, as I imagined that to be the mode in which I could exhibit to your notice a more concise, faithful, and lively sketch of the Epicurean Philosophy; and here I would wish to observe, that the too general credence in the viciousness of these doctrines, does not appear to have any foundation in the doctrines themselves; and our abhorrence of Epicurus, seems to have arisen from the false, may I not say, malicious, representations of some, and the confined, partial scrutiny of others; both these descriptions of enquirers proceeded upon the same basis; both discovered that Epicurus placed the supreme good in pleasure; that plea sure was to him, "The Deity and guide of life;" the perpetual and legitimate object of MONTHLY MAG. No, 241, would not, the second could not, per ceive, that, in the Epicurean system, pleasure is unattainable but by the exercise of virtue; that in proportion as we become virtuous, we become happy; that virtue is the pure and virgin spring from whence arise the streams of genuine pleasure; that pleasure and virtue, pain and vice, are synonyma in the philosophy of Epicurus;-maintaining an eternal and unalterable alliance with each other, and held, and bound together by bonds as strict and infrangible as those of his own atoms. I now enter upon the consideration of the topics enlarged upon in the first book of "The Nature of Things." We have to contemplate in Lucretius, the union, in an astonishing degree, of the poet and the philosopher; characters that, in general, stand in direct and open hostility to each other. Commencing with an invocation to Venus, the divine guardian, and tutelary divinity of Rome, he celebrates her power, supplicates her benign aid in the prosecution of his arduous enterprize, and implores her intercession with Mars to restore the blessings of peace to the distracted world. Much objection has been raised against Lucretius for invoking, and in the beginning of his poem, the assistance of a celestial patroness; and this objec tion is founded on the Epicurean rejection of all divine interposition in human and mundane concerns. The Abbé de St. Pierre expresses himself on this point in the following terms: "Je n'en dirai pas d'avantage sur ce poete; l'exorde de son poeme en est la refutation." Without stopping to admire the exquisite beauty and sublime pathos of this delightful exordium, we will endeavour to rescue Lucretius from the hypercriticism employed on this occasion. Can we possibly imagine that the clear and luminous mind of the patri. cian, would have deviated into an excess, which must have shaken to disso lution the very system in whose defence the poem was expressly composed? Shall we not rather admit, that, as Lucretius was a poet, he had a justifiable and felicitous recourse to poetical imagery; and that, combining the licence of poetical fiction with philosophical precept, he identified the power of universal ge neration, with the person and attributes of the Paphian divinity? He then proceeds, and inscribes the poem 3E 314 Practice of Lithotomy in the 13th Century. poem to Memmius Gemellus; announces the nature of his theme in simple, but majestic strains; and cautions his friend not to condemn his principles on trivial grounds, but give all the strength and energy of his mind to the due consideration of a subject so weighty and important. And now we enter the vestibule of the Epicurean sanctuary. The gods, (for their existence is positively and fully affirmed) are boldly asserted to dwell in eternal and unruffled tranquillity; possessing in their own pure natures, all the constituents of divine felicity; receiving no delight from the virtues, and manifesting no indignation at the vices of mankind: but this disjunction of divine and human interests, abolishing the superintendence of a celestial providence, required the substitution of an influence that should supply the absence of superhuman controul. The genius of Epicurus foresaw and obviated this important objection; pleasure being the supreme good, and virtue the medium of its at tainment, the most exalted sumulus was thus imparted to the heart of man, impelling him to the pursuit of whatever is just, noble, dignified, and honourable to his nature. The sublimely-awful portrait of Superstition, glaring from the heavens, and frowning disasters on a terrified world, is assuredly one of the happiest and most daring allegories that were ever engen. dered in the mind of a poet; and the subjoined eulogium of Epicurus, who is represented as scaling the empyrium, fathoming with a glance the profoundest mysteries of nature, crushing the fetters with which for ages she had shackled the human mind, and subduing the monster to mortal controul, glows with the richest colouring of genius, and forms the first of those magnificent excursions in which Lucretius delights to indulge whenever his subject will permit. How artfully, yet with what apparent unaffectedness and simplicity, has he wrought up that inimitable picture of Iphigenia! with what melting touches of passion, with what pomp of grief. has he decorated the afflicting scene! Appealing to our reason, through the medium of our affections, we admire, we sympathize, with the poet, the philosopher, the philanthropist: the pathetic narrative diffuses the light of illustration over the philosophical text, and the beart co-operates with the understanding in the just and inevitable conclusion. 1 (June 1, I have dwelled more at large upon these instances of the sublime and plas tic genius of Lucretius, as they appeared to stand the most prominently forward in the course of the book; constituting dis. tinct separate pictures, and exhibiting m union the magic of poetry and the powers of philosophy. We are now introduced to an imme. diate discussion of the Epicurean principles, in the course of which Lucretius passes a splendid eulogium upon Ennius, the first of the Latin poets who descanted upon the nature of the soul; laments the incompetency of the Roman language to the just treatment of a subject so novel and imp important; but, urged by his friend. ship for Memmius, declares his resolution to prosecute his arduous enterprize; as. serts the eternal existence and imperishable nature of matter; insists that nothing could spring from, and again return to, nothing; and deduces the origin of all things from pure simple Catholic seeds, producing, by their junctions, combinations, arrangements, and changes, the innume. rable diversities and phenomena of exis tence; proclaims that nature perpetually revolves through one unvaried circle of generation, decay, and reproduction: elucidates and justifies his theory in a dauntless strain of confidence in the strength of his powers, and with a vas variety of arguments, occasionally unan swerable, always ingenious; couched in the most clear forcible language; and enriched with the splendours of genius. In his progress he attacks with much keetness the igneous doctrine of Heraclitus, and the systems of those philosophers who referred the birth of all things to air, water, and fire; opposes and severely censures the doctrine of Anaxagoras; contends in sublime and vigorous verse for the infinite extension of the universe, above, below, around; combats the theory of central gravitation; denies the exis tence of antipodes; and concludes with a concise, but energetic, eulogium on philosophy or reason, by whose clear and all illuminating beams the profoundest arcana of nature are disclosed to our view. To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. U SIR, PON reading the "Extracts from the Portfolio of a Man of Letters," in your Magazine for last month, the arti cle of "Dissection" particularly attract ed my attention, from an observation therein made as to an operation made by 18.13.] : Ancient Perfection of Welsh Surgery. the surgeons of Paris in 1474, that it was "the first probably ever made for the stone." This brought to my recollection an extract from a Welsh manuscript, which I inserted in the second volume of a work called the "Cambrian Register," and as that manuscript bears all the genuine marks of being about two centuries older than the year 1474, your giving it a place may probably excite the curiosity of your inedical readers. I therefore send you the original Welsh, exactly copied, with the literal translation annexed, as follows: "Maen dioti. a "Lithotomy. Maen calet mal hyn A hard stone, in y gvaredir lle dioter. this way shall relief kymryt fon ac dodi be given when it is ymblyc y arreu ac extracted; Take odyna dodi yddvy stick and place it in -vreich omyvn yarren the bend of the paac eu plygu yvynyd tient's hams, and am y fou a rvymav then place his two taleith am y dden arms within his hams, arddvrn ac am y war and turn them updy ddodi ay dor yvy-wards round the nyd afeth uchel dan stick, and tye a ban. y ddvyclun ac or parth dage round his two asseu yr dy wysen diot wrists and over his y maen. ac odyna y neck, and place him dodi mywn ennein with his belly up. dvfyr y dyt honny a ward, with somethrannoeth y myvn thing high under his ennein dvfyr yn gyn-hips, and from the taf a gvedy hynny left side of the pubes myvn ennein gyffeith. extract the stone, ac oddyna y ddodi and afterwards put myvn y wely ay dor the patient in a wa yvynyd a sychu y we-ter bath that day, li a dodi llin ac eme- and the next morn nyn hallt vrthav ay ing in a water bath gynnal yn yr ardyni- first, and after that mer hvnnv yny vyper in a confecture bath, addiagho ay adel nos- and out of that lay veith a dydgveithkyn him in his bed, with gvneuthur y weith his belly upward, and heb vuyt ac heb lyn clean his wound, and ae dodi myvn en- apply lint, with salt nsin," butter, to it; and keep him in that state until it shall be known whether he will escape. He is to be left for a night and a day, be. fore performing the operation, without meat and without drink, and to be put into a bath." The above-mentioned manuscript, with a few others, is lodged in the Welsh school in Gray's Inn Lane, London, under the wame of "MEDDYGON MYDDVAI," or the Myddvai Doctors, and, by its or 315 thography, appears to have been written about the year 1300. Dr. Davies quotes this book frequently in his dictionary; and begives some account of those doctors under the word Myddfai; and therein he also quotes Dav. ab Gwilym, a poet of the fourteenth century, as celebrating their skill in healing. Edward Llwyd, in his Arch. Britann. in the catalogue of ancient British writers, tells us that there is a copy of the said book of Meddygon Myddvai in the Red Book of Hergest, in Jesus College library at Oxford; and also that there was a copy on parchment borrowed by Dr. Davies, in 1634, of Mr. Mansell, of Margam, in Glamorganshire. There are several other copies of it, some imperfect, and some to which are added the works of others. May 3, 1813. MEIRION. To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. A SIR, SHARP contest lately took place among the worthy members of a Book-society, near the metropolis, in the course of which some of them charged the committee with fraud and peculation; and after hostilities had been carried on in verse and prose, with great acrimony, for many months, it was agreed to refer the points in dispute to me. As the circumstances were of a very peculiar nature, and involved some principles capable of extensive application, an account of them cannot fail to interest your intelligent readers. The society in question consisted of thirty members, each of whom subscribed a pound per annum. The books, after being circulated among the members, were sold, at the end of every year, for a third of their first cost, as appeared on taking the average of 20 years. They had produced in that time a few shillings more than 2001, the subscription of 301. per annum going on regularly. It appeared, however, that notwithstanding this large nominal accumulation of capital, the committee had been unable in any one year to expend more than 451. Some of the members, not of the committee, contended therefore that the vast surplus had been embezzled or wasted in tavern expenses; this the committee warmly denied, and hence arose the feud which I was requested to adjust by an examination of the accounts. I confess that in the first instance I was impressed with a notion that the committee of this society had been guilty of the crime usually imputed to all com3E2 mittees The series for ONE HALF was as 30£ original subscription. 30+15 = 45 30+22=52 mittees and delegated bodies, and, in con- On reducing the constitution of this society's funds to paper, I found a mathematical series generated, which NEVER COULD EXCEED 451. per annum, while it would for ever approximate that amount by a continually decreasing fraction of the smallest coin in the realm. It was evident therefore that if the committee had expended 451. per annum, they had performed the duty of faithful stewards; and that in successive years the society's funds wou'd amount as under, on the principle of subscribing 30l. regularly, and selling their stock for a third, to be added to every new subscription: And so on, constantly approaching to 451. but never amounting precisely to that sum. In the 7th year it was within five pence of 45l., and in the 10th year within the seventh of a farthing, but it never would equal that sum. Arithmeticians will perceive that the numerator of the fraction will always be 5 short of the denominator, while the denominator itself will be an increasing power of 3. I very easily therefore adjusted the dispute among the worthy members of the society; but in so doing doing I had made a dis 30+264564 30+284 = 58 30+29=59층 30+29=59号 so that if the books produced one half, the fund would approximate indefinitely to DOUBLE the original subscription, and in ten years would be within five pence of double; but it never would amount to double, because the numerator would al. ways be 15 short of the denominator, and the latter would constantly increase in a power of 2. The series for ONE FOURTH would be as under: 30£ original subscription. And so on, constantly approaching to 40l. and never exceeding it, the numerator being always 5 short of the deno minator, and the latter a power of 4. The series of one FIFTH would be as under: 30£ original subscription. 30+7737125 And so on, approximating to £37 10s. and never exceeding it; double the numerator being 3 short of the denomi nator, and the latter a perpetual power of 5. Hence it appears that BOOK SOCIETIES, having an annual subscription of 301. and selling their books for ONE HALF, may have an income approximating to 601.; for ONE THIRD, approximating to 451.; for ONE FOURTH, approximating to 40%.; and for ONE FIFTH, approximating to 371. 10s. which sums by their law of increase they can never exceed, nor indeed equal, A little consideration in regard to the phenomena of these series, led me to infer, that probably some similar laws of uniform increase and decrease operate universally |