Lucretius was a contemporary of Julius Cæsar, as Epicurus was a
contemporary of Alexander. Dr. Masson has read all about Lucretius and
everyone else who lived in those stirring times. In going through such
critical disquisitions it is difficult to avoid the attraction or the recoil
from a host of commentators. In this respect it is to be wished that Dr.
Masson had less modesty or more self-reliance. In quoting the “opinions of
the highest living authorities” on Cicero and Cæsar, he in many places gives
us a set of stepping-stones instead of a bridge. While we wish to get into
the times of Lucretius, the notes entering into small controversies
continually drag us down to the mediocrities of the present age. We know not
whether Dr. Masson's wide reading, wandering from Plato to Shelley and
Victor Hugo, will add interest to the book with the readers of the twentieth
century. We hope, however, that in another edition Dr. Masson may have the
courage to sweep away most of his footnotes, as a carpenter, having finished
his work, sweeps away his shavings. At the same time it would be unfair to
deny that this excursive part of the work is often well written. At any rate
our review will be confined to Lucretius and his philosophy. Of the poet
himself we know scarcely anything save a few traditions loosely gathered by
Eusebius. He was said to have become insane by a philtre given by his wife
or mistress, and to have written his wonderful poem at sane intervals, and
to have died by his own hand at the age of forty-four. His poem
De Rerum Natura is dedicated to Memmius, who
gained the rank of tribune and praetor, and took side against Cæsar in the
civil war.