Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/388

 378 Journal of Pit Ho logy. require then the preposition ad; and comparing n, L121 Hie natura suis refrenat viribus auctum, and v, 846 Nequiquam, quo- niam natura absterruit auctum, Ncc potuere cupitum cetatis tangire florem, I do not doubt that Lucretius wrote Ut nil ex illis a certo tempore posset Conceptum summum wtatis pervadere ad auctim. The folio Leyden manuscript by a happy chance has marked the exact number of verses, viz. eight, which have been lost after i, 1093. As a casual reader of Lucretius may have perhaps but a confused notion of his argument in this place owing to the stupid negligence of Havercamp and the carelessness of so many previous editors who tacitly adopted Marullus' unmeaning inter- polation, I will venture to supply the eight missing verses. What their general drift was cannot be doubtful. First of all the sentence left incomplete by the words Nisi a terris paulatim cuique cibatum has to be finished ; then must have followed an apodosis to the long protasis begun at 1083 by Prceterea quoniam &c, and this apodosis must have asserted that the argument of the Stoics was not only false as shewn in 10521082, but also self-contradictory ; then must have commenced the Epicurean answer to the whole Stoic argument which began at 1052, and this answer must have joined on to the words Ne volucri riiu flammarum #c. This then is the way I would presume to com- plete what is wanting : 1094 dcedala sufficiat rerum natura creatri.r, scilicet incerto diversi errore vagantes argumenta sibi prorsum 2)itgnantia Jingitnt. Quce tamen omnia sunt falsa ratione recepta. nam quoniam docui spatium sine fine ntodoque inmensumque patere in cunctas uudique partis, sic parili ratione necesse est auppeditetur infinita etiam vis undique material, 1102 ne volucri ritu flammarum, &c. II. M.