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can refuse to any modern the liberty of borrowing from Homer:

a quo ceu fonte perenni

Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis.

His next production was Lycidas, an elegy, written in 1637, on the death of Mr. King, the fon of Sir John King, fecretary for Ireland in the time of Elizabeth, James, and Charles. King was much a favourite at Cambridge, and many of the wits joined to do honour to his memory. Milton's acquaintance with the Italian writers may be discovered by a mixture of longer and fhorter verfes, according to the rules of Tufcan poetry, and his malignity to the Church by fome lines which are interpreted as threatening its extermination.

He is fuppofed about this time to have written his Arcades; for while he lived at Horton he used fometimes to fteal from his ftudies a few days, which he fpent at Harefield, the house of the countess dowager of Derby, where the Arcades made part of a dramatick entertainment.

He began now to grow weary of the country; and had fome purpose of taking chambers in the Inns of Court, when the death of his mother fet him at liberty to travel, for which he obtained his father's confent, and Sir Henry Wotton's directions, with the celebrated

Notwithstanding Dr. Johnfon's affertion, that the fiction is derived from Homer's Circe, it may be conjectured, that it was rather taken from the Comus of Erycius Puteanus, in which, under the fiction of a dream, the characters of Comus and his attendants are delineated, and the delights of fenfualifts expofed and reprobared. This little tract was published at Louvain in 1611, and afterwards at Oxford in 1634, the very year in which Milton's Comus was written.

precept

precept of prudence, i penfieri fretti, ed il vifo fciolto; "thoughts clofe, and looks loofe."

In 1638 he left England, and went first to Paris; where, by the favour of Lord Scudamore, he had the opportunity of visiting Grotius, then refiding at the French court as ambaffador from Chriftina of Sweden, From Paris he hafted into Italy, of which he had with particular diligence ftudied the language and literature: and, though he feems to have intended a very quick perambulation of the country, ftaid two months at Florence; where he found his way into the academies, and produced his compofitions with fuch applaufe as appears to have exalted him in his own opinion, and confirmed him in the hope, that, "by labour and in"tense study, which," fays he, "I take to be my ❝ portion in this life, joined with a strong propensity " of nature," he might leave fomething fo written to after-times, as they fhould not willingly let it die."

It

appears, in all his writings, that he had the ufual concomitant of great abilities, a lofty and steady confidence in himself, perhaps not without fome contempt of others; for fcarcely any man ever wrote fo much, and praised fo few. Of his praise he was very frugal; as he fet its value high, and confidered his · mention of a name as a fecurity against the wafte of time, and a certain prefervation from oblivion.

At Florence he could not indeed complain that his merit wanted distinction. Carlo Dati prefented him with an encomiaftick infcription, in the tumid lapidary ftyle; and Francini wrote him an ode, of which the first stanza is only empty noife; the reft are perhaps too diffufe on common topicks: but the laft is natural and beautiful,

From

From Florence he went to Sienna, and from Sienna to Rome, where he was again received with kindness by the Learned and the Great. Holstenius, the keeper of the Vatican Library, who had refided three years at Oxford, introduced him to Cardinal Barberini: and he, at a mufical entertainment, waited for him at the door, and led him by the hand into the affembly *. Here Selvaggi praised him in a diftich, and Salfilli in a tetraftick: neither of them of much value. The Italians were gainers by this literary commerce; for the encomiums with which Milton repaid Salfilli, though not fecure against a ftern grammarian, turn the balance indifputably in Milton's favour.

Of these Italian teftimonies, poor as they are, he was proud enough to publish them before his poems; though he fays, he cannot be fufpected but to have known that they were faid non tam de fe, quam fupra fe.

At Rome, as at Florence, he ftaid only two months; a time indeed fufficient, if he defired only to ramble with an explainer of its antiquities, or to view palaces and count pictures; but certainly too fhort for the contemplation of learning, policy, or manners.

From Rome he paffed on to Naples, in company of a hermit; a companion from whom little could be expected, yet to him Milton owed his introduction to Manfo marquis of Villa, who had been before the patron of

Here it is conjectured that Milton heard Leonora Baroni fing, a lady whom he has honoured with three Latin epigrams. She and her mother Adriana of Mantua, celebrated for her beauty and exquifite hand on the lute, were deemed the finest fingers in the world. A volume of poems in Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and Spanish, in praife of Leonora, was published at Rome; and there is a fine eulogium on her in the Difcours fur la mufique d' Italie, printed with the life of Malherbe. Vide Bayle, -Art. BARONI. Gen. Hift. of the Science and Practice of Mufic, vol. IV. page 196.

2

Taffo.

Taffo. Manfo was enough delighted with his accom- . plishments to honour him with a forry distich, in which he commends him for every thing but his religion; and Milton, in return, addreffed him in a Latin poem, which must have raised an high opinion of English elegance and literature.

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His purpose was now to have vifited Sicily and Greece; but, hearing of the differences between the king and parliament, he thought it proper to haften home, rather than pafs his life in foreign amufements : while his countrymen were contending for their rights.. He therefore came back to Rome, though the merchants informed him of plots laid against him by the Jefuits, for the liberty of his converfations on religion. He had fenfe enough to judge that there was no danger, and therefore kept on his way, and acted as before, neither obtruding nor fhunning controverfy. He had perhaps given fome offence by vifiting Galileo, then a prifoner in the Inquifition for philofophical herefy; and at Naples he was told by Manfo, that, by his declarations on religious questions, he had excluded himfelf from fome diftinctions which he fhould otherwife. have paid him. But fuch conduct, though it did not pleafe, was yet fufficiently fafe; and Milton ftaid two months more at Rome, and went on to Florence without moleftation.

From Florence he vifited Lucca. He afterwards went to Venice; and having fent away a collection of, mufick and other books, travelled to Geneva, which he probably confidered as the metropolis of orthodoxy.

Here he repofed, as in a congenial element, and became acquainted with John Diodati and Frederick Spanheim, two learned profeffors of Divinity. Fron

Geneva he paffed through France; and came home, after an abfence of a year and three months.

At his 'return he heard of the death of his friend Charles Diodati; a man whom it is reasonable to fuppofe of great merit, fince he was thought by Milton worthy of a poem, intituled, Epitaphium Damonis, written with the common but childish imitation of pastoral life.

He now hired a lodging at the houfe of one Ruffel, a taylor in St. Bride's Church-yard, and undertook the education of John and Edward Philips, his fifter's fons. Finding his rooms too little, he took a house and garden in Alderfgate-ftreet, which was not then fo much out of the world as it is now; and chofe his dwelling at the upper end of a paffage, that he might avoid the noife of the street. Here he received more boys, to be boarded and instructed.

Let not our veneration for Milton farbid us to lookwith fome degree of merriment on great promises and fmall performance, on the man who haftens home, because his countrymen are contending for their liberty, and, when he reaches the fcene of action, vapours away his patriotifm in a private boarding-school. This is the period of his life from which all his biographers feem inclined to fhrink. They are unwilling that Milton

This is inaccurately expreffed: Philips, and Dr. Newton after him, fay a garden house, i. e. a houfe fituate in a garden, and of which there were especially in the north fuburbs of London very many, if not few elfe. The term is technical, and frequently occurs in the Athen. and Faft. Oxon. The meaning thereof may be collected from the article Thomas Farnabe, the famous fchoolmafter, of whom the author fays, that he taught in Goldfinith's Rents, in Cripplegate parifh, behind Redcrofs-ftreet, where were large gardens and handfome houfes. Milton's houfe in Jewin-street was alfo a garden-house; as were indeed most of his dwellings after his fettlement in London. fhould

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