the poetry and eloquence of ancient literature, we can easily conceive that even a smaller degree of ardour than he possessed would have carried him triumphantly through the labour. In one of his Latin poems he speaks of every moment being engrossed by his books.

Et totum rapiunt me, mea vita, libri.

To his friend Charles Diodati he writes, " It is my way to suffer no impediment, no love of ease, no avocation whatever, to chill the ardour, or break the continuity, or divert the completion of my literary pursuits;" and in another letter to the same correspondent he says, “Do you ask what I am meditating? by the help of heaven, an immortality of fame-but what am I doing? TTEроvw; I am letting my wings grow and preparing to fly, but my Pegasus has not yet feathers enough to soar aloft in the fields of air." His wings were not indeed strong enough to bear him into that lofty heaven of invention which he was hereafter to visit, but they had already carried him to the groves of the Muses. At Horton he is believed to have written the Arcades, Comus, L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, and Lycidas. The Arcades was represented by the grandchildren of the Countess Dowager of Derby, whose mansion, Harefield Place, was situated in the neighbourhood, and who was herself invested with a poetical lustre as the early patroness and theme of Spenser. But his fancy shone out with intenser brightness in the Masque of Comus, which was performed at Ludlow Castle, the residence of the Earl of Bridgewater, the Lord President of Wales. It was founded on the unpromising incident of a lady and her brothers having been benighted and separated while passing through a forest in Herefordshire. For the fiction he may have been partially indebted to the Old

Wives' Tale of George Peele. Kopos, or Revelry, had been already personified by Eschylus, in one of the noblest passages of the Agamemnon, and Ben Jonson had introduced the character into a masque. But the exquisite melody of the versification, and the delicate sweetness of the imagery, were unborrowed.

Equal to the Faithful Shepherdess of Fletcher in the music of the rhythm, it surpasses that charming poem in the richness and variety of its style. Everything breathes of the enchanter; the "cedarn alleys" are freshened by celestial breezes, and the flowers are heavy with "Elysian dew." The grace of the lyric measures obtained the praise of Sir Henry Wotton, who expressed himself delighted with what he called "a certain Doric delicacy in the songs and odes." The foreign idioms in which Comus abounds show that Milton's reading was not confined to classical authors. He had already begun with avidity and delight to feast on Dante and Petrarch, and not even the transparent waters of Ilissus, nor the banks of the Tiber, could detain his footsteps from the streams of the Arno, and the hills of Fæsolæ*.

The original of the lady in Comus was Alice, the eleventh daughter of the Earl of Bridgewater, and who became the wife of the Earl of Carbery, the patron and friend of Jeremy Taylort. Her picture is preserved at Golden Grove, and is said to display all the dignified beauty to be expected in one in whom was visible

the sun-clad power of chastity.

Warburton, in a letter to Birch, expressed an opinion that in Comus there exists a brighter vein of poetry, inter

*See his letter to B. Bonmathæi.

+ See note (M.) Heber's Life of Taylor, p. 318.

mixed with softness of description, than is to be found in the scenes of Eden.

Beattie, in his Brief Recollections of Johnson, informs us that he hated Milton from his heart, and assured him that he never completed the perusal of his works until obliged to do so in order to make collections for his dictionary. "He spoke also," says Beattie, " very peevishly of the Masque of Comus, and when I urged that there was a great deal of exquisite poetry in it, Yes,' said he, 'but it is like gold hid in a rock.' Beattie adds, that he suffered the remark to pass unnoticed, not perfectly comprehending its meaning. Johnson, who found in Dryden a model of poetic excellence, was not likely to appreciate the delicate beauty of a poem addressing itself peculiarly to the imagination; he could admire the strength of a poet's wing, but cared little for its colours. During a period of seventy years these poems received no attention; even the heart of Cowley seems to have been deaf to their music, and the only notice of their existence has been found in the MS. paper of Archbishop Sancroft, who transcribed the Ode on the Nativity, and the version of the 53rd Psalm. The first poetical eye attracted to the volume was that of Pope.

He now began to feel the irksomeness of his prolonged residence in the country, and to sigh for the more frequent enjoyment of the pleasures of learned society in London. "I will tell you," he writes to Diodati, "seriously what I design. To take chambers in one of the inns of court, where I may have the benefit of a pleasant and shady walk, and where, with a few associates, I may enjoy more comfort when I choose to stay at home, and have a more elegant society when I choose to go abroad; in my present situation you know in what obscurity I am buried, and

to what inconveniences I am exposed."

From the seventh Elegy we find that his intentions were partially realized, and that he was enjoying the pleasures of his new situation when the death of his mother, in 1637, changed his plans, and he obtained the consent of his father to make a tour in Italy. Hayley supposes this permission to have been the more readily granted, as one of his motives for visiting the Continent was to form a collection of Italian music. The period of his departure is involved in obscurity. It is, however, certain that he went to Paris in 1638, attended by a servant, and armed with the prudent advice of Sir Henry Wotton. On his arrival at the French metropolis, he was presented by the English ambassador, Lord Scudamore, to the eminent Grotius, who, we are informed by Philips, took the visit kindly, and entertained him in a manner worthy of his genius and reputation. He only remained at Paris a few days, and then proceeded to Nice, where he embarked for Genoa, visiting Leghorn and Pisa in his road to Florence. This city was at that time the resort of many celebrated and accomplished scholars, by whom Milton was received with friendship and esteem, particularly by Carlo Dati, librarian to the Cardinal Carlo de' Medici, who presented him with a very exaggerated tribute of applause. There also he became acquainted with the illustrious Galileo. The romantic story of the poet's interview with the philosopher in the dungeons of the Inquisition, has been disproved by Mr. Walker. Galileo, after his release from confinement in the house of M. Piccolomini at Sienna, in December, 1633, returned to the village of Belloguado, near Florence, and subsequently retired to Arcetri, where Milton probably visited him.

From Florence he went by Sienna to Rome, where he resided two months, feasting his eyes and his mind, as

one of his biographers expresses it, with the fine paintings and antiquities of the country. He was welcomed with great kindness by Leo Holsten, the keeper of the Vatican library, who introduced him to Cardinal Barberini. The virtues and liberality of this learned ecclesiastic Milton has recorded. He was greeted also in a few Latin verses by Salsilli and Selvaggi, and into the poem which he addressed to the former during his sickness, he poured the purest melody of classic song.

From Rome he proceeded to Naples, in company, as he writes, with a "certain recluse," to whom he owed his introduction to the accomplished Manso, the biographer and friend of Tasso. Various unsuccessful attempts have been made to discover the situation of the villa in which Manso received his illustrious guest. All traces of it have long since been washed away by the inroads of the ocean. It stood, we know, on the shore, not far from Naples, adorned with all that art could lavish, and embosomed in delightful gardens*. The surrounding scenery was fraught with poetic associations. The promontory of Misenum, the lovely coast of Baix, and the romantic spots familiarized to every learned eye by the Eclogues of Sannazar, were all, it is probable, within view. Here Tasso continued the Jerusalemme Conquistata, and formed the plan of the Sette Giornate; and here, too, according to the conjecture of Warton, the idea of an Epic poem was probably suggested to Milton. On his departure he presented his amiable host with a Latin poem, which Dr. Johnson remarks must have raised a very high opinion of English elegance and literature among the scholars of Italy.

* See a description of it by Manso, Vita de Torq. Tasso, p. 208. Fra cavalier magnanimi, e cortesi,

Risplende il Manso.-Jerusal. Conquist., c. xx.