and fixed its light in the splendid monument which he has reared in his works. *

Inheriting from his father, who was noted among the composers of the age, a genius for music, he became, as we may readily suppose, attached even in childhood to the sweet and mysterious union of harmony and verse.—

"Now say, what wonder is it, if a son

Of thine delight in verse, if so conjoined
In close affinity, we sympathize

In social arts, and kindred studies sweet?
Such distribution of himself to us

Was Phoebus' choice; thou hast thy gift, and I

Mine also, and between us we receive,

Father and son, the whole inspiring God."

Ad Patrem. Cowper's trans.

Could the boy of promise fail to be a darling? It is stated upon the authority of Aubrey, that his portrait was taken by Jansen, when he was only ten years of age, and we are informed that he was even then a poet. The invaluable relic is now in the possession of the Hollis family of England. The first printed poem of Milton, and it is a fact not universally known by his admirers,--was prefixed to the folio edition of Shakspeare's Plays, in 1632.

"An Epitaph on the admirable dramatic Poet, W. Shakespeare.
"What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones,
The labour of an age in piled stones,

Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid

Under a star-y pointing Pyramid?

Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,

What needs't thou such weak witness of thy name?

Thou in our wonder and astonishment

Hast built thyself a livelong monument.

For whilst to th' shame of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easie numbers flow, and that each heart
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book,
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took,
Then those our fancy of itself bereaving,

Does make our marble with too much conceaving;
And so sepulcher'd in such pomp dost lie,

That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.”

The Elegies composed in imitation of Ovid, are little known to the great body of readers, and the translation of Cowper gives but a faint idea of the glowing richness of the original. The concetti of the Latin poet, whom he selected as a model, were more in accordance with the taste of the times, than with the sober judgment of the youthful author; and the productions of

We have ventured to repeat the idea of Plato and Lucretius, who deduce a figure from a game of Grecian boys. Γεννώντες και εκτρέφοντες παίδας, καθαπερ λαμ πάδα τον βιον παραδιδοντες άλλοις εξ αλλων. (Plato, Leg. lib. vi.)

"Et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt."

his more mature age, are not marred by the recurrence of such faults as the blindest admirer must discern in the metrical version of the Psalms, and the Ode on the death of a fair infant. We begin to feel the power of a mighty master, when touching upon a favourite theme in the "Vacation exercise," he speaks of a subject,

"Such when the deep transported mind may soar
Above the wheeling poles, and at heaven's door,
Look in and see each blissful deity," &c.

In turning over hastily these remnants of the poet's correspondence, we have been led to take a new interest in his travels upon the continent of Europe. During this period of absence, those intimacies were formed which gave rise to his epistolary intercourse with foreign scholars; and some of his most interesting letters were penned in Italy. If the tourists of the seventeenth century had found as many willing readers of their diaries, as those of the present day, we should not have been left to repine that we have so meagre an account of Milton's transalpine journeys. Obscure as he seems to have been at home, he found, under the smiling skies of Italy, enthusiastic admirers. We cannot but wish that the single servant who accompanied him, had filled his portmanteau with notes upon his conversation. We might have found instruction in the interview with Grotius at Paris, and even more in that with the unfortunate Galileo. We might have exulted in the eulogies of Carlo Dati, Antonio Francini, Gaddi, Frescobaldo, and Barberini. All these men, who were distinguished in their native country, ranked themselves among his most ardent admirers. In the couplet of Salvaggi, we find the germ of the celebrated epigram of Dryden:

"Græcia Mæonidem, jactet sibi Roma Maronem, Anglia Miltonum jactat utrique parem."

Manso, the celebrated biographer of Tasso, has left in his verses an implied testimony to the heretical tenets of Milton :

"Ut mens, forma, decor, facies, mos, si pietas sic,
Non Anglus, verum hercle angelus ipse fores."

We presume upon the interest which our readers may be be supposed to feel in this article of literary history, when we insert the following extract from the writings of Milton himself. The passage is taken from the midst of his most acrid and scornful invective against one of his opponents, and is in a manner interpolated among the harsh and vindictive paragraphs of a controversy well nigh forgotten:

"After having spent five years in this manner, (in literary seclusion,) I set out upon my travels, after my mother's decease, and with the consent of my father, being desirous of visiting foreign lands, and especially Italy. Upon my depart

ure, the illustrious Sir Henry Wotton, long the ambassador of King James at Venice, in a most friendly manner honoured me with an elegant epistle, filled with good wishes and counsel truly important to one going abroad. In consequence of various recommendations, I was courteously received by the noble Thomas Scudamore, Viscount Sligo, ambassador of Charles I. at Paris, and was introduced by him in person, and in company with some of his retinue, to the learned Hugo Grotius, a man whom I much desired to see, at that time ambassador of the Queen of Sweden to the King of France. On resuming my journey, after some days, towards Italy, the same nobleman gave me letters to the English merchants upon my route, that I might thus avail myself of their assistance. Embarking at Nice, I visited Genoa, Leghorn, and Pisa, and afterwards Florence. In the city last mentioned, which I have ever esteemed above others, for the elegance of its dialect and its genius, I remained about two months. I there speedily acquired an intimacy with many noble and learned men, and was assiduous in my attendance upon their private academies, (conversazione) a commendable institution of the place, for the cultivation of friendship as well as letters; and no time can obliterate the grateful and delightful remembrance of such men as Giacomo Gaddi, Carlo Dati, Frescobaldo, Cultellino, Bonmattei, Clementilli, Francini, and many more. From Florence I went to Siena, and thence to Rome, the antiquity and venerable fame of which detained me about two months, and after having enjoyed the polished society of Luke Holstein, and many men of genius and learning, proceeded to Naples. I was there introduced, by a certain hermit who accompanied me from Rome, to the Marchese Giovanni Battista Manso, a noble and dignified man, to whom Tasso, the illustrious poet of Italy, addressed his epistle concerning friendship. While remaining there, I enjoyed a most friendly intercourse with him; he was my guide in examining the various parts of the city, and the palace of the viceroy, and frequently visited me at my lodgings. When I was about to depart, he said, by way of apology, that while he was desirous of showing me more offices of kindness, it was not possible, in that city, on account of my want of reserve on religious subjects. The melancholy tidings of the civil war in England recalled me from my desire of passing into Sicily and Greece; for I deemed it dishonourable to be wandering at leisure for my personal gratification, when my countrymen at home were contending for liberty. Before returning to Rome, I was informed by certain merchants, that they had been advised by letter, that plots were formed against me by the English Jesuits, in expectation of my visiting that city again; and that this was the consequence of my having spoken too freely concerning religion. My determination, however, was to utter nothing of my own accord in these places, upon religion, yet, at every hazard, to use no dissimulation when questioned as to my belief. I nevertheless returned to Rome: if any one asked me what I was, I attempted no concealment, and even in the city of the Pontiff, during the space of three months, if any one attacked the Orthodox faith, I defended it as heretofore with freedom of speech. Through God's mercy I reached Florence in safety, and found my friends as ready to welcome me, as if I had returned to my own country. After remaining there as long as before, with the exception of a few days' absence upon a visit to Lucea, I crossed the Appenines, and travelled by the way of Bologna and Ferrara to Venice. One month was spent in surveying this city, and in shipping such books as I had procured in Italy; and I then proceeded through Verona and Milan, over the Alps, and by the Leman lake to Geneva. At this place I was daily in the company of John Diodati, the learned professor of theology. By the same route as before, after an absence of about fifteen months, I returned to my country, almost at the moment when Charles, who had violated his league with the Scots, was renewing what is called the Episcopal war."-Defensio Secunda, pp. 95, 96.

The letter from Sir Henry Wotton, mentioned in the extract just given, is happily preserved, and we subjoin the closing sen

tences:

"At Siena I was tabled in the house of one Alberto Scipioni, an old Roman

courtier in dangerous times, having bin steward to the Duca di Pagliano, who with all his family were strangled, save this only man that escaped by foresight of the tempest: with him I had often much chat of those affairs; into which he took pleasure to look back from his native harbour and at my departure towards Rome (which had been the centre of his experience) I had wonn confidence enough to beg his advice, how I might carry myself securely there, without offence of others, or of mine own conscience. Signior Arrigo mio, says he, I pensieri stretti, ed il viso sciolto, will go safely over the whole world: of which Delphian oracle (for so I have found it) your judgment doth need no commentary; and therefore, Sir, I will commit you with it to the best of all securities, God's dear love, remaining your friend as much at command as any of longer date."

We took occasion to observe in passing, that the treatise from which these details are gathered, is a work in which the author appears as the acute and satiric controvertist. The man who was capable of writing in a strain of such bitter sarcasm as that which appears on every page of the works against Salmasius and Du Moulin, would be likely at times to exhibit something of the same keen-edged wit in his ordinary conversation. He was a master in both the kinds of humour mentioned by Cicero, cavillatio and dicacitas; and while in his earlier writings, the exhibitions of these talents is free from all rancour, yet, when opposition and blindness and old age had soured his disposition, he became "audacior ad jocandum," (Cic. de Orat. 1. ii. c. 71.) and seems to have allowed himself every license in abuse. The Academical Prolusions show something of the lambent play of original hilarity; but when he vindicates the republicans of Britain, and defends the cause to which he had devoted all his powers, he becomes fearful in his bitter satire, and pours out upon the learned Frenchman, and the unfortunate Scot, (who was only the publisher of the offensive work) the vials of his scalding indignation.

The Defensio Secunda has appeared within a few years in an English dress, and with all its acrimony and occasional grossness of personal attack, deserves still to be perused by all who take pleasure in tracing the development of character, as affording a view of this versatile mind, which will be new to those who are acquainted only with the works in the vernacular tongue. The ill-fated More, who was concerned in the publication of the "Cry of the Royal Blood to Heaven," was a man of licentious manners, and had become notorious, from the connexion in which he stood to a certain Pontia, who belonged to the household of Salmasius. The opponents of Milton had not confined themselves to strictures upon his writings and opinions, but had calumniated his life, ridiculed his person and habits, and scoffed at his afflictions. But here they had mistaken the temper and powers of their antagonist, and he retorted their sarcasms with the boldness of one proudly conscious of qualities acknowledged to be great and honourable. The poet, absorbed in heavenly

musings, would naturally be a man of peace; yet now he shows that his quiet had been the repose of strength, and not the torpor of imbecility. "Equidem cum nullas omnino simultates aut inimicitias ullo cum homine privatas geram, neque ullas quod sciam, mecum gerat, tot in me maledicta jactari, tot probra torqueri, reipublicæ duntaxat causâ, non mea, eo æquo animo fero." Def. Sec. p. 91.-He had been compared by Du Moulin to the Cyclops, and the unfeeling taunt was pointed with the wellknown verse, "Monstrum horrendum," &c.

"Although," says he, "it ill becomes any man to speak of his own person, yet when even on this point an opportunity is given to render thanks to God, and to repel defamation, I will speak, lest as the priest-ridden and too credulous Spaniards think concerning heretics, some should imagine me to be a dog-headed monster or rhinoceros. So far as I know, I have never been thought deformed, by any who have beheld me; whether comely or the reverse, is of less moment. In stature, I own that I am not gigantic, yet more nearly approaching mediocrity than smallness. Yet even if diminutive, as some of the greatest men in peace and war bave been, why should that be stigmatized as contracted, which is great enough for every virtuous purpose."

We refer our readers to the eloquent and pathetic passage in which he asserts his purity of life, and replies to the cruel charge, that his blindness was a judicial infliction of divine wrath. In the letter to Philaras, a learned Athenian, we have a minute description of his loss of sight, which closes with these characteristic words:

"Whatever hope the physician may gather from this account, I prepare and compose myself, under the consideration that I am certainly incurable. And I often think, that since the days of darkness, to which every man is destined, are, as the wise man warns, many; that mine, by the great mercy of providence, happening in the midst of leisure, and studies, and the conversation and salutations of my friends, are much brighter than the shades of death. But if, as it is written, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, why should not any one submit for this reason also that he can see not only with his eyes, but that the leading and providence of God is sufficient sight. Truly, if He take care of me—if He provide for me-which He does, and lead me by the hand, and accompany me through life, I shall willingly permit my eyes to be unemployed."

The supposed author of this defamation is made the victim of unrelenting satire, and has all the vileness of his life exposed to public view; while Milton rings all the changes upon his name, and registers the forgotten sins of his youth. The name Morus, which is the Latin for a mulberry tree, affords ample room for the paronomasia. Speaking of the amours of the susceptible Scot, he says, "Jamque ut olim Pyramus in morum, ita nunc repente Morus in Pyramum transmutatus sibi videtur, Genevensis in Babylonium."

"In one of his political works he expresses his consolation that his blindness threw him more directly on the protection of Providence; and asserts that he was fond of considering the darkness which veiled his sight as rather the shadow of the protecting wing of the Almighty, than the loss of vision."

VOL. V.-No. 10.

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