MILTON. 



307 



Mmon. was formed of prose dialogue ; Mid the attraction of 

 > ~~T^ which, to its spectators, probably depended much up- 

 on the spectacular show produced by machinery. But 

 the poem, which was Milton's part of the entertain- 

 ment, discovers a kindred, though inferior lustre of fan- 

 cy to Counts. The Mask of Comut was acted before 

 the Earl of Bridgewater, the President of Wales in 

 KJSt, at Ludlow Castle, and the character of the lady 

 and the brothers were played by the Lady Alice Eger- 

 ton and her two brothers, the sons of the Earl of Bridge- 

 water. The story of the piece is said to have been 

 suggested by the accident of the Lady Alice having 

 one night lost herself in the Forest of Hay wood. Dr. 

 Johnson ascribes the origin of Comut to Homer's story 

 of Circe ; Hayley, however, has made it appear proba- 

 ble tint it was derived from the Comus of F.rycius 

 Fatcanus, which was republitbed at Oxford in the 

 very year in which Milton's Comus was written. The 

 degy Lycidai was written in 1637, on the death of 

 Edward King, one of the fellows of Cambridge, and 

 the ton of Sir John King, secretary for Ireland, in the 

 reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Charles. The vessel 

 in which he sailed from Chester fur Ireland was lost in 

 calm tea, and not far from land. His memory was 

 so highly esteemed by hi* university, that almost all 

 the versifiers of Cambridge paid him a tribute. This 

 was the last of Milton's works written whilst he re- 

 sided at Morton with his father. L' Allegro and II 

 Ptnteroio were probably written but a short time ear- 

 lier. Notwithstanding their Italian titles, they afford 

 genuine English landscapes. They seem the works of 

 a mind happy in every sense of the word. They are 

 little worlds f imagination, exhibiting, as it were, in 

 fairy and concentrated miniature, the whole horizon 

 of our pleating or pensive associations. They have the 

 truly angelic inspiration of feeling of happiness, 

 which they breathe and communicate both with and 

 without gaiety. For Milton's melancholy man is at 

 enviable a being as his cheerful one. 



In his 30th year, with the concurrence of his father, 

 he resolved upon an excursion to the Continent, . 

 with a view to the clastic region of Italy. On the in- 

 timation uf his design, he received a letter from the 

 celebrated Sir Harry Wotton, who had resided at Ve- 

 nice as ambassador from James the First, and was now 

 Provost of Eton. The compliment which Sir Harry 

 pays to tome of the poetry of Milton, which he had 

 lately received from him, and to which he confesses 

 that in its kind he had seen nothing parallel in our 

 language, is remarkable, as perhaps the earliest token 

 of superlative admiration which can be found to have 

 been paid to his poetical genius. Certainly, at the 

 time of his leaving England, we have no proofs of his 

 general celebrity at home being in any degree equal 

 to his genius. It is in Italy that we begin to perceive 

 him adequately appreciated. He left England in 1638, 

 Htended by a single servant. At Paris we only learn 

 that he saw Grotius, but have no means of ascertain- 

 ing with what mutual sentiments they impressed each 

 other. He proceeded from Paris to Nice, and em- 

 barking from thence to Genoa, proceeded through 

 Leghorn and Pita to Florence, at which place he re- 

 mained for two months. He had studied the language 

 and literature of Italy with the deepest attention, and 

 thus accomplished, he soon obtained admission into the 

 literary academies of the Florentines ; became the ob- 

 ject of their admiration, and the subject of their enco- 

 miums, which he says the Italian is not forward to be- 



stow on men this side the Alps. Carlo Dati, Antonio Milton. 

 Francini, Gaddi, Frescobaldo, and several other men, v ""V 

 very respectable in Italian literature, were among his 

 eulogists and almost worship) 



A work entitled " La Tina," by Antonio Malatesti, 

 was dedicated to him whilst at Florence; and the de- 

 dication of a work of even moderate merit to a stran- 

 ger passing hastily through the place, and distin- 

 guished by neither wealth nor political importance, 

 argues Milton to have then acquired no ordinary cele- 

 brity. The Italians thought so highly of his know- 

 ledge of their own language, that the academy Delia 

 Crusca consulted him on the verbal niceties of Italian. 

 During bis visit to Florence, he saw and conversed 

 with Galileo, at that time a victim of ignorance and 

 cruelty, having been imprisoned fur his philosophi- 

 cal views by the Inquisition, and greatly reduced 

 by sickness and mental distress. From Florence 

 Milton passed through Siena to Rome, where he 

 spent other, two months. Here the kindness of Hol- 

 stensius opened to him the curiosities of the Vatican, 

 and introduced him to Cardinal Barberini, who at that 

 time possessed the whole delegated authority of Rome, 

 under his uncle Pope Urban the Seventh. At a great 

 musical entertainment which this opulent churchman 

 gave, Barberini looked for our traveller among the 

 crowd at the door, and brought him, as Milton says, 

 almost by the hand into the assembly *. At Home he 

 was praised in Latin epigrams by Salsilli and Silvaggi. 

 He continued his route from thence to Naples, and 

 falling into company with a hermit upon the road, was 

 by him, from whom such a service could be least ex- 

 pected, introduced to the celebrated Man-o. the p.itroii 

 and biographer of Tatso, who received him with flat- 

 tering kindness and attention. The freedom with 

 which Milton expressed himself on religious subjects 

 was the only circumstance which deprived him of an 

 unlimitcdly free and intimate communication with this 

 venerable nobleman, a circumstance which Mans* 

 himself commemorated in a well-known epigram. 

 Undoubtedly the complimentary offerings of the Ita- 

 lians to Milton are not distinguished by merit as com- 

 positions, but we must regard them as the hasty though 

 sincere effusions of men seeking to express their im- 

 mediate feelings of enthusiasm, and not attending to 

 what they wrote with the anxiety of authors writing 

 for reputation. From a passage in Milton's address 

 to Manso, we discover, what he also mentions in one 

 of his subsequent political writings t, that he already 

 cherished the project of some great poetical work, 

 " fhich he ihauld leave to mri/ten to a/'tcr-timcs, that 

 t key should not willingly let it die." 



The plan of his intended travels extended to Sicily 

 and Greece ; but as he was preparing to depart for 

 Sicily, he received letters acquainting him with the 

 near prospect of a civil war in England. He esteemed 

 it dishonourable to be abroad whilst his fellow-citizens 

 were contending for liberty at home. He revisited 

 Rome, however, and staid alto at Naples for two months, 

 excepting a few days which he passed at Lucca, the 

 native place of the Deodati, the family of his beloved 

 school-fellow of that name. From Florence he cross- 

 ed the Appennines, and travelled through Bologna and 

 Ferrara to Venice, where he staid a month, viewing the 

 curiosities of the renowned city. Having provided 

 for the safety of the books which he had collected in 

 Italy, by procuring a place for them in a vessel bound 

 to England, he pursued his returning course by Verona 



Ip* me In tnt tanfe* 

 t Rcuoni for 



*d tom expecunt, et pew mind prehsMon, 



iotro kdmueriu puf FamiL 



