idi LEAVES THEY HAVE TOUCHED. 



bound in calf witli gilt edges, and it has stamped on its sides in gold 

 the escutcheon of the Kembles, surrounded, in the style of mediaeval 

 seals, by a Gothic border and an outer rim bearing the legend 

 Johannes Philippus Kemble. 



I next produce a volume which there is some reason to think 

 contains a few words in the handwritiag of Milton. Genuine auto- 

 graph scraps of John Milton are not uncommon. It is known that 

 he was in the habit of annotating with his pen the books which he 

 used. In the first volume of the Museum Criticum several papers 

 are occupied with emendations made, the editor says, " singulari 

 judicio et exquisita eruditione," found in the margin of his copy of 

 Euripides, ed. Paul Stephanas. And in 1871, I observe a Pindar 

 was about to be sold by Sotheby in London '■ filled with annotations 

 in the poet's handwriting." In the library of Trinity College, Cam- 

 bridge, the visitor is shown the original manuscript draught of Comus 

 and Lycidas. It is a copy of Florio's Worlde of Words that contains 

 the briefly written sentences which I am about to transcribe. The 

 handwriting strongly resembles Milton's, as shewn in the facsimiles 

 lately given by Prof. Masson in his Life and Times of Milton, and 

 the facsimile inserted at the beginning of Prof. Morley's little book, 

 entitled TJbe King and the Commons, to show the genuineness of an 

 epitaph lately discovered in MS. with the initials "J. M." subscribed, 

 which certainly seems to be the composition of Milton. Recalling the 

 poet's early interest in Italy, it is likely that he would possess himself 

 of a copy of Florio's Wo7'lde of Words, which is in reality an Italigm 

 Dictionary : then, three complimentary sonnets at the opening of the 

 volume, each of them having at the foot the Italian signature II 

 Candido, which would arrest the attention of the author of the II 

 Penseroso. Into the mystery of this II Candido he would naturally' 

 look, especially as the sonnets are not bad. He finds, on inquiry, 

 that it is an English or rather a Welch name Italianized, and he 

 makes a note of the discovery opposite to the signature at the end of 

 the first sonnet. In doing so he employs the following words, whicli 

 we can easily conceive to be Milton's, from their scholarly tone of 

 gratified curiosity, as they seem also to be, as I have said, from the 

 handwritiag: " Gwin his name was," the commentator writes, "whicl) 

 in Wellsh signifieth white, and therefore calleth himselfe II Candido, 

 which is white in Italian." Again, the first sonnet is addressed " To 

 the Bight Honourable Roger Earle of Rutland, &c. ■" to this the same 



