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performed by her grand-children at this feat, called Harefield-place. It seems to me, that Milton intended a compliment to his fair neighbour, (for fair she was,) in his L'Allegro:

"Towers and battlements it fees
"Bofom'd high in tufted trees,
" Where perhaps fome Beauty lies,
"The Cynofure of neighbouring eyes."

The woody scenery off Harefield, and the personal accomplishments of the Countess, are not unfavourable to this supposition; which, if admitted, tends to confirm the opinion, that L'Allegro and Il Penferoso were compofed at Horton.

The Mask of Comus, and Lycidas, were certainly produced under the roof of his father. It may be observed that, after his retirement to private study, he paid great attention, like his master Spenser, to the Italian school of poetry. Dr. Johnson obferves, that "his acquaintance with the Italian writers may be discovered by the mixture of longer and shorter verses in Lycidas, according to the rules of Tufcan poetry." In Comus the sweet rhythm and cadence of the Italian language is no less obfervable. Of these poems, as of his other works, the reader will

• See the preliminary Notes to Arcades, in the fifth volume of this edition, pp. 147, 148. and Arcades, ver. 14, &c.

See Lysons's Middlesex, 1800. Harefield, p. 108.

find critical opinions in their respective places. I must here observe that the house, in which Milton drew fuch enchanting scenes, was about & ten years since pulled down; and that, during his refidence at Horton, he had occafionally taken lodgings in London, in order to cultivate mufick and mathematicks, to meet his friends from Cambridge, and to indulge his paffion for books.

On the death of his mother in 1637, he prevailed with his father to permit him to vifit the continent. This permission Mr. Hayley supposes to have been "the more readily granted, as one of his motives for visiting Italy was to form a collection of Italian musick." His nephew Philips indeed relates, that, while at Venice, he shipped a parcel of curious and rare books which he had collected in his travels; particularly a chest or two of choice mufick-books of the best masters flourishing about that time in Italy. Having obtained fome directions for his travels from Sir Henry Wotton, to whom he had communicated his earnest defire of seeing

• As I have been obligingly informed by letter from the prefent Rector of Horton.

See Sir Henry Wotton's Letter to him, and the Notes, in the fifth volume of this edition, p. 177, &c. A romantick cir. cumstance of Milton's juvenility has been publickly mentioned, which has been supposed to have formed the first impulfe of his Italian journey. In the General Evening Posts in the Spring of

foreign countries, he went in 1638, attended with a single servant, to Paris; where, by the favour of Lord Scudamore, he was introduced

1789 it is supposed to have appeared; in which, however, I have not been so fortunate as to discover it. Possibly in some other publick Paper it may be found. The reader will be highly gratified in finding the anecdote clothed in the following elegant dress:

" In fultry noon when youthful MILTON lay,
"Supinely stretch'd beneath the poplar shade,
"Lur'd by his Form, a fair Italian Maid
"Steals from her loitering chariot, to survey
"The slumbering charms, that all her foul betray.
"Then, as coy fears th' admiring gaze upbraid,
"Starts; and these lines, with hurried pen pourtray'd,
" Slides in his half-clos'd hand; - and speeds away.-
Ye eyes, ye human stars! - if, thus conceal'd

By Sleep's soft veil, ye agitate my heart,
Ah! what had been its conflict if reveal'd

• Your rays had shone!'- Bright Nymph, thy strains impart
"Hopes, that impel the graceful Bard to rove,
" Seeking thro' Tuscan Vales his visionary Love,
"He found her not; -yet much the Poet found,
"To swell Imagination's golden store,
"On Arno's bank, and on that bloomy shore,
"Warbling Parthenope; in the wide bound,
"Where Rome's forlorn Campania stretches round
" Her ruin'd towers and temples; -classick lore
"Breathing sublimer spirit from the power
"Of local confciousness. Thrice happy wound,

"Given by his fleeping graces, as the Fair
• Hung over them enamour'd, the defire

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Thy fond refult inspir'd, that wing'd him there, "Where breath'd each Roman and each Tuscan Lyre, "Might haply fan the emulative flame,

"That rose o'er DANTE's song, and rivall'd MARO'S

" fame."

Original Sonnets &c. by Anna Seward, 1799, p. 76.

to Grotius. Of this interview, although the numerous letters of Grotius afford no trace, Milton's nephew gives the following account; Grotius took the visit kindly, and gave him entertainment suitable to his worth and the high commendations he had heard of him.

Having been presented, by Lord Scudamore, with letters of recommendation to the English merchants in the several places through which he intended to travel, he went, after staying a few days in Paris, directly to Nice, where he embarked for Genoa. From Genoa he proceeded to Leghorn, Pisa, and Florence. The delights of Florence detained him there two months. His compositions and conversation were so much admired, that he was a most welcome guest in the academies, (as in Italy the meetings of the most polite and ingenious persons are denominated,) held in that city. He has affectionately recorded the i names of these Italian friends;

" Tui enim Jacobe Gaddi, Carole Dati, Frescobalde, Cul. telline, Bommatthæe, Clementille, Francine, aliorumque plurium memoriam apud me semper gratam, atque jucundam, nulla dies delebit." Defenf. fec. Profe-Works, vol. iii. p. 96. edit. 1698.

It is to one of these friends that he professes his love of the Ita. lian language. "Ego certè iftis utrisque linguis [Greek and Latin] non extremis tantummodo labris madidus; fed, fiquis alius, quantum per annos licuit, poculis majoribus prolutus, possum tamen nonnunquam ad illum Dantem, et Petrarcam, aliofque vestros complusculos, libenter et cupidè comessatum ire." Epift. B. Bom mathes. Profe-Works, vol. iii. p. 325. ed. 1698.

and has expressed his obligations to their honourable distinctions. Dati presented him with a Latin eulogy; and Francini with an Italian ode. A few years fince, Mr. Brand accidentally discovered on a book-stall a manufcript which he purchased, entitled La Tina, by Antonio Malatesti, not yet enumerated, 1 fays Mr. Warton, among Milton's friends. It is dedicated by the author to John Milton while at Florence. Mr. Brand gave it to Mr. Hollis, who, in 1758, sent it together with Milton's works, both in poetry and profe, and his Life by Toland, to the Academy Della Crufca. The manufcript, as Mr. Warton obferves, would have been a greater curiofity in England. Milton became acquainted also with the celebrated Galileo, whom many biographers have represented as in prison when the poet visited him. But Mr. Walker has informed me that Galileo was never a prifoner in the inquifition at Florence, although a

* Rolli has made the following remark on the commendatory notices of his countrymen. "Offervissi nelle lodi dagl' Italiani date a questo grand Uomo; com' essi fin d' allora scorgevano in lui l' alta forza d' Ingegno che lo portava al primo Auge di gloria letteraria nel suo Secolo e nella sua Nazione; e gliene facevano gli avverati Prognostici." Vita di Milton, 1735.

Dennis pays much compliment to the difcernment of the Italians who discovered, while Milton was among them, his great and growing genius. See his Original Letters, &c. 1721, vol. i. p. 78, 80.

Milton's Smaller Poems, 2d edit. p. 555. But Milton men. tions this friend in a letter to Carlo Dati, Epist. Fam. x.

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