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 Setta 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.

He was preparing to extend his travels into Sicily and Greece, when the rumour of commotions in his native country induced him to relinquish the project, for he thought it, he said, disgraceful to roam in a foreign land while his fellow-citizens were contending for their liberties at home. His movements, however, were not very rapid. Retracing his steps to Rome, he remained there two months, and then resumed his journey through Florence, Lucca, the original seat of the family of his friend Diodati, and Venice, where he lingered a month, probably engaged in the arrangement of the collection of books and music which he shipped from that port for England. From Venice he passed on to Verona, along the lake Leman to Geneva, which Johnson supposes him to have regarded as the metropolis of orthodoxy. Here he acquired the friendship of John Diodati and Frederick Spanheim, the father of the well-known antiquary; and continuing his route through France, he arrived in England after an absence of fifteen months.

He returned with his stores of learning enlarged, his virtue unblemished, and his love of the noble and the good strengthened and confirmed. Among a people with whom severity of manners was unknown, he conducted himself as became the future Homer of his country; ever remembering, as he declared, that although it may be possible to escape detection of man, from the eye of the Almighty nothing is hidden. An unguarded expression of his religious opinions appears to have been his only indiscretion. In the fervour of his zeal the maxim of Sir Henry Wotton was either forgotten or despised. "I laid it down," he says, as a rule for myself never to begin a conversation on religion in these parts, but if interrogated concerning my faith, whatever might be the consequence, to dissemble

nothing. If any one attacked me, I defended in the most open manner, as before, the orthodox faith for nearly two months before, in the city even of the sovereign pontiff." The freedom of his strictures was not unattended by inconvenience, and even his liberal friend Manso was obliged to diminish his attentions towards him. His appearance and manner at this period are recorded in the eulogistic epigram addressed to him by Manso, who found nothing but a change of religion necessary to his perfection.

Dr. Johnson has ridiculed the rapidity of Milton's return to England, but we learn from a manuscript entry in the Bible which is supposed to have been his companion in Italy, how deep an impression the troubles of the time had made upon his mind. "This year of very dreadful commotions and I weene will ensue murderous times of conflicting fight." This remark is dated from Canterbury, and Mr. Todd conjectures it to have been written by the poet while on his road from Dover to London. The fact of the Bible alluded to having belonged to Milton has been doubted, but the arguments against its genuineness are far from conclusive. The perilous condition of his native land was not his only affliction.

The intelligence of the death of his schoolfellow and friend Charles Diodati also contributed to sadden his feelings. On this occasion he composed the Epitaphium Damonis, a poem condemned by Johnson for being written with the childish imitation of pastoral life. But the pastoral form he assumed after his Italian models, and in this instance its employment ought not to be regretted. The common topics, Warton observes, are recommended by a novelty of elegant expression; some passages wander

* Second Defence of the People, p. 884, ed. Burnet.

far beyond the bounds of bucolic song, and are in his own original style of the more sublime poetry. Cowper thought it equal to any of Virgil's Bucolics.

On his arrival in London he hired a lodging in St. Bride's Churchyard, Fleet-street, at the house of a tailor named Russell, and took upon himself the education of his two nephews, John and Edward Philips, who remained with him between five and six years. His residence not proving sufficiently commodious for his library, which his journey to Italy had materially enlarged, he removed to a garden-house in Aldersgate-street, in those days one of the most quiet and retired situations in the metropolis. These garden-houses were generally chosen by the poet. Here he tells us that he renewed with rapture his literary pursuits. He also increased the number of his pupils, among whom was Sir Thomas Gardiner of Essex. The system of education he adopted has been considered by an excellent writer deep and comprehensive, and calculated to combine the acquirement of science with language; but surely the agricultural skill of Columella, the medical researches of Celsus, the military tactics of Frontinus, and the geography of Dionysius, could prove of small practical benefit, and as models of composition they were more than useless. Philips, with honourable enthusiasm, asks, if his pupils had received his instruction with the same acuteness of wit and apprehension, the same industry, alacrity, and thirst after knowledge, as the instructor was indued with, what prodigies of learning might they not have become! If we are to believe Aubrey, Philips and his brother did not discredit their master; they are said to have been enabled in the space of a year to interpret a Latin author at sight." The name of the author is not specified. One part of his method,-the diligent instruc

tion of his pupils in religion, cannot be too highly commended. Every Sunday was devoted to theology, of which he dictated a short scheme chiefly gathered from the writers then in use in the Dutch universities. He also explained a chapter in the Greek Testament.

We are now entering upon a period of the poet's life which cannot be contemplated without sorrow. At the assembling of the Parliament in November, 1640, the animosity against the bishops began to assume a more threatening aspect. Milton, willing, as he says, to help the puritans, who were inferior to the prelates in learning, and impelled by the desire of introducing a new form of ecclesiastical government, published, in 1641, A Treatise of Reformation touching Church Discipline, relinquishing, he informs us in the Second Defence, all other pursuits, and transferring all the force of his talents and industry to this one important object. The clamour of the puritans was directed principally against what they denounced as the innovations of Laud, although it has been clearly shown that all the ceremonies enforced by that unfortunate prelate were contained in the ritual of Bishop Andrews.* Laud, in the vindication of his conduct before the Star Chamber, ridiculed with indignation the ferocious outcry against innovations, raised by men who only sought to demolish the ancient institutions of the land that they might elevate their own fantastic structures upon their ruins.

About the same time the learned Bishop Hall, a name dear to all who admire eloquence or revere piety, published, at the instigation of Laud, A Humble Remonstrance in favour of Episcopacy. To this appeal a reply was

* See Todd's Life of Milton, 2nd ed. p. 44.