ledge of it, that he was frequently consulted respecting its niceties by the Academy della Crusca, instituted expressly for its preservation and improvement. So strong was his attachment to Italian literature, that, in a letter to Bene. Bonmatthei, in which he offers some advice to that author, then on the point of publishing an Italian grammar, he declares that "neither Athens herself, with her lucid Ilissus, nor ancient Rome, with the banks of her Tiber, could so entirely detain him, as to prevent him from visiting with fondness' the vale of the Arno and the hills of Fesolé." During this visit to Florence, he saw the great Galileo, and conversed with that mcmorable victim of priestly ignorance and superstition. For his philosophical opinions, which were supposed to contradict the assertions of the Holy Scriptures on the subject of the earth's figure and motion, this illustrious man had been imprisoned for five months by the Inquisition; and was now resident near Florence in a state of aggravated infirmity from age, sickness, and mental distress. * Nec me tam ipsæ Athenæ Atticæ, cum illo suo pellucido. fisso, nec illa vetus Roma, suâ Tiberis ripâ, retinere valuerunt, quin sæpe Arnum vestrum, et Fasulanos illos colles invisere amem. Epis. Fam. P.W. vol. vi. 118. "There it was (in Italy) that I found and visited the fa Rolli, the Italian biographer of Milton, supposes that, from his intercourse with the Tuscan astronomer the English poet gained those ideas, approaching to the Newtonian, respecting our planetary system, which he has discovered in the Paradise Lost. If this supposition be just, it must be the subject of our surprise, as it is of our regret, that a system, which, resolving the phænomena of the heavens with so much simplicity, would enforce the conviction of any philosophic and acute mind even without the demonstration of Newton's mathematics, should not have obtained our poet's entire assent, and thus have saved him from that awkward halting between two opinions, which incidentally disfigures a few pages of his immortal epic. On his leaving Florence, where he staid, as we have observed, two months, our traveller proceeded through Sienna to Rome. In this city of old and of modern renown, the mistress of the world, at one time, by her arms and laws, and of Europe, at another, by her policy and the engine of perverted' religion, he passed two months in the contemplation of the wonders of her ancient and mous Galileo, grown old, a prisoner to the Inquisition, for thinking in astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and Dominican licensers thought." A speech for unlicensed printing. P. W. v. 1. 313. modern art; and in the society, made more interesting by the friendship of her scholars and great men. The kindness of Holstenius, the learned keeper of the Vatican library, not only opened to him the curiosities of that grand repository of literature, but introduced him to the attentions of the Cardinal Barberini, who at that time possessed the whole delegated sovereignty of Rome under his uncle, Urban VIII. At a great musical entertainment which this opulent Cardinal gave with a magnificence truly Roman, he looked for our traveller among the crowd at the door, and brought him, almost by the hand, into the assembly. These benefits and favours were not forgotten by him; and the letter, which he addressed to Holstenius from k i Tum nec aliter crediderim, quam quæ tu* de me verba feceris ad præstantissimum Cardin. Franc. Barberinum, iis factum esse, ut cum ille paucis post diebus d'xpiaua illud Musicum. magnificentiâ verè Romanâ publice exhiberet, ipse me tantâ in lurbâ quæsitum ad fores expectans, et penè manu prehensum persanè honorificè intro admiserit. Epist. Fam. P. W. vol. vi. 120. * Mr. Todd, the industrious and faithful editor of Milton, has mentioned, on the authority of a MS. of Dr. Bargrave, that, at this time, every foreign nation had a particular guardian assigned to it at Rome in the person of one of the Cardinals; and that Barberini was the appointed guardian of the English. V. Todd's Life of Mil. p. xxviii. • Holstenius. Florence, constitutes their acknowledgment and requital. If he was honoured with lavish panegyric by Francini and Dati at Florence, he was celebrated in a strain of equal, though more compressed praise, by Salsilli and Selvaggi at Rome; by the former in a latin tetrastic, and by the latter in a distich. At his next removal we shall see our traveller distinguished by still more lofty compliment, in the vehicle, indeed, of still inferior verse: and for that opportunity we shall reserve any observations, which may be suggested to us by the subject. At present we will transcribe, and, according to our usual practice, translate the two Roman productions for the amusement of our readers. Cede Meles; cedat depressâ Mincius urna, At Thamesis victor cunctis ferat altior undas; SALSILLI. Meles, and Mincius! now more humbly glide! Græcia Mæonidem, jactet sibi Roma Maronem; SELVAGGI. Greece, boast your Homer's, Rome, your Maro's fame! It was not long before the English bard was supplied with an opportunity of repaying to one of his Roman panegyrists the debt of praise, which had been thus contracted. On the occasion of Salsilli's illness, Milton sent to him those scazons, which are rich in poetic imagery, though inaccurate in their metrical construction. The concluding part of this short poem is highly beautiful, and deserving of insertion. O dulce divûm munus! O Salus Hebes Libenter audis, hic tuus sacerdos est. Ipse inter atros emirabitur lucos Numa, ubi beatum degit otium æternum, H |