worth reading among his Latin poems. So that it. may be reckoned a peculiar felicity of the Marquis of Villa's life, to have been celebrated both by Tasso and Milton, the one the greatest modern poet of his own, and the other the greatest of any foreign nation".

Having seen the finest parts of Italy, Milton was now thinking of passing over into Sicily and Greece, when he was diverted from his purpose by the news from England, that things were tending to a civil war between the King and Parliament; for he thought it unworthy of himself to be taking his pleasure abroad, while his countrymen were contending for liberty at home. He resolved therefore to return by the way of Rome, though he was advised to the contrary by the merchants, who had received intelligence from their correspondents, that the English Jesuits there were forming plots against him, in case he should return thither, by reason of the great freedom which he had used in all his discourses of religion. For he had by no means observed the rule, recommended to him by Sir Henry Wotton, of keeping his thoughts close and his countenance open: he had visited Galileo, a prisoner to the Inquisition, for asserting the motion of the earth, and thinking otherwise in astronomy than the Dominicans and Franciscans thought: and though the Marquis of Villa had shown him such distinguishing marks of

'See Mr. Warton's note (*) on the Mansus. E.

Rolli considers some ideas in the Paradise Lost, approaching towards the Newtonian philosophy, to have been caught at Florence from Galileo or his disciples. In Firenze certamente

egli apprese dagli scritti e dalle massime del Galileo, invalorite già ne' di lui seguaci, quelle nozioni filosofiche sparse poi nel poema, che tanto si uniformano al sistema del Cavalier Newton, Todd.

favour at Naples, yet he told him at his departure that he would have shown him much greater, if he had been more reserved in matters of religion. But he had a soul above dissimulation and disguise; he was neither afraid, nor ashamed to vindicate the truth; and if any man had, he had in him, the spirit of an old martyr. He was so prudent indeed, that he would not of his own accord begin any discourse of religion; but at the same time he was so honest, that if he was questioned at all about his faith, he would not dissemble his sentiments, whatever was the consequence. And with this resolution he went to Rome the second time, and stayed there two months more, neither concealing his name, nor declining openly to defend the truth, if any thought proper to attack him: and yet, God's good providence protecting him, he came safe to his kind friends at Florence, where he was received with as much joy and affection, as if he had returned into his own country.

Here likewise he stayed two months, as he had done before, excepting only an excursion of a few days to Lucca: and then crossing the Apennine, and passing through Bologna and Ferrara, he came to Venice, in which city he spent a month; and having shipped off the books, which he had collected in his travels, and particularly a chest or two of choice music books of the best masters flourishing about that time in Italy, he took his course through Verona, Milan, and along the lake Leman to Geneva. In this city he tarried some time, meeting here with people of his own principles, and contracted an intimate friendship with Giovanni Deodati, the most learned professor of divinity, whose

annotations upon the Bible are published in English &. And from thence returning through France, the same way that he had gone before, he arrived safe in England, after a peregrination of one year and about three months, having seen more, and learned more, and conversed with more famous men, and made more real improvements, than most others in double the time.

His first business after his return was to pay his duty to his father, and to visit his other friends; but this pleasure was much diminished by the loss of his dear friend and schoolfellow Charles Deodati in his absence. While he was abroad, he heard it reported that he was dead; and upon his coming home he found it but too true, and lamented his death in an excellent Latin eclogue, entitled Epitaphium Damonis. This Deodati had a father originally of Lucca, but his mother was English, and he was born and bred in England, and studied physic, and was an admirable scholar, and no less remarkable for his sobriety and other virtues than for his great learning and ingenuity. One or two of Milton's familiar epistles are addressed to him; and Mr. Toland says, that he had in his hands two Greek letters of Deodati to Milton, very handsomely written. It may be right for scholars now and

See the first note on Epitaph. Damonis. At Geneva also, according to Toland, Milton became acquainted with Frederick Spanheim. In Milton's own account of his return, the name of Geneva recalling to his mind the slanders of Morus, he solemnly declares the unspotted purity of his conduct during his tour in Italy. Quæ urbs, cum in men

tem mihi hinc veniat Mori calumniatoris, facit ut Deum hic rursus testem invocem, me his omnibus in locis, ubi tam multa licent, ab omni flagitio ac probro integrum atque intactum vixisse, illud perpetuo cogitantem, si hominum latere oculos possem, Dei certe non posse. Def. Sec. Pr. W. ii. p. 384. ed. 1753. E.

then to exercise themselves in Greek and Latin; but we have much more frequent occasion to write letters. in our own native language, and in that therefore we should principally endeavour to excel®.

Milton, soon after his return, had taken a lodging at one Russel's, a tailor in St. Bride's Church-yard; but he continued not long there, having not sufficient room for his library and furniture, and therefore determined to take a house; and accordingly took a handsome garden-house in Aldersgate-street, situated at the end of an entry, which was the more agreeable to a studious man for its privacy and freedom from noise and disturbance. And in this house he continued several years, and his sister's two sons were put to board with him, first the younger, and afterwards the elders: and some other of his intimate friends requested of him the same favour for their sons, especially since there was little more trouble in instructing half a dozen than two or three: and he, who could not easily deny any thing to his friends, and who knew that the greatest men in all ages had delighted in teaching others the principles

of knowledge and virtue, undertook the office, not out of any sordid and inercenary views, but merely from a benevolent disposition, and a desire to do good. And his method of education was as much above the pedantry and jargon of the common schools, as his genius was superior to that of a common schoolmaster. One of his nephews has given us an account of the many authors both Latin and Greek, which (besides those usually read in the schools) through his excellent judgment and way of teaching were run over within no greater compass of time than from ten to fifteen or sixteen years of age. Of the Latin, the four authors concerning husbandry, Cato, Varro, Columella, and Palladius; Cornelius Celsus the physician, a great part of Pliny's Natural History, the Architecture of Vitruvius, the Stratagems of Frontinus, and the philosophical poets Lucretius and Manilius. Of the Greek, Hesiod, Aratus's Phænomena and Diosemeia, Dionysius Afer de situ orbis, Oppian's Cynegetics and Halieutics, Quintus Calaber's poem of the Trojan war continued from Homer, Apollonius Rhodius's Argonautics, and in prose Plutarch's Placita philosophorum, and of the Education of children, Xenophon's Cyropædia and Anabasis, Ælian's Tactics, and the Stratagems of Polyænus. Nor did this application to the Greek and Latin tongues hinder the attaining to the chief oriental languages, the Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac, so far as to go through the Pentateuch or five books of Moses in Hebrew, to make a good entrance into the Targum or Chaldee paraphrase, and to understand several chapters of St. Matthew in the Syriac Testament; besides the modern languages, Italian and