"P. S. Sir, I have expressly sent this by my foot-boy to prevent your departure without some acknowledgment from me of the receipt of your obliging letter, having myself through some business, I know not how, neglected the ordinary conveyance. In any part where I shall understand you fixed, I shall be glad and diligent to entertain you with home-novelties, even for some fomentation of our friendship, too soon interrupted in the cradle."

Not long after the receipt of this letter he began his journey; and, accompanied only by a servant who attended him through the whole of his travels, proceeded immediately to Paris; where he was received with distinction by Lord Scudamore, the ambassador from England. By this nobleman he was introduced, with much honorable attention, to the famous Grotius; whom he had expressed a particular desire to see, and who then resided in the capital of France as the minister of Christina, the eccentric queen of Sweden. Were we able to ascertain with precision all the circumstances of this interview between two extraordinary men, eminently raised above the level of their species by their talents and their attainments, we should probably acquire nothing from our knowledge to excite our wonder, or, if our expectations were high, to save us from disappointment. In the formality and

64 Nobilissimus vir, Thomas Scudamorus, Parisiis humanissime accepit; meque Hugoni Grotio viro eruditissimo, quem invisere cupiebam, suo nomine et suorum uno atque altero deducente, commendavit.-Def. Sec. P. W. v. 231.

coldness of a first meeting, and especially where one party would be restrained by the consciousness of having much to lose and the other by the felt impropriety of pressing upon established rank and reputation, no great display of erudition or brilliant interchanges of fancy were likely to take place. Compliments requited with civilities; some inquiries respecting the traveller's plans, and some advice on the subject of their execution constituted perhaps the whole of the conference between these two memorable men.

After the delay only of a few days at Paris, our traveller renewed his progress and,

"fired with ideas of fair Italy,"

pursued the direct road to Nice; where a vessel, readily procured by the letters which he brought from Lord Scudamore to the merchants, received and landed him at Genoa. From this city he passed immediately through Leghorn and Pisa to Florence; and on the banks of the Arno, rendered famous by the purity of the Tuscan language which was spoken on them and by the learning and talents that frequented them, he made what may be considered as his first pause.

Here he resided during two months; and his conversation and manners soon introduced him into the high and literary circle, where he speedily made himself the object of very general admiration. He obtained admission into those private academies, which had been instituted under the genial patronage of the Medici for the advancement of literature, and for the cementing of

66

friendships among its votaries. In these assemblies, in which "it was the custom" 65 (as he tells us) "that every one should give some proof of his wit and reading," many of his productions, either those of his younger years or "those ", which he had shifted in scarcity of books and conveniencies to patch up among them," were received with much applause, " and with written encomiums, which the Italian is not forward to bestow on men of this side the Alps."

It was at this time that Carlo Dati, a nobleman of Florence, and Antonio Francini, of a rank only one step lower, both men of talents and literary renown, presented our traveller with an offering of their respect; one in an Italian ode of considerable merit, predicting his future greatness, and the other in a Latin address, in which admiration is expressed in terms of extreme and almost extravagant panegyric.

Beside the two whom we have now mentioned, the English bard could number on the list of his friends, conciliated by his learning, talents, and manners, the respectable literary names of Gaddi, Frescobaldi, Coltellino, Buonmattei, Clementillo, and Malatesti ". The applause and the respect, which he obtained, seem to have been unlimited; and the transalpine scholars appear to have been lost in surprise at the spectacle, presented to them,

65 The Reason of Church Gov. P. W. i. 119.

66 Ibid.

67 A work called "La Tina," (or the "Wine-Press,") by Antonio Malatesti, and dedicated to Milton while at Florence, was found on a bookstall and purchased by Mr. Brand. He gave it to Mr. Hollis, and Mr. Hollis sent it, with Milton's works and his life by Toland, in 1758 to the Academy della Crusca.

G

of a native of Britain, a country just emerging, as they imagined, from barbarism, who to an acquaintance, not superficial, with all the sciences united a profound knowledge of classic and Italian letters; whose mind was at once sublime and deep, accurate and comprehensive, powerful and acute; patient to follow judgment in the gradual investigation of philosophical truth, yet delighted to fly with the more aërial offspring of the brain on the high and expatiating wing of imagination. Of all his rare accomplishments and talents, however, none perhaps would more forcibly strike the attention and win the regard of the Italians than his absolute command of their language, and the affection which he discovered for it. So perfect was his knowledge 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 Buonmattei, 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 68."

During this visit to Florence, he saw and conversed with the great Galileo, that memorable

68 Nec me tam ipsæ Athenæ Atticæ, cum illo suo pellucido Ilisso, nec illa vetus Roma, suâ Tiberis ripâ, retinere valuerunt, quin sæpe Arnum vestrum, et Fæsulanos illos colles invisere amem. Epis. Fam. P.W. vi. 118.

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 69. 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, with its obvious 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

69 "There it was" (in Italy)" that I found and visited the famous 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. 1. 313.