Prefident of Wales, in 1634; and had the honour of being acted by the Earl of Bridgewater's fons and daughter. The fiction is derived from Homer's Circe; but we never can refuse to any modern the liberty of borrowing from Homer:

a quo ceu fonte perenni

Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis.

His next production was Lycidas, an elegy, written in 1637, on the death of Mr. King, the fon of

* It has nevertheless its foundation in reality. The earl of Bridgewater being President of Wales in the year 1634, had his refidence at Ludlow-caftle in Shropshire, at which time lord Brackly and Mr. Egerton, his fons, and lady Alice Egerton, his daughter, paffing through a place called the Hay-wood forest, or Haywood in Herefordshire, were benighted, and the lady for a short time loft: this accident being related to their father upon their arrival at his castle, Milton, at the request of his friend Henry Lawes, who taught mufic in the family, wrote this mafque. Lawes fet it to mufic, and it was acted on Michaelmas night; the two brothers, the young lady, and Lawes himself, bearing each a part in the reprefentation.

The lady Alice Egerton became afterwards the wife of the earl of Carbury, who, at his feat called Golden-grove, in Caermarthenshire, harboured Dr. Jeremy Taylor in the time of the Ufurpation. Among the doctor's fermons is one on her death, in which her character is finely pourtrayed. Her fifter, lady Mary, was given in marriage to lord Herbert of Cherbury.

Notwithstanding Dr. Johnson's affertion, that the fiction is derived from Homer's Circe, it may be conjectured, that it was rather taken from the Comus of Erycius Puteanus, in which, under the fiction of a dream, the characters of Comus and his attendants are delineated, and the delights of fenfualifts expofed and reprobated. This little tract was published at Louvain in 1611, and afterwards at Oxford in 1634, the very year in which Milton's Comus was written. H.

Milton evidently was indebted to the Old Wives Tale of George Peele for the plan of Comus. R.

Sir John King, fecretary for Ireland in the time of Elizabeth, James, and Charles. King was much a favourite at Cambridge, and many of the wits joined to do honour to his memory. Milton's acquaintance with the Italian writers may be difcovered by a mixture of longer and fhorter verfes, according to the rules of Tufcan poetry, and his malignity to the Church by fome lines which are interpreted as threatening its extermination.

He is fuppofed about this time to have written his Arcades; for while he lived at Horton he used fometimes to fteal from his ftudies a few days, which he spent at Harefield, the houfe of the countefs dowager of Derby, where the Arcades made part of a dramatick entertainment.

He began now to grow weary of the country: and had fome purpose of taking chambers in the Inns of Court, when the death of his mother fet him at liberty to travel, for which he obtained his father's confent, and Sir Henry Wotton's directions, with the celebrated precept of prudence, i penfieri fretti, ed il vifo fciolto; "thoughts clofe, and looks

loofe."

In 1638 he left England, and went first to Paris; where, by the favour of Lord Scudamore, he had the opportunity of vifiting Grotius, then refiding at the French court as ambaffador from Chriftina of Sweden. From Paris he hafted into Italy, of which he had with particular diligence ftudied the language and literature; and, though he feems to have intended a very quick perambulation of the country, ftaid two months at Florence; where he found his way into the academies, and produced his compofi

tions with fuch applaufe as appears to have exalted him in his own opinion, and confirmed him in the hope, that, "by labour and intense ftudy, which," fays he, "I take to be my portion in this life, joined "with a strong propenfity of nature," he might leave fomething fo written to after-times, as they "fhould not willingly let it die."

It appears, in all his writings, that he had the ufual concomitant of great abilities, a lofty and fteady confidence in himfelf, perhaps not without fome contempt of others; for fcarcely any man. ever wrote so much, and praised fo few. Of his praise he was very frugal; as he fet its value high, and confidered his mention of a name as a fecurity against the waste of time, and a certain prefervation from oblivion.

At Florence he could not indeed complain that his merit wanted diftinction. Carlo Dati prefented him with an encomiaftick infcription, in the tumid lapidary ftyle; and Francini wrote him an ode, of which the first stanza is only empty noife; the reft are perhaps too diffufe on common topicks: but the laft is natural and beautiful.

From Florence he went to Sienna, and from Sienna to Rome, where he was again received with kindness by the Learned and the Great. Holftenius, the keeper of the Vatican Library, who had refided three years at Oxford, introduced him to Cardinal Barberini: and he, at a mufical entertainment, waited for him at the door, and led him by the hand into the affembly. Here Selvaggi praised him in a diftich, and Salfilli in a tetraftick: neither of them of much value. The Italians were gainers by

this literary commerce; for the encomiums with which Milton repaid Salfilli, though not fecure against a ftern grammarian, turn the balance indifputably in Milton's favour.

Of these Italian teftimonies, poor as they are, he was proud enough to publish them before his poems; though he says, he cannot be suspected but to have known that they were faid non tam de fe, quam fupra fe.

At Rome, as at Florence, he ftaid only two months; a time indeed fufficient, if he defired only to ramble with an explainer of its antiquities, or to view palaces and count pictures; but certainly too short for the contemplation of learning, policy, or

manners.

From Rome he paffed on to Naples, in company of a hermit, a companion from whom little could be expected; yet to him Milton owed his introduction to Manfo marquis of Villa, who had been before the patron of Taffo. Manfo was enough delighted with his accomplishments to honour him with a forry diftich, in which he commends him for every thing but his religion: and Milton, in return, addreffed him in a Latin poem, which muft have raised an high opinion of English elegance and literature.

His purpose was now to have vifited Sicily and Greece; but, hearing of the differences between the king and parliament, he thought it proper to haften home, rather than pafs his life in foreign arnufements while his countrymen were contending for their rights. He therefore came back to Rome, though the merchants informed him of plots laid

against

against him by the Jefuits, for the liberty of his conversations on religion. He had fenfe enough to judge that there was no danger, and therefore kept on his way, and acted as before, neither obtruding nor fhunning controverfy. He had perhaps given fome offence by vifiting Galileo, then a prifoner in the Inquifition for philofophical herefy; and at Naples he was told by Manfo, that, by his declarations on religious questions, he had excluded himself from fome diftinctions which he fhould otherwife have paid him. But fuch conduct, though it did not please, was yet fufficiently fafe; and Milton ftaid two months more at Rome, and went on to Florence without moleftation.

From Florence he vifited Lucca. He afterwards went to Venice; and, having fent away a collection of mufick and other books, travelled to Geneva, which he probably confidered as the metropolis of orthodoxy.

Here he repofed as in a congenial element, and became acquainted with John Diodati and Frederick Spanheim, two learned profeffors of Divinity. From Geneva he paffed through France; and came home, after an absence of a year and three months.

At his return he heard of the death of his friend Charles Diodati; a man whom it is reasonable to fuppofe of great merit, fince he was thought by Milton worthy of a poem, intituled, Epitaphium Damonis, written with the common but childish imitation of paftoral life.

He now hired a lodging at the house of one Ruffel, a taylor in St. Bride's Church-yard, and undertook the education of John and Edward Phi

3

lips,