Munere, mille fonos numeros componis ad aptos, Altera dona mihi, dedit altera dona parenti; Nor thou perfift, I pray thee, ftill to flight Now fay! What wonder is it if a fon In focial arts, and kindred studies sweet: Was Phoebus' choice; thou haft thy gift, and I Father and fon, the whole infpiring God, Of Of hate, thou hateft not the gentle mufe, The poet seems to have had a prophetic view of the fingular calumnies, that awaited his reputation, and to have anticipated his triumph, over all his adverfaries, in the following magnanimous exclamation: Efte procul vigiles curæ! procul efte querelæ! ! Away then, fleepless care! complaint away After this high-toned burst of confidence and indignation, how sweetly the poet finks again into the tender notes of gratitude, in the clofe of this truly filial compofition! At ઃઃ At tibi, chare pater, poftquam non æqua merenti * But thou, my father, fince to render thanks. And bear them treasur'd in a grateful mind. To hope longevity, and to furvive Your master's funeral, not foon abforb'd In the oblivious Lethæan gulph, Shall to futurity perhaps convey This theme, and by these praises of my fire, "He began now," fays Johnfon, "to grow weary of the country, and had fome purpose of "taking chambers in the inns of court." This weariness appears to have exifted only in the fancy of his biographer. During the five years that Milton refided with his parents, in Buckinghamfhire, he had occafional lodgings in London, which he vifited, as he informs us himself, for the purpose of buying books, and improving himself in mathematics and in mufic, at that time his favourite vourite amusements. The letter, which intimates his intention of taking chambers in the inns of court, was not written from the country, as his biographer feems to have supposed; it is dated from London, and only expreffes, that his quarters there appeared to him awkward and inconvenient *. On the death of his mother, who died in April, 1637, and is buried in the chancel of Horton church, he obtained his father's permiffion to gratify his eager defire of visiting the continent, a permiffion the more readily granted, perhaps, as one of his motives for visiting Italy was to form a collection of Italian mufic. Having received fome directions for his travels from the celebrated Sir Henry Wotton, he went, with a fingle fervant, to Paris, in 1638; he was there honoured by the notice of Lord Scudamore, the English ambaffador, who, at his earnest defire, gave him an introduction to Grotius, then refiding at Paris as the minifter of Sweden. Curiofity is naturally excited by the idea of a conference between two perfons fo eminent and accomplished. It has been conjectured, that Milton might conceive his firft defign of writing a tragedy on the banishment of Adam from this interview with Grotius; but if the Adamus Exful of the Swedish ambaffador were a fubject of their difcourfe, it is *Dicam jam nunc ferio quid cogitem, in hofpitium juridicorum aliquod immigrare, ficubi amcena et umbrofa ambulatio eft, quod et inter aliquot fodales, commodior illic habitatio, fi domi manere, et oguntington Evgεπεsegov quocunque libitum erit excurrere : ubi nunc fum, ut nofti, obfcurè et anguftè fum. probable probable its author must have spoken of it but flightly, as a juvenile compofition, fince he does fo in a letter to his friend Voffius, in 1616, concerning a new edition of his poetry, from which he parti cularly excluded this facred drama, as too puerile, in his own judgment, to be republished *. The letters of Grotius, voluminous and circumstantial as they are, afford no traces of this interesting vifit; but they lead me to imagine, that the point, which the learned ambaffador most warmly recommended to Milton, on his departure for Italy, was to pay the kindest attention in his power to the fufferings of Galileo, then perfecuted as a prisoner by the inquifition in Florence. In a letter to Voffius, dated in the very month when Milton was probably introduced to Grotius, that liberal friend to fcience and humanity speaks thus of Galileo: "This old man, to whom the univerfe is fo deeply indebted, worn out with maladies, and still more with anguifh of mind, give us little reafon to hope, that his life can be long; common prudence, therefore, fuggefts to us to make the utmost of the time, while we can yet avail ourselves of such an inftructor t." Milton was, of all travellers, the * Chriftum patientem recudendum judico, ideoque velim aliquod ejus exemplum ad me mitti, ut errata typographica corrigam, quando ipfe nullum habeo. Adami Exulis poema juvenilius eft quam ut aufim addere. Grotii Epift. 77. Senex is, optime de univerfo meritus, morbo fractus, infuper et animi ægritudine, haud multum nobis vitæ fuæ promittit; quare prudentiæ erit arripere tempus, dum tanto doctore uti licet. Grotii Epift. 964. moft |