great kindness, pointed out himself all the interesting Neapolitan localities and curiosities to the young stranger, whom he also entertained in his own palace, and did every thing possible to render the visit agreeable.

Milton having with his accustomed freedom disclosed in the course of a conversation his Protestantism, Manso, whom he seems to have completely fascinated, declared that his only blemish was his heresy. When his guest was about to leave him, Manso presented him with a Latin distich in which he again referred to the matter:

"With mind, mien, temper, face, did faith agree,

Not ANGLIC, but an ANGEL wouldst thou be."*

In return for this compliment, Milton addressed to this venerable friend and generous patron of the muses, a Latin poem of very high merit, which abounds in fine passages.

Sicily and Greece were upon Milton's programme of procedure. He longed to visit those lands, older in history and song even than the Italian peninsula. Why he did not do so

* The original is as follows:

"Ut mens, forma, decor, facies, mas, si pietas sic,

Non Anglus verùm herclè Angelus ipse fores."

he himself informs us: "While I was desirous to cross into Sicily and Greece, the sad news of the civil war coming from England called me back; for I considered it disgraceful that while my fellow-countrymen were fighting at home for liberty, I should be travelling at ease for intellectual purposes.

11

Nobly resolving to share the fortunes of the English commons in the opening conflict, Milton began immediately to retrace his steps.

It seems that what Wood calls Milton's "resoluteness" in religion while at Rome, had provoked the bitter anger of the English Jesuits. He himself says, "When I was about to return to Rome, the merchants at Naples warned me that they had learned by letters that snares were being laid for me by the English Jesuits, if I should return to Rome, on the ground that I had spoken too freely concerning religion. For I had made this resolution with myself— not indeed of my own accord to introduce in those places conversation about religion; but, if interrogated respecting the faith, then, whatsoever I should suffer, to dissemble nothing.

*Def., Sec. P. W., Vol. V, p. 231.

To Rome therefore I did return, notwithstanding what I had been told: what I was, if any one asked, I concealed from no one; if any one, in the very city of the Pope, attacked the orthodox religion, I, as before, for a second space of nearly two months, defended it most freely."*

The license permitted Milton was extraordinary for those days. Lord Chandos, in a book published in 1620, affirms that "if a man in his going thither," to Italy, "converse with Italians, and discuss or dispute his religion, he is sure, unless he fly, to be complained of and brought before the Inquisition." Yet this was precisely what Milton did for over a year, scattering his remarks, criticisms, and comments with perfect unconcern, and permitting his discussions at moments to become almost polemical. The matchless courage and earnest piety which would not permit him to listen in silence to attacks on "the orthodox religion," are above human praise. But this stout English independence was highly characteristic of the

man.

* Def. Sec., Works VI, pp. 288, 289.

Upon his return to Florence he was welcomed, as he tells us, with no less eagerness than if the return had been to his native country and his friends at home. Here he spent two additional months in the society of his old friends the academicians; and from Florence he indited a letter of thanks to Holstenius, already mentioned as the keeper of the Vatican library at Rome, for his many and kind

attentions.

When he left Florence for the last time, he crossed the Apennines, and travelled through Bologna and Ferrara to Venice. The singular attractions of that remarkable city detained him for a month in their examination. Venice then contained several celebrated academies, of which the "Incognito" was chief. It has been suggested that the city and its inhabitants would not be the less interesting to Milton, from the fact that in Venice alone, in Italy, was there some independence of opinion as regarded both the Pope and the Spaniard, and that there had even been expectations that Venice, in her struggle with the papacy,

* By Masson, in his Life of Milton, p. 655, Vol. I.

would set the example of Italian Protestantism. At all events he tarried there, deeply absorbed, for thirty odd days; when, after providing for the transportation to England of the many rare books and manuscripts, a number of them musical compositions by the best masters then living, which he had collected during his tour, he continued his homeward course through Verona and Milan, over the Pennine Alps, and by lake Lemanus, to Geneva.

Geneva has been fitly called the Rome of Protestantism. It was then the strong-hold of the reformed theology, and contained a university which was presided over by men of remarkable attainments and earnest piety, who kept up the faith and the discipline established by the Reformation. There Milton again breathed the fresh, free air of Protestantism, after his long confinement to the Catholic atmosphere of Italy. And here he made the acquaintance of the eminent theologians, Frederic Spanheim, and Giovanni Deodati, already mentioned in these pages, and the uncle of his intimate friend, Charles Deodati.

After a pleasant visit at Geneva of a week