Yet to say truth, even here the Muse disdains
Confinement, and attempts her former strains,
But finds the strong desire is not the power,
And what her taste condemns, the flames devour
A part, perhaps, like this, escapes the doom,
And though unworthy, finds a friend at Rome;
But oh the cruel art, that could undo

Its votary thus! would that could perish too!

COMPLIMENTARY PIECES ADDRESSED
TO MILTON.

TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN AND ITALIAN,

[MILTON'S PREFACE.]

TRANSLATED.

Well as the Author knows that the following testimonies are not so much about as above him, and that men of great ingenuity, as well as our friends, are apt, through abundant zeal, so to praise us as rather to draw their own likeness than ours, he was yet unwilling that the world should remain always ignorant of compositions that do him so much honour; and especially because he has other friends, who have, with much importunity, solicited their publication. Aware that excessive commendation awakens envy, he would with both hands thrust it from him, preferring just so much of that dangerous tribute as may of right belong to him; but at the same time he cannot deny that he sets the highest value on the suffrages of judicious and distinguished persons.

it.

WHAT features, form, mien, manners, with a mind

Oh how intelligent, and how refined!

Were but thy piety from fault as free,

Thou wouldst no Angle* but an Angel be.

* The reader will perceive that the Angle is essential, because the epigram turns upon The Angles were the Anglo-Saxons' own ancestors.

AN EPIGRAM ADDRESSED TO THE ENGLISHMAN,

JOHN MILTON,

A POET WORTHY OF THREE LAURELS, THE GRECIAN, LATIN, AND ETRUSCAN.

BY JOHN SALSILLO, OF ROME.

MELES* and Minciot both your urns depress!
Sebetus, boast henceforth thy Tasso less!
But let the Thames o'erpeer all floods, since he,
For Milton famed, shall, single, match the three.

TO JOHN MILTON.

BY SELVAGGI.

GREECE Sound thy Homer's, Roine thy Virgil's name,
But England's Milton equals both in fame.

AN ODE

ADDRESSED TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS ENGLISHMAN,

MR. JOHN MILTON,

BY SIGNOR ANTONIO FRANCINI,

GENTLEMAN, OF FLORENCE.

EXALT me, Clio, to the skies,
That I may form a starry crown,
Beyond what Helicon supplies
In laureate garlands of renown;

To nobler worth be brighter glory given,

And to a heavenly mind a recompense froin heaven.

Time's wasteful hunger cannot prey

On everlasting high desert,.

Nor can Oblivion steal away

Its record graven on the heart;

Lodge but an arrow, Virtue, on the bow

That binds my lyre, and death shall be a vanquished f `e.

* Meles is a river of Ionia, in the neighbourhood of Smyrna, whence Homer is called Melesigenes. [C.]

The Mincio watered the city of Mantua, famous as the birth-place of Virgil.-[C.] Sebetus is now the Fiume della Maddelena; it runs through Naples.-[C.]

In Ocean's blazing flood enshrined,
Whose vassal tide around her swells,
Albion, from other realms disjoined,
The prowess of the world excels;

She teems with heroes that to glory rise,

With more than human force in our astonished eyes.

To Virtue, driven from other lands,
Their bosoms yield a safe retreat;
Her law alone their deed commands,
Her smiles they feel divinely sweet;
Confirm my record, Milton, generous youth!
And by true virtue prove thy virtue's praise a truth.

Zeuxis, all energy and flame,

Set ardent forth in his career,

Urged to his task by Helen's fame,
Resounding ever in his ear;

To make his image to her beauty true,

From the collected fair each sovereign charm he drew.*
The bee, with subtlest skill endued,
Thus toils to earn her precious juice,
From all the flowery myriads strewed
O'er meadow and parterre profuse;
Confederate voices one sweet air compound,

And various chords consent in one harmonious sound.

An artist of celestial aim,

Thy genius, caught by moral grace,
With ardent emulation's flame
The steps of Virtue toiled to trace,
Observed in every land who brightest shone,

And blending all their best, make perfect good thy own.

From all in Florence born, or taught
Our country's sweetest accent there,
Whose works, with learned labour wrought,

Immortal honours justly share,

Thou hast such treasure drawn of purest ore,

That not even Tuscan bards can boast a richer store.

Babel confused, and with her towers

Unfinished spreading wide the plain,

*The portrait of Helen was painted at the request of the people of Crotona, who sent to the artist all their loveliest girls for models. Zeuxis selected five, and united their separate beauties in his picture.

Has served but to evince thy powers,
With all her tongues confused in vain,

Since not alone thy England's purest phrase,
But every polished realm thy various speech displays.

The secret things of heaven and earth,
By Nature, too reserved, concealed
From other minds of highest worth,
To thee are copiously revealed;

Thou knowest them clearly, and thy views attain
The utmost bounds prescribed to moral truth's domain.

Let Time no more his wing display,
And boast his ruinous career,
For Virtue, rescued from his sway,
His injuries may cease to fear;

Since all events that claim remembrance find
A chronicle exact in thy capacious mind.

Give me, that I may praise thy song,
Thy lyre, by which alone I can,
Which, placing thee the stars among,
Already proves thee more than man;

And Thames shall seem Permessus,* while his stream
Graced with a swan like thee, shall be my favourite theme.

I who beside the Arno, strain
To match thy merit with my lays,
Learn, after many an effort vain,

To admire thee rather than to praise;

And that by mute astonishment alone,

Not by the faltering tongue, thy worth may best be shown.

TO MR. JOHN MILTON OF LONDON.

A YOUTH eminent from his country and his virtues, who in his travels has made himself acquainted with many nations, and in his studies, with all, that, like another Ulysses, he might learn all that all could teach him;

Skilful in many tongues, on whose lips languages now mute so live again, that the idioms of all are insufficient to his praise; happy acquisition by which he understands the universal admiration and applause his talents have excited;

Whose endowments of mind and person move us to wonder, but at the same time fix us immoveable; whose works prompt us to extol him, but by their beauty strike us mute;

* A river in Boeotia which took its rise in Helicon. (Virg. Ecl. vi. 64.)

In whose memory the whole world is treasured; in whose intellect, wisdom; in whose heart, the ardent desire of glory; and in whose mouth, eloquence. Who with Astronomy for his conductor, hears the music of the spheres; with Philosophy for his teacher, deciphers the handwriting of God, in those wonders of creation which proclaim His greatness; and with the most unwearied literary industry for his associate,

Examines, restores, penetrates with ease the obscurities of antiquity, the desolations of ages, and the labyrinths of learning;

"But wherefore toil to reach these arduous heights?"

To him in short whose virtues the mouths of Fame are too few to celebrate, and whom astonishment forbids us to praise as he deserves, this tribute due to his merits, and the offering of reverence and affection, is paid by

CARLO DATI,

A patrician Florentine.

This great man's servant, and this good man's friend.

TRANSLATIONS OF THE LATIN AND ITALIAN

POEMS OF MILTON.

ELEGY I.

TO CHARLES DIODATI.*

Ar length, my friend, the far sent letters come,
Charged with thy kindness, to their destined home;
They come, at length, from Deva'st western side,
Where prone she seeks the salt Vergivian‡ tide.
Trust me, my joy is great that thou shouldst be,
Though born of foreign race, yet born for me,
And that my sprightly friend, now free to roam,
Must seek again so soon his wonted home.

I well content, where Thames with influent tide
My native city laves, meantime reside,
Nor zeal nor duty now my steps impel
To reedy Cam, and my forbidden cell.§

* Diodati was a schoolfellow of Milton at St. Paul's, of Italian extraction, nephew Giovanni Diodati, the translator of the Bible into Italian, and son of Theodore Diodati, a physician of eminence, who married and settled in England. Charles Diodati's early death formed the subject of the Epitaphium Damonis.

†The Dee of Chester.

The Vergivian Sea, so called by Ptolemy, was the Irish sea between England and Ireland.

§ Milton had been rusticated on account of a quarrel with his tutor.