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 must 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 amusements while his countrymen were contending for their rights. He therefore came back to Rome, tho' the merchants informed him of plots.

laid against him by the Jefuits, for the liberty of his converfations 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 controversy. 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 dif tinctions which he fhould otherwise have paid him. But fuch conduct, though it did not pleafe, 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 metropois 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 abfence of a year and three months.

At his return he heard of the death of his friend Charles Diodati; a man whom it is reafonable to fuppofe of great merit, fince he was thought by Milton worthy of a poem, intituled, Epitaphium Damonis, written with the

.com

common but childish imitation of pasto

ral life.

He now hired a lodging at the house of one Ruffel, a taylor in St. Bride's Churchyard, and undertook the education of John and Edward Phillips, his fifter's fons. Finding his rooms too little, he took a house and garden in Alderfgateftreet, which was not then fo much out of the world as it is now; and chofe his dwelling at the upper end of a paffage, that he might avoid the noife of the ftreet. Here he received more boys, to be boarded and inftructed.

Let not our veneration for Milton forbid us to look with fome degree of merriment on great promises and fmall performance, on the man who haftens home,

because

because his countrymen are contending for their liberty, and, when he reaches the scene of action, vapours away his patriotism in a private boarding-fchool. This is the period of his life from which all his biographers feem inclined to fhrink. They are unwilling that Milton fhould be degraded to a schoolmafter; but fince it cannot be denied that he taught boys, one finds out that he taught for nothing, and another that his motive was only zeal for the propagation of learning and virtue; and all tell what they do not know to be true, only to excufe an act which no wife man will confider as in itself disgraceful. His father was alive; his allowance was not ample, and he fupplied its deficien