Turbab frequens, facieque simillima turba dearum, Fallor? An et radios hinc quoque Phoebus habet? Hanc memor objecit nobis malus ille Cupido, Nec procul ipse vafer latuit, multæque sagittæ, Uror amans intus, flammaque totus eram. Ast ego progredior tacite querebundus, et excors, Findor, et hæc remanet : sequitur pars altera votum, Sic dolet amissum proles Junonia cœlum, Crede mihi, nullus sic infeliciter arsit; Parce, precor, teneri cum sis deus ales amoris, b Turba, &c. In Milton's youth, the fashionable places of walking in London were Hyde-Park, and Gray's-Inn Walks.-T. WARTON. Non reditura. He saw the unknown lady, who had thus won his heart, but once. The fervour of his love is inimitably expressed in the following lines. -TODD. Jam tuus, O! certe est mihi formidabilis arcus, Solus et in superis tu mihi summus eris. HÆC ego, mente olim læva, studioque supino, 95 100 5 10 EPIGRAMMATUM LIBER. I.-IN PRODITIONEM BOMBARDICAM. CUM simul in regem nuper satrapasque Britannos d Deme meos tandem, verum nec deme, furores; He wishes There never was a more beautiful description of the irresolution of love. to have his woe removed, but recals his wish; preferring the sweet misery of those who love. Thus Eloisa wavers, in Pope's fine poem : Unequal task! a passion to resign For hearts so touch'd, so pierced, so lost, as mine.-TODD. • Hoc ego, &c. These lines are an epilogistic palinode to the last Elegy. The Socratic doctrines of the shady Academe soon broke the bonds of beauty in other words, his return to the university. They were probably written when the Latin poems were prepared for the press in 1645.-T. WARTON. II. IN EANDEM. SICCINE tentasti cœlo donasse läcobum, Et quot habet brutos Roma profana deos : III. IN EANDEM. PURGATOREM animæ derisit Iäcobus ignem, “Et nec inultus," ait, “temnes mea sacra, Britanne : Et, si stelligeras unquam penetraveris arces, IV. IN EANDEM. QUEM modo Roma suis devoverat impia diris, V.-IN INVENTOREM BOMBARDE. IAPETIONIDEM laudavit cæca vetustas, VI.-AD LEONORAM ROME CANENTEM b. ANGELUS unicuique suus, sic credite gentes, a Quæ septemgemino, Bellua, &c. The Pope, called, in the theological language of the times, "The Beast.”—T. WARTON. b Adriana of Mantua, for her beauty surnamed the Fair, and her daughter Leonora Baroni, the lady whom Milton celebrates in these three Latin Epigrams, were esteemed by their contemporaries the finest singers in the world. When Milton was at Rome, he was introduced to the concerts of Cardinal Barberini, where he heard Leonora sing and her mother play. It was the fashion for all the ingenious strangers, who visited Rome, to leave some verses on Leonora.-T. WARTON. Aut Deus, aut vacui certe mens tertia cœli, Quod si cuncta quidem Deus est, per cunctaque fusus, VII. AD EANDEM. ALTERA Torquatum cepit Leonora poetam, 5 10 5 10 This allusion to Tasso's Leonora, and the turn which it takes, are inimitably beautiful.-T. WARTON. d For the story of Pentheus, a king of Thebes, see Euripides' "Bacchæ," where he sees two suns, &c., v. 916. But Milton, in "torsisset lumina," alludes to the rage of Pentheus in Ovid, "Metam." iii. 557 : e Aspicit hunc oculis Pentheus, quos ira tremendos Parthenope's tomb was at Naples: she was one of the sirens.-T. WARTON. f Pausilipi. The grotto of Pausilipo, which Milton no doubt had visited with delight.-TODD. 8 This Epigram is in Milton's "Defensio" against Salmasius; in the translation of which by Richard Washington, published in 1692, the Epigram is thus anglicised, p. 187 :Who taught Salmasius, that French chattering pye, To aim at English, and Hundreda cry ? Magister artis venter, et Jacobæi Ipse, Antichristi qui modo primatum Papæ X.-IN SALMASIUM. GAUDETE Scombri, et quicquid est piscium salo, The starving rascal, flush'd with just a hundred And in Rome's praise employ his poison'd breath, Who threaten'd once to stink the pope to death.-T. WARTON. 5 5 10 h King Charles II., now in exile, and sheltered in Holland, gave Salmasius, who was a professor at Leyden, one hundred Jacobuses to write his defence, 1649. Wood asserts that Salmasius had no reward for his book he says, that in Leyden, the king sent Dr. Morley, afterwards bishop, to the apologist, with his thanks, "but not with a purse of gold, as John Milton the impudent lyer reported." 66 Athen. Oxon." ii. 770.-T. WARTON. This Epigram, as Mr. Warton observes, is an imitation of part of the Prologue to Persius' Satires.-TODD. i This is in the "Defensio Secunda." It is introduced with the following ridicule on Morus, the subject of the next Epigram, for having predicted the wonders to be worked by Salmasius's new edition, or rather reply:"Tu igitur, ut pisciculus ille anteambulo, præcurris balænam Salmasium." Mr. Steevens observes, that this is an idea analogous to Falstaff's-"Here do I walk before thee," &c., although reversed as to the imagery.-T. WARTON. j Mr. Warton observes, that Milton here sneers at a circumstance which was true : Salmasius was really of an ancient and noble family.-TODD. k"Cubito mungentium," a cant appellation among the Romans for fishmongers.T. WARTON. Christina, Queen of Sweden, among other learned men who fed her vanity, had invited Salmasius to her court, where he wrote his "Defensio." She had pestered him with Latin letters seven pages long, and told him she would set out for Holland to fetch him if he did not come. When he arrived, he was often indisposed on account of the coldness of the climate; and on these occasions, the queen would herself call on him in a morning : and locking the door of his apartment, used to light his fire, give him breakfast, and stay with him some hours. This behaviour gave rise to scandalous stories, and our critic's wife grew jealous. It is seemingly a slander, what was first thrown out in the "Mercurius Politicus," that Christina, when Salmasius had published this work, dismissed him with contempt, as a parasite and an advocate of tyranny: but the case was, to say nothing that Christina loved both to be flattered and to tyrannise, Salmasius had now been long preparing to return to Holland, to fulfil his engagements with the university of Leyden: she offered him large rewards and appointments to remain in Sweden, and greatly regretted his departure; and on his death, very shortly afterwards, she wrote his widow a letter in French, full of con |