VII. Ad eandem. ALTERA Torquatum cepit Leonora poetam, 1. Altera Torquatum cepit Leonora] In the Life of Tasso, by G. Battista Manso, mention is made of three different ladies of the name of Leonora, of whom Tasso is there said to have been successively enamoured. Gier. Lib. edit. Haym, Lond. 4to. 1724. p. 23. The first was Leonora of Este, sister of Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara, at whose court Tasso resided. The Countess San Vitale was the second Leonora, to whom Tasso was said to be much attached, p. 26. Manso relates, that the third Leonora was a young lady in the service of the princess of Este, who was very beautiful, and to whom Tasso paid great attention, p. 27. He addressed many very elegant love-verses to each of these three different ladies; but as the pieces addressed to Leonora princess of Este have more passion than gallantry, it may justly be inferred, notwithstanding the pains he took to conceal his affection, that she was the real favourite of his heart. Among the many re 5 10 marks that have been made on the Gierusalemme Liberata of Tasso, I do not remember to have seen it observed, that this great poet probably took the hint of his fine subject, from a book very popular in his time, written by the celebrated Benedetto Accolti, and entitled, De Bello a Christianis contra Barbaros gesto, pro Christi Sepulchro et Judæa recuperandis, lib. iv. Venetiis per Bern. Venetum de Vitalibus, 1532. 4to. It is dedicated to Pietro de Medici. › Dr. J. Warton. This allusion to Tasso's Leonora, and the turn which it takes, are inimitably beautiful. 7. For the story of Pentheus, a king of Thebes, see Euripides's Bacchæ, where he sees two suns, &c. v. 916. Theocritus, Idyll. xxvi. Virgil, Æn. iv. 469. But Milton, in torsisset lumina, alludes to the rage of Pentheus in Ovid, Metam. iii. 577. Et poteras, ægro spirans sub corde, quietem VIII. Ad eandem. CREDULA quid liquidam Sirena Neapoli jactas, Claraque Parthenopes fana Acheloïados; Illic Romulidum studiis ornata secundis, IX. In SALMASII HUNDREDAM.* QUIS expedivit Salmasio suam Hundredam, Picamque docuit verba nostra conari? Magister artis venter, et Jacobei Centum, exulantis viscera marsupii regis. 1, 2. Parthenope's tomb was at Naples: she was one of the Sirens. She is called Parthenope -Acheloias, in Silius Italicus, xii. 35. See Comus, v. 878. By the songs of Sirens sweet, By dead Parthenope's dear tomb, &c. Chalcidicus is elsewhere, explained. See Epitaph. Damon. v. 182 I need not enlarge on the grotto of Pausilipo, near Naples. *This Epigram is in the Defensio against Salmasius, Prose Works, ii. 296. 1. Salmasius, in his Defence of the King, had aukwardly at 5 tempted to turn some of our forensic appellations into Latin; such as, the county court, sheriff's turn, the hundred of a county, &c. 4. King Charles the Second, 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 at Leyden the king sent Doctor Morley, afwards bishop, to the apologist, with his thanks, "but not with a purse of gold, as John Milton the impudent lyer reported." Ath. Oxon. ii. 770. Quod si dolosi spes refulserit nummi, Cantabit ultro Cardinalitium melos. X. In Salmasium.* GAUDETE scombri, et quicquid est piscium salo, 5 5 10 having predicted the wonders to be worked by Salmasius's new edition, or rather reply. "Tu "igitur, ut pisciculus ille ante"ambulo, præcurris Balænam "Salmasii." Mr. Steevens observes, that this is an idea analogous to Falstaffe's, "Here do I "walk before thee, &c." although reversed as to the imagery. 7. Claudius Salmasius. Milton sneers at a circumstance which was true: Salmasius was really of an ancient and noble family. 9. Cubito mungentium, a cant appellation among the Romans for fishmongers. It was said to Horace, of his father, by way of laughing at his low birth, " Quo66 ties ego vidi patrem tuum "cubito emungentem?" Sueton. Vit. Horat. p. 525. Lips. 1748. XI. GALLI ex concubitu gravidam te, Pontia, Mori, Horace's father was a seller of Salmasius's Reply was posthumous, and did not appear till after the Restoration: and his Defensio had no second edition. * From Milton's Defensio SeAnd cunda, ut supr. ii. 320. his Responsio to Morus's Supplement, ibid. ii. 383. This distich was occasioned by a report, that Morus had debauched a favourite waiting maid of the wife of Salmasius, Milton's antagonist. See Burman's Syllog. Epist. iii. 307. Milton pretends that he picked it up by accident, and that it was written at Leyden. It appeared first, as I think, in the Mercurius Politicus, a sort of newspaper published at London once a week in two sheets in quarto, and commencing in June, 1649, by Marchmont Nedham, a virulent but versatile party scribbler, who sometimes libelled the republicans, and sometimes the royalists with an equal degree of scurrility, and who is called by Wood a great crony of *¿ Milton. These papers, in or he wrote a Dedication to Charles the Second. Afterwards Salmasius and Morus had an irreconcileable quarrel about the division of sixty copies, which the printer had agreed to give to the one or the other. Burman's Syllog. Epist. iii. 648. Du Moulin actually owns the Regii Sanguinis Clamor, in his Reply to a Person of Honour, &c. Lond. 1675. 4to. p. 10, 45. "I had such a jea"lousie to see that traytor [Mil"ton] praised for his language, "that I writ against him Clamor, " &c." A curious Letter in Thurloe's State Papers, relating to this business, has been overlooked, from Bourdeaux, the French ambassador in England, to Morus, dated Aug. 7, 1654. "Sir, at my arrival here, I found "Milton's book so publick, that "I perceived it was impossible "to suppress it. This man [Mil"ton] hath been told, that you "were not the author of the "book which he refuted; to "which he answered, that he "was at least assured, that you "had caused it to be imprinted: "that you had writ the Preface, "and, he believes, some of the " verses that are in it: and that, "that is enough to justify him "for setting upon you. He doth "also add, he is very angry that " he did not know several things "which he hath heard since, "being far worse, as he says, "than any he put forth in his "book; but he doth reserve "them for another, if so be you "answer this. I am very sorry " for this quarrel which will have a long sequence, as I perceive; "for after you have answered "this, you may be sure he will "reply with a more bloody one; "for your adversary hath met દ "with somebody here, who hath "told him strange stories of you." Vol. ii. p. 529. See also a Letter of intelligence from the Hague to Thurloe, dated July 3, 1654. Ibid. p. 394. "They "have here two or three copies "of Milton against the famous «Professour Morus, who doth "ail he can to suppress the book. "Madam de Saumaise [Salma"sius's wife] hath a great many "letters of Morus, which she "hath ordered to be printed to "render him so much the more "ridiculous. He saith now, that "he is not the authour of the "Preface [Dedication] to the "Clamor: but we know very "well to the contrary. One "Ulack [the printer of the Cla"mor] a printer, is reprinting "Milton's book, with an apology "for himself: but Ulack holds "it for an honour to be reckoned 66 on that side of Salmasius and "Morus.-Morus doth all he can "to persuade him from printing "it." Salmasius's wife, said to have been a scold, and called Juno by his brother-critics, was highly indignant at Morus's familiarity with her femme de chambre, and threatened him with a prosecution, which I believe was carried into execution. See Syllog. ut supr. iii. 324. This distich is inconsistent with our author's usual delicacy. But revenge too naturally seeks gratification at the expence of propriety. And the same apology must be made for a few other obscene ambiguities on the name of More, in the prose part of our author's two Replies to More. I take this opportunity of observ ing, that Fenton, in a Miscellany that he published, called the Oxford Miscellany, and Cambridge |