JOURNEY TO ITALY.
Before 1632 Milton had begun to learn Italian. His mind, just then
open on all sides to impressions from books, was peculiarly attracted
by Italian poetry. The language grew to be loved for its own sake.
Saturated as he was with Dante and Petrarch, Tasso and Ariosto, the
desire arose to let the ear drink in the music of Tuscan speech.
The "unhappy gift of beauty," which has attracted the spoiler of all
ages to the Italian peninsula, has ever exerted, and still exerts, a
magnetic force on every cultivated mind. Manifold are the sources of
this fascination now. The scholar and the artist, the antiquarian and
the historian, the architect and the lover of natural scenery, alike
find here the amplest gratification of their tastes. This is so still;
but in the sixteenth century the Italian cities were the only homes
of an ancient and decaying civilization, Not insensible to other
impressions, it was specially the desire of social converse with the
living poets and men of taste--a feeble generation, but one still
nourishing the traditions of the great poetic age--which drew Milton
across the Alps.
In April, 1637, Milton's mother had died; but his younger brother,
Christopher, had come to live, with his wife, in the paternal home at
Horton. Milton, the father, was not unwilling that his son should have
his foreign tour, as a part of that elaborate education by which he
was qualifying himself for his doubtful vocation. The cost was not
to stand in the way, considerable as it must have been. Howell's
estimate, in his _Instructions for Forreine Travel_, 1642, was 300 l.
a year for the tourist himself, and 50 l. for his man, a sum equal to
about 1000 l. at present.
Among the letters of introduction with which Milton provided himself,
one was from the aged Sir Henry Wotton, Provost of Eton, in Milton's
immediate neighbourhood. Sir Henry, who had lived a long time in
Italy, impressed upon his young friend the importance of discretion on
the point of religion, and told him the story which he always told to
travellers who asked his advice. "At Siena I was tabled in the house
of one Alberto Scipioni, an old Roman courtier in dangerous times....
At my departure for Rome I had won confidence enough to beg his advice
how I might carry myself securely there, without offence of others,
or of mine own conscience. 'Signor Arrigo mio,' says he, '_pensieri
stretti ed il viso sciolto_ (thoughts close, countenance open) will go
safely over the whole world.'" Though the intensity of the Catholic
reaction had somewhat relaxed in Italy, the deportment of a Protestant
in the countries which were terrorised by the Inquisition was a matter
which demanded much circumspection. Sir H. Wotton spoke from his own
experience of far more rigorous times than those of the Barberini
Pope. But he may have noticed, even in his brief acquaintance with
Milton, a fearless presumption of speech which was just what was most
likely to bring him into trouble, The event proved that the hint was
not misplaced. For at Rome itself, in the very lion's den, nothing
could content the young zealot but to stand up for his Protestant
creed. Milton would not do as Peter Heylin did, who, when asked as to
his religion, replied that he was a Catholic, which, in a Laudian, was
but a natural equivoque. Milton was resolute in his religion at Rome,
so much so that many were deterred from showing him the civilities
they were prepared to offer. His rule, he says, was "not 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. 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 defended it most freely." Beyond the
statement that the English Jesuits were indignant, we hear of no evil
consequences of this imprudence. Perhaps the Jesuits saw that Milton
was of the stuff that would welcome martyrdom, and were sick of the
affair of Galileo, which had terribly damaged the pretensions of their
church.
Milton arrived in Paris April or May, 1638. He received civilities
from the English ambassador, Lord Scudamore, who at his request gave
him an introduction to Grotius. Grotius, says Phillips, "took Milton's
visit kindly, and gave him entertainment suitable to his worth, and
the high commendations he had heard of him." We have no other record
of his stay of many days in Paris, though A. Wood supposes that "the
manners and graces of that place were not agreeable to his mind." It
was August before he reached Florence, by way of Nice and Genoa, and
in Florence he spent the two months which we now consider the most
impossible there, the months of August and September. Nor did he
find, as he would find now, the city deserted by the natives. We hear
nothing of Milton's impressions of the place, but of the men whom he
met there he retained always a lively and affectionate remembrance.
The learned and polite Florentines had not fled to the hills from the
stifling heat and blinding glare of the Lung' Arno, but seem to have
carried on their literary meetings in defiance of climate. This
was the age of academies--an institution, Milton says, "of most
praiseworthy effect, both for the cultivation of polite letters
and the keeping up of friendships." Florence had five or six such
societies, the Florentine, the Delia Crusca, the Svogliati,
the Apotisti, &c. It is easy, and usual in our day, to speak
contemptuously of the literary tone of these academies, fostering,
as they did, an amiable and garrulous intercourse of reciprocal
compliment, and to contrast them unfavourably with our societies for
severe research. They were at least evidence of culture, and served to
keep alive the traditions of the more masculine Medicean age. And
that the members of these associations were not unaware of their own
degeneracy and of its cause, we learn from Milton himself. For as
soon as they found that they were safe with the young Briton, they
disclosed their own bitter hatred of the church's yoke which they had
to bear. "I have sate among their learned men," Milton wrote in 1644,
"and been counted happy to be born in such a place of philosophic
freedom as they supposed England was, while themselves did nothing
but bemoan the servile condition into which learning amongst them was
brought, that this was it which had dampt the glory of Italian wits,
that nothing had been written there now these many years but flattery
and fustian." Milton was introduced at the meetings of their
academies; his presence is recorded on two occasions, of which the
latest is the 16th September at the Svogliati. He paid his scot by
reciting from memory some of his youthful Latin verses, hexameters,
"molto erudite," says the minute-book of the sitting, and others,
which "I shifted, in the scarcity of boots and conveniences, to patch
up." He obtained much credit by these exercises, which, indeed,
deserved it by comparison. He ventured upon the perilous experiment of
offering some compositions in Italian, which, the fastidious Tuscan
ear at least professed to include in those "encomiums which the
Italian is not forward to bestow on men of this side the Alps."
The author of _Lycidas_ cannot but have been quite aware of the small
poetical merit of such an ode as that which was addressed to him by
Francini. In this ode Milton is the swan of Thames--"Thames, which,
owing to thee, rivals Boeotian Permessus;" and so forth. But there is
a genuine feeling, an ungrudging warmth of sympathetic recognition
underlying the trite and tumid panegyric. And Milton may have yielded
to the not unnatural impulse of showing his countrymen, that though
not a prophet in boorish and fanatical England, he had found
recognition in the home of letters and arts. Upon us is forced, by
this their different reception of Milton, the contrast between the
two countries, Italy and England, in the middle of the seventeenth
century. The rude north, whose civilisation was all to come,
concentrating all its intelligence in a violent effort to work off the
ecclesiastical poison from its system, is brought into sharp contrast
with the sweet south, whose civilisation is behind it, and whose
intellect, after a severe struggle, has succumbed to the material
force and organisation of the church.
As soon as the season allowed of it, Milton set forward to Rome,
taking what was then the usual way by Siena. At Rome he spent two
months, occupying himself partly with seeing the antiquities, and
partly with cultivating the acquaintance of natives, and some of the
many foreigners resident in the eternal city. But though he received
much civility, we do not find that he met with the peculiar sympathy
which endeared to him his Tuscan friends. His chief ally was the
German, Lucas Holstenius, a native of Hamburg, who had abjured
Protestantism to become librarian of the Vatican. Holstenius had
resided three years in Oxford, and considered himself bound to repay
to the English scholar some of the attentions he had received himself.
Through Holstenius Milton was presented to the nephew, Francesco
Barberini, who was just then everything in Rome. It was at a concert
at the Barberini palace that Milton heard Leonora Baroni sing. His
three Latin epigrams addressed to this lady, the first singer of
Italy, or of the world at that time, testify to the enthusiasm she
excited in the musical soul of Milton.
Nor are these three epigrams the only homage which Milton paid to
Italian beauty. The susceptible poet, who in the sunless north would
fain have "sported with the tangles of Neaera's hair," could not
behold Neaera herself and the flashing splendour of her eye, unmoved.
Milton proclaims (_Defensio Secunda_) that in all his foreign tour he
had lived clear from all that is disgraceful. But the pudicity of his
behaviour and language covers a soul tremulous with emotion, whose
passion was intensified by the discipline of a chaste intention. Five
Italian pieces among his poems are to the address of another lady,
whose "majestic movements and love-darting dark brow" had subdued him.
The charm lay in the novelty of this style of beauty to one who came
from the land of the "vermeil-tinctur'd cheek" (_Comus_) and the
"golden nets of hair" (_El._ i. 60). No clue has been discovered to
the name of this divinity, or to the occasion on which, Milton saw
her.
Of Milton's impression of Rome there is no record. There are no traces
of special observation in his poetry. The description of the city in
_Paradise Regained_ (iv. 32) has nothing characteristic, and could
have been written by one who had never seen it, and by many as well
as by Milton. We get one glimpse of him by aid of the register of the
English College, as dining there at a "sumptuous entertainment" on
30th October, when he met Nicholas Carey, brother of Lord Falkland.
In spite of Sir Henry Wotton's caution, his resoluteness, as A.
Wood calls it, in his religion, besides making the English Jesuits
indignant, caused others, not Jesuits, to withhold civilities. Milton
only tells us himself that the antiquities detained him in Rome about
two months.
At the end of November he went on to Naples. On the road he fell in
with an Eremite friar, who gave him an introduction to the one man in
Naples whom it was important he should know, Giovanni Battista Manso,
Marquis of Villa. The marquis, now seventy-eight, had been for
two generations the Maecenas of letters in Southern Italy. He had
sheltered Tasso in the former generation, and Marini in the latter. It
was the singular privilege of his old age that he should now entertain
a third poet, greater than either. In spite of his years, he was able
to act as cicerone to the young Englishman over the scenes which he
himself, in his _Life of Tasso_, has described with the enthusiasm of
a poet. But even the high-souled Manso quailed before the terrors of
the Inquisition, and apologised to Milton for not having shown him
greater attention, because he would not be more circumspect in the
matter of religion. Milton's Italian journey brings out the two
conflicting strains of feeling which were uttered together in
_Lycidas_, the poet's impressibility by nature, the freeman's
indignation at clerical domination.
The time was now at hand when the latter passion, the noble rage
of freedom, was to suppress the more delicate flower of poetic
imagination. Milton's original scheme had included Sicily and Greece.
The serious aspect of affairs at home compelled him to renounce his
project. "I considered it dishonourable to be enjoying myself at my
ease in foreign lands, while my countrymen were striking a blow for
freedom." He retraced his steps leisurely enough, however, making a
halt of two months in Rome, and again one of two months in Florence.
We find him mentioned in the minutes of the academy of the Svogliati
as having been present at three of their weekly meetings, on the 17th,
24th, and 31st March. But the most noteworthy incident of his second
Florentine residence is his interview with Galileo. He had been unable
to see the veteran martyr of science on his first visit. For though
Galileo was at that time living within the walls, he was kept a close
prisoner by the Inquisition, and not allowed either to set foot
outside his own door, or to receive visits from non-Catholics. In the
spring of 1639, however, he was allowed to go back to his villa at
Gioiello, near Arcetri, and Milton obtained admission to him, old,
frail, and blind, but in full possession of his mental faculty.
There is observable in Milton, as Mr. Masson suggests, a prophetic
fascination of the fancy on the subject of blindness. And the deep
impression left by this sight of "the Tuscan artist" is evidenced by
the feeling with which Galileo's name and achievement are imbedded in
_Paradise Lost_.
From Florence, Milton crossed the Apennines by Bologna and Ferrara
to Venice. From this port he shipped for England the books he had
collected during his tour, books curious and rare as they seemed to
Phillips, and among them a chest or two of choice music books. The
month of April was spent at Venice, and bidding farewell to the
beloved land he would never visit again, Milton passed the Alps to
Geneva.
No Englishman's foreign pilgrimage was complete without touching at
this marvellous capital of the reformed faith, which with almost no
resources had successfully braved the whole might of the Catholic
reaction. The only record of Milton's stay at Geneva is the album of a
Neapolitan refugee, to which Milton contributed his autograph, under
date 10th June, 1639, with the following quotation:--
If virtue feeble were,
Heaven itself would stoop to her.
(From _Comus_).
Caelum non animum muto, dum trans mare curro.
(From _Horace_.)
But it is probable that he was a guest in the house of one of the
leading pastors, Giovanni Diodati, whose nephew Charles, a physician
commencing practice in London, was Milton's bosom friend. Here Milton
first heard of the death, in the previous August, of that friend. It
was a heavy blow to him, for one of the chief pleasures of being at
home again would have been to pour into a sympathetic Italian ear the
story of his adventures. The sadness of the homeward journey from
Geneva is recorded for us in the _Epitaphium Damonis_. This piece is
an elegy to the memory of Charles Diodati. It unfortunately differs
from the elegy on King in being written in Latin, and is thus
inaccessible to uneducated readers. As to such readers the topic of
Milton's Latin poetry is necessarily an ungrateful subject, I
will dismiss it here with one remark. Milton's Latin verses are
distinguished from most Neo-latin verse by being a vehicle of real
emotion. His technical skill is said to have been surpassed by others;
but that in which he stands alone is, that in these exercises of
imitative art he is able to remain himself, and to give utterance to
genuine passion. Artificial Arcadianism is as much the frame-work of
the elegy on Diodati as it is of _Lycidas_. We have Daphnis and Bion,
Tityrus and Amyntas for characters, Sicilian valleys for scenery,
while Pan, Pales, and the Fauns represent the supernatural. The
shepherds defend their flocks from wolves and lions. But this
factitious bucolicism is pervaded by a pathos, which, like volcanic
heat, has fused into a new compound the dilapidated débris of the
Theocritean world. And in the Latin elegy there is more tenderness
than in the English. Charles Diodati was much nearer to Milton than
had been Edward King. The sorrow in _Lycidas_ is not so much personal
as it is the regret of the society of Christ's. King had only been
known to Milton as one of the students of the same college; Diodati
was the associate of his choice in riper manhood.
The _Epitaphium Damonis_ is further memorable as Milton's last attempt
in serious Latin verse. He discovered in this experiment that Latin
was not an adequate vehicle of the feeling he desired to give vent to.
In the concluding lines he takes a formal farewell of the Latian
muse, and announces his purpose of adopting henceforth the "harsh and
grating Brittonic idiom" (_Brittonicum stridens_).
_SECOND PERIOD_. 1640-1660.