Aurea maternæ fila movere lyræ : CR VIII. Ad eandem. Redula quid liquidam Sirena Neapoli jactas, Corpora Chalcidico facra dediffe rogo? Illic Romulidum ftudiis ornata fecundis, 10 5 7. For the ftory of Pentheus, a king of Thebes, fee Euripides's BACCHE, where he fees two funs, &c. v. 916. Theocritus, IDYLL. xxvi. Virgil, Æn. iv. 469. But Milton, in torfiffet lumina, alludes rage of Pentheus in Ovid, METAM. iii. 577. to the Afpicit hunc oculis Pentheus, quos ira tremendos Fecerat. 1, 2. Parthenope's tomb was at Naples: fhe was one of the Sirens. She is called Parthenope Acheloias, in Silius Italicus, xii. 35. See CoмUS, V. 878. By the fongs of Sirens fweet, By dead Parthenope's dear tomb, &c. Chalcidicus is elsewhere explained. See EPITAPH. DAMON. V. 182. I need not enlarge on the grotto of Paufilipo, near Naples. VOL. I. PPP IX. In Bonus, amicire nuditatem cogitat; 5 ΙΟ of the next Epigram, for having predicted the wonders to be worked by Salmafius's new edition, or rather reply. "Tu igitur, "ut pifciculus ille anteambulo, præcurris Balænam Salmafii." Mr. Steevens obferves, that this is an idea analogous to Falstaffe's "Here do I walk before thee, &c." although reversed as to the imagery. 7. Claudius Salmafius. Milton fneers at a circumftance which was true: Salmafius was really of an ancient and noble family. 66 9. Cubito mungentium, a cant appellation among the Romans for Fishmongers. It was faid to Horace, of his father, by way of laughing at his low birth, Quoties ego vidi patrem tuum cubito emungentem ?" Sueton. VIT. HORAT. p. 525. Lipf. 1748. Horace's father was a feller of fish. The joke is, that the fheets of Salmafius's new book, would be fit for nothing better than to wrap up fish: that they should be configned to the stalls and shelves of fishmongers. He applies the fame to his Confuter who defended epifcopacy, APOL. SMECTYMN. §. viii. "Whose best folios are "predeftined to no better purpose, than to make winding sheets " in Lent for pilchards." PROSE-WORKS, i. 121. * Chriftina, queen of Sweden, among other learned men who fed her vanity, had invited Salmafius to her court, where he wrote his DEFENSIO. She had pestered him with Latin letters feven pages long, and told him she would fet out for Holland to fetch him, if he did not come. When he arrived, he was often indifpofed on account of the coldness of the climate and on thefe occafions, 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 fome hours. This behaviour gave rife to fcandalous ftories, and our critic's wife grew jealous. It is feemingly a flander, what was first thrown out in the MERCURIUS POLITICUS, that Chriftina, when Salmafius had published his work, difmiffed him with contempt, as a parasite and an advocate of tyranny. [See alfo Milton against More, PROSE-WORKS, ii. 317. 329. and Philips, ibid. p. 397.] But the cafe was, to say nothing that Chriftina loved both to be flattered and to tyrannife, Salmafius had now been long preparing to return to Holland, to fulfill 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, fhe wrote his widow a letter in French, full of concern for his loss, and respect for his memory. See his VITA and EPISTOLE, by Ant. Clementius, pp. 52.71. Lugd. Bat. 1656. 4to. Such, however was Chriftina's levity, or hypocrify, or caprice, that it is poffible she might have acted inconsistently in fome parts of this business. For what I have faid, I have quoted a good authority. It appears indeed from some of Voffius's Epiftles, that at leaft the commended the wit and ftyle of Milton's performance: merely perhaps for the idle pleasure of piquing Salmafius. See Burman's SYLLOG. EPISTOL. vol. iii. p. 596. 259. 270. 271, 313.663.665. Of her majefty's oftentatious or rather accidental attentions to learning, fome traites appear in a letter from Cromwell's envoy at Upfall, 1653. Thurlow's STATE-Papers, vol. ii. 104. "While fhe was more bookishly given, she had it in her thoughts to inftitute an Order of Parnaffus; but shee being of “ late more addicted to the court than scholars, and having in a "pastoral comedie herfelfe acted a fhepheardeffe part called Ama"ranta: fhee in the creation invests with a scarfe, &c." Her learned schemes were sometimes interrupted by an amour with a prime minister, or foreign embassadour: unless perhaps any of her literary fycophants had the good fortune to poffefs fome other pleafing arts, and knew how to intrigue as well as to write. She thewed neither tafte nor judgment in rewarding the degrees or kinds of the merit of the authors with which fhe was furrounded: and she sometimes careffed buffoons of ability, who entertained the court with a burlefque of her moft favourite literary characters. It is perhaps hardly poffible to read any thing more ridiculous, more unworthy of a scholar, or more difgraceful to learning itself, than Nicholas Heinfius's epiftles to Christina. In which, to say nothing of the abject expreffions of adulation, he pays the most servile compliments to her royal knowledge, in confulting her majefty on various matters of erudition, in telling her what libraries he had examined, what Greek manuscripts he had collated, what Roman infcriptions he had collected for her infpection, and what conjectural emendations he had made on difficult paffages of the claffics. I do not mean to make a general comparison: but Chriftina's pretenfions to learned criticism, and to a decifion even in works of profound philofophical fcience, at leaft remind us of the affectations of a queen of England, who was deep in the most abstruse myfteries of theology, and who held folemn conferences with Clarke, Waterland, and Hoadly, on the doctrine of the Trinity. See Notes on the laft Epigram. Salmafius's Reply was pofthumous, and did not appear till after the Restoration: and his DEFENSIO had no fecond edition. XI. Galli XI. Alli ex concubitu gravidam te, Pontia, Mori, ?* GA Quis bene moratam, morigeramque neget?" * From Milton's DEFENSIO SECUNDA, ut. fupr. ii. 320. And his RESPONSIO to Morus's Supplement, ibid. ii. 383. This dif tich was occafioned by a report, that Morus had debauched a favourite waiting maid of the wife of Salmafius, Milton's antagonift. 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 fort of newspaper published at London once a week in two sheets in quarto, and commencing in June 1649, by Marchmont Nedham, a virulent but verfatile party fcribbler, who sometimes libelled the republicans, and fometimes the royalifts with an equal degree of fcurrility, and who is called by Wood a great crony of Milton. Thefe papers, in or after the year 1654, perhaps at the inftigation of our author, contain many pasquinades on Morus. Bayle, in the article MORUS, cites a Letter from Tanaquil Faber. Where Faber, fo late as 1658, under the words calumniolæ and rumufculi, alludes to fome of Morus's gallantries: perhaps to this epigram, which served to keep them alive, and was still very popular. Morus laid himself open to Milton's humour, in afferting that he mistook the true spelling of the girl's name," BONTIAM, fateor, aliud apud "me manufcriptum habet. Sed prima utrobique litera, quæ fola variat, ejufdem fere apud vos poteftatis eft. Alterum ego nomen, ut notius et elegantius, falvo criticorum jure, præpofui.' AUTOR. PRO SE, &c. ut fupr. ii. 383. And fhe is called BONTIA in a citation of this Epigram in a letter of N. Heinfius, dated 1653. SYLLOG. ut fupr. iii. 307. Where fays the critic," Ag"nofcis in illo Ouweniani acuminis ineptias." He adds, that the Epigram was fhewn him by Ulac, from the London newspapers, Gazettis Londinenfibus, where it was preceded by this unlucky anecdote of our amorous ecclefiaftic. And in another, dated 1652. "Gazettæ certe Londinenfes fabellam narrant lepidiffimam, &c." Ibid. p. 305. Again, in a Letter from J. Voffius to H. Heinfius, dated 1652. "Mihi fane Æthiops [Morus] multo rectius facturus fuiffe videtur, fi ex Ovidii tui præcepto a Domina incepiffet, "Minor quidem voluptas illa fuiffet, fed longe majorem iniviffet "gratiam. Divulgata eft paffim hæc fabella, etiam in gazettiş 66 publicis Londinenfibus. Addita etiam EPIGRAMMATA." Ib. p. 649. Again, from J. Ulitius at the Hague to N. Heinfius, dated 1652. "Prodiit liber cui tit. CLAMOR, &c. Angli Morum pro "autore habentes, nupero Novorum [News] Schedio cum vehe "" menter |