It might be fuppofed that he who read fo much fhould have done nothing else; but Milton found time to write the Mafque of Comus, which was prefented at Ludlow, then the refidence of the Lord Prefident of Wales, in 1634; and had the honour of being acted by the earl of Bridgewater's fons and daughter. The fiction is derived from Homer's Circe; but we never can refuse to any modern the liberty of borrowing from Homer:

-a quo ceu fonte perenni Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis.

His next production was Lycidas, an elegy, written in 1637, on the death of Mr. King, the fon of Sir John King,

fecre

fecretary for Ireland in the time of Elizabeth, James, and Charles. King was much a favourite at Cambridge, and many of the wits joined to do honour to his memory. Milton's acquaintance with the Italian writers may be discovered by a mixture of longer and fhorter verfes, according to the rules of Tuscan poetry, and his malignity to the Church by fome lines which are interpreted as threatening its extermination.

He is fuppofed about this time to have written his Arcades; for while he lived at Horton he used fometimes to fteal from his ftudies a few days, which he spent at Harefield, the house of the countefs dowager of Derby,

where

7

where the Arcades made part of a dra

matick entertainment.

He began now to grow weary of the country; and had fome purpose of taking chambers in the Inns of Court, when the death of his mother fet him at liberty to travel, for which he obtained his father's confent, and Sir Henry Wotton's directions, with the celebrated precept of prudence, i penfieri ftretti, ed il vifo fciolto; "thoughts "close, and looks loose."

In 1638 he left England, and went firft to Paris; where, by the favour of lord Scudamore, he had the opportunity of vifiting Grotius, then refiding at the French court as ambaffador from Chriftina of Sweden. From Paris he hafted

into Italy, of which he had with particular diligence ftudied the language and literature; and, though he feems to have intended a very quick perambulation of the country, ftaid two months at Florence; where he found his way into the academies, and produced his compofitions with fuch applaufe as appears to have exalted him in his own opinion, and confirmed him in the hope, that,

by labour and intenfe ftudy, which," fays he, "I take to be my portion in this life, joined with a ftrong propenfity of nature, he might leave fome

re

thing fo written to after-times, as they "fhould not willingly let it die."

It appears, in all his writings, that he had the ufual concomitant of great

abilities, a lofty and fteady confidence in himself, perhaps not without fome contempt of others; for fcarcely any man ever wrote fo much and praised fo few. Of his praife he was very frugal; as he fet its value high, and confidered his mention of a name as a fecurity against the waste of time, and a certain prefervative from oblivion.

At Florence he could not indeed complain that his merit wanted diftinction. Carlo Dati prefented him with an encomiaftick infcription, in the tumid lapidary stile; and Francini wrote him an ode, of which the first stanza is only empty noife; the reft are perhaps too diffuse on common topicks; but the last is natural and beautiful.