Farewell, learned sir, and if there be any one more attached to you and your studies, than I am, wherever he be, I beg you to associate me with him -if you think me of that consequence.

X.

TO CHARLES DATI.

[Milton returned to London in 1639. In the interval of eight years since the last letter, he was engaged in the episcopal and matrimonial controversies; redeeming in some degree that waste of labour, by publishing a volume of poems, a tract on education, and, the master-piece of his prose compositions, the Areopagitica.

Dati was of a noble family in Florence, and professor of Greek and Belles Lettres there. He wrote a discourse on the importance of correct language, a panegyric on Louis XIV., and the lives of four of the principal Grecian painters, the commencement of a projected biographical series, which he did not continue. He also published a selection of Italian prose. Milton names him in the Epitaphium Damonis,' and prefixed an extravagant encomium by him to his Latin poems1. He died in 1675.]

6

1 Toland, with his usual simplicity, says of this production, I don't think the Italian flourishes were ever carried

LONDON, APRIL 21, 1647.

As it is out of my power to express the extraordinary pleasure your unexpected letter gave me, I must let you know that it was attended with sorrow, with which no mortal happiness is unmingled. For, to read the first part of your epistle, in which elegance of style vies with friendship, I may call real delight; especially as I see that you labour to give friendship the ascendency. But when I come to the paragraph in which you state that you have written three letters, which I know must be lost, my sincere pleasure is infected and disturbed by sad regret. Then a still more distressing reflection succeeds-one in which I frequently bewail my situation-that those with whom neighbourhood, or any other unimportant connection, accidental or legal, has associated me, visit me every day, without any other warrant, teasing and torturing me as often as they choose, whilst almost all those whose address, talents, and pursuits attach them to my affection,

further than in this elogy, which, notwithstanding, is sincere, and penned by an honest man.'

are separated from me by death or the most cruel distance; and are so rapidly snatched from my sight, that I am forced to an almost perpetual solitude2.

I am flattered by your anxiety for my safety after I left Florence, and your continued remembrance of me; by which I perceive that the feelings, which I thought were exclusively my own, are mutual. I can not conceal from you, that my departure was very afflicting to me, and fixed a sting in my heart, which still rankles, when I think from how many excellent and kind companions and friends, in that distant but beloved city, I have been torn away. I

2 In this year Milton's father died, at an advanced age. He was a distinguished composer of music, and a man of education. In the beautiful poem addressed to him, Milton flatters his parent by representing his love of harmony to be hereditary:

Now say, what wonder is it, if a son
Of thine delight in verse, if so conjoined
In close affinity, we sympathize

‘In social arts, and kindred studies sweet?

Such distribution of himself to us

' Was Phœbus' choice; thou hast thy gift, and I
• Mine also, and between us we receive,
'Father and Son, the whole inspiring God.'

Ad Patrem. Cowper's trans.

declare that the grave of Damon3 will be always sacredly regarded by me. In commemorating his death, under the oppression of grief, nothing was more consolatory than to remember you all and recall you individually to mind. You would have received those verses long since, if they had not miscarried, of which you gave me the first intelligence, for I took care to send them to you immediately, that however little genius they may evince, even these few lines, composed as a memento, would be no obscure evidence of my regard. I thought too, that I might thus entice a letter from some of you; for if I had written first, I must have written to all, for a preference of one would offend the rest; as I hope there are still many who would claim this duty from me. But you, by this most friendly provocation, and having written three times, requiring my answer, have prevented the censure of the others. I confess I ought to add, as another cause of silence, the turbulent condition of Great Britain since my

3 Diodati. See Letter VI.

4 In the epitaph he names Dati, Francini and Manso. 5 The gathering of the storm brought Milton home be