THE NEAPOLITAN JOIN BAPTIST MANSO, MARQUIS OF VILLA, TO THE ENGLISHMAN JOHN MILTON. WHAT features, form, mein, manners, with a mind O how intelligent ! and how refin'd! Were but thy piety from fault as free, Thou would'st no Angle* but an Angel be. * The reader perceives the word Angle is essential, because the Epigram turns upon it. AN EPIGRAM ADDRESSED TO THE ENGLISHMAN JOHN MILTON, A POET WORTHY OF THREE LAURELS, THE GRECIAN, LATIN, AND ETRUSCAN, BY JOHN SALSILLA OF ROME, MELES* and Mincio,† both your urns depress! + Meles is a river of Ionia, in the neighbourhood of Smyrna, whence Homer is called Melesigenes. The Mincio watered the city of Mantua famous as the birth-place of Virgil. § Sebetus is now the Fiume della Maddalena; it runs through Naples. But let the Thames o'er-peer all floods since he TO JOHN MILTON. GREECE, Sound thy Homer's, Rome, thy Virgil's GENTLEMAN OF FLORENCE, EXALT me, Clio, to the skies, And to a heav'nly mind a recompence from heaven. Time's wasteful hunger cannot prey On everlasting high desert, Nor can Oblivion steal away, Its record graven on the heart; Lodge but an arrow, Virtue, on the bow That binds my lyre, and death shall be a vanquish'd foe. In Ocean's blazing flood enshrin'd She teems with heroes, that to glory rise, To Virtue, driv'n from other lands, Her smiles they feel divinely sweet. Confirm my record, Milton, gen'rous youth! Zeuxis, all energy and flame, Set ardent forth in his career; Resounding ever in his ear; To make his image to her beauty true From the collected Fair each sov'reign charm he drew. The bee with subtlest skill endued Thus toils to earn her precious juice From all the flowery myriads strew'd O'er meadow and parterre, profuse; Confed❜rate voices one sweet air compound, And various chords consent in one harmonious sound. An artist of celestial aim Thy genius, caught by moral grace, The steps of Virtue toil'd to trace, Observ'd in every land who brightest shone, And blending all their best, made perfect good thy own. From all, in Florence born, or taught Immortal honours justly share, Thou hast such treasure drawn of purest ore, Babel confus'd, and with her towers With all her tongues confus'd in vain, Since not alone thy England's purest phrase The secret things of heav'n and earth To thee are copiously reveal'd, Thou know'st them clearly, and thy views attain The utmost bounds prescrib'd to moral Truth's do main. Let Time no more his wing display, And boast his ruinous career, For Virtue rescued from his sway His injuries may cease to fear; Since all events, that claim remembrance, find Give me, that I may praise thy song, Already proves thee more than man; And Thames shall seem Permessus, while his stream, Grac'd with a swan like thee, shall be my fav'rite theme. I, who beside the Arno, strain |