NOTES. NOTE 1. Carlo Dati. A remark of Cowper's at the close of the Complimentary Pieces has sufficiently answered the morose severity of Dr. Johnson against the foreign eulogists of Milton. I will only add in favour of the last, Carlo Dati, that he must have been very young, when he addressed so fervid a compliment to our admirable countryman, and that he seems to have spoken from his heart. He raised himself, in a later period, to considerable literary distinction; and was one of the learned Italians, who received a pension from the munificence of Louis the 14th. It is said, that both this monarch, and Christina of Sweden, invited Dati to their respective courts; but they could not induce him to relinquish his native and favourite city of Florence, where he lived much respected for his learning, and his politeness. In 1667 he published, in a thin quarto, his lives of the four Grecian painters, Zeuxis, Parrhasius, Apelles, and Protogenes, a work in which the author displays much learning, and delicacy of taste. It appears to be part of a more extensive projected work. He was Greek professor at Florence, and librarian to the Cardinal Carlo de Medici. Tiraboschi praises him as one of the refiners of the Tuscan language, and adds, that he would have bequeathed to the world more voluminous proofs of his erudition, had not death rapidly terminated his life and labours in 1675, at the age of fifty-six. His death happened one year after the decease of Milton, who died in his sixty-sixth year, and was born eleven years before his Italian panegyrist. Though he is styled Juvenis in the Latin compliment of his younger friend; the expression is remarkable, as our great poet was thirty years old when he visited Italy. I find in Dati's life of Zeuxis, an Italian sonnet, which he composed on the extraordinary death of that celebrated painter. Partiality to a writer, who honoured our poet on his travels with such generous enthusiasm, has induced me to transcribe his Sonnet on the Grecian painter, and to give it an English dress. Zeuxis is said to have died in a fit of laughter, on surveying a portrait that he had painted, of an old woman. SONETTO. Nacque piangendo, al fin ridendo muore Ma se'l riso è mortale, e qual terrore Di non pianger vivendo ore omicide; SONNET. Weeping was Zeuxis born, and laughing died, Birth then appears like anguish of the heart, But if a laugh can kill, who may abide The misery of weeping? if a start The laugher we should call a man of woe, And happy him, whose eyes have many a tear, Who scorns in grievous scenes due grief to show; The Sonnet of Dati is a specimen of that indescribable passion for over-refined conceits, which had infected the Italian poetry of his time, and of which some traces may be seen even in the Italian verses of the chaste, and sublime, English poet. Among the Latin letters of Milton, there is one of considerable length to Carlo Dati, written almost ten years after they had taken leave of each other, on the poet's return to his native country. From this letter it appears, that Dati was regarded by Milton as one of the first, if not the very first of his Italian friends: their correspondence had been interrupted by the troubles of the times, and Milton expresses great concern for the loss of several letters from his correspondent of Florence. He speaks highly of Dati's judgment in literature, and says, he should not have omitted to send him his numerous publications, had they not been confined to the English Language. He promises to send him speedily a copy of his Latin poems, and declares, he should have sent them, before Dati expressed a wish to receive them, had he not been apprehensive of hurting the feelings of his Catholic friend by an asperity, of which he was conscious, against the Roman Pontiff; a topic, on which he entreats his friend to allow him such liberty of speech in his writings, as he had formerly granted him in conversation, and such, as he allowed to those illustrious free speakers of Italy, Dante, and Petrarch. Milton mentions his reading with pleasure, a publication of Dati's, on the funeral of Lewis the Thirteenth, a publication unnoticed in all the accounts of Dati's compositions, that I have seen. The Florentine author had jested on this production of his own pen, as seeming to indicate a venal spirit, an idea, that Milton rejects with the most liberal politeness. The letter closes with a desire of establishing a plan for the safety and regularity of their future correspondence, and remembrances to several countrymen and associates of Dati. NOTE 2. Elegy I. н. Mr. Warton stands first among the scholars of our country, who have laboured, with a laudable diligence and zeal, to illustrate the minor poems of Milton: He has justly and ably vindicated the Latin verse of our great poet against the censorious malevolence of Dr. Johnson, which led that powerful and prejudiced critic into a very awkward attempt to degrade it. Cowper, who wrote Latin verses himself with singular facility and elegance, esteemed these Elegies of Milton as not inferior to the best elegiac productions of the Augustan age. Such also was the opinion of that learned eulogist of antiquity, Lord Montboddo. Dr. Symmons, a recent and respectable biographer of Milton, says of these compositions," To England they are peculiarly interesting, as they were the first pieces, which extended her fame for Latin poetry to the Continent, and as they evince the various powers of her illustrious bard by shewing, that he, who afterwards approved himself to be her Æchylus and her Homer, could once flow in the soft numbers, and breathe the tender sentiments of Ovid |