title to the dialogue, "Il Manso overo dell' amicizia." Manso proved the warmth, and fidelity, of his own friendship, by writing the lives of the two Italian poets particularly attached to him, Tasso and Marino. His other works are Poesie Nomiche Venezia, 12mo, 1635. These contain a translation of Claudian's Phenix, and a very large collection of complimentary verses addressed to Manso. Erocallia, or dialogues of love and beauty; in Venetia quarto, 1628. The arguments to these dialogues were written by the author's friend Marino, who in a letter to the Marquis, prefixed to the publication, gives a singular history of mischances, that befell the manuscript-lost after a battle, and recovered from the bottom of a river. These dialogues are curious compositions in the manner of Plato; and the Marquis introduces his friend Tasso as a speaker, in more than one." The elaborate historian of Italian literature Tiraboschi, celebrates Manso as the patron not only of arts and sciences, but of manly and martial exercises. He founded in Naples a college of nobles, to which he bequeathed his fortune. He also instituted in his own mansion, the academy described in the following words of Quadrio, the indefatigable chronicler of poets, of every age and country. "Nel 1611 fu pure instituita da Giovan Battista Manso Marchese di Villa, &c. l'academia degli oziosi, alla quale diede per impresa un aquila in atto di mover l'ali, nel reguardar fisa il sole col motto: non otiosa quies." This liberal friend to his country died in his native city of Naples, on the 28th of December 1645, in his eighty-fourth year. Mr. Walker, the historian of the Irish bards, who visited Italy, with the eyes of a friend to genius and virtue in every climate, endeavoured to discover the situation of the villa near Naples, in which Manso received Tasso and Milton, but he had the mortification to learn, that a scene so peculiarly beautiful, and interesting, had been destroyed, or disfigured, by various inundations. He affords, however, some pleasing information on this subject, and very justly vindicates the honour of Manso, as a biographer of the great Italian poet, in the 5th number of his Appendix to his elegant and entertaining memoir on Italian tragedy, quarto, 1799. Cicero has remarked the great pleasure derived from a contemplation of the scenes, once inhabited by characters peculiarly endeared to memory by genius and virtue. Were it possible to form a book, in which the pencil and the pen had happily united to delineate the abodes of all the most eminent philosophers, and poets, the pensive favorites of fame, in the different ages and nations of the earth, such a book would be a source of inexhaustible delight. H. NOTE 43. Should I recall hereafter into rhyme The kings, and heroes, of my native clime. The conclusion of this poem, the lively description of Manso's green old age, the glory, that Milton throws around him, as the cordial friend and protector of poets the author's wishes and presages concerning his own future poetical enterprizes, his departure from earth, and his eternal beatitude, are expressed in verses eminently beautiful, pathetic, and sublime. The character of Manso is so interesting in every point of view, and our country is so highly indebted to him for his kindness to Milton, that I wish Mr. Walker, who directed his attention in Italy to the residence and family of this pre-eminent friend of the Muses, would favour the public with a complete life of a personage so thoroughly entitled to grateful remembrance, and to a perfect display of his various merits. The elegant writer, from whose hand I should rejoice to call forth such a work, would find in the Dialogues of the Marquis, many particulars of his social habits. And the life of Manso would properly include a literary history of his age. Ferrari the biographer of Marino speaks of Manso's visit to Paris, and the marks of regard that he received in France. н. NOTE 44. Manso, not least his native city's pride. This figure is properly called the Meiosis, according to which, less is said than intended, that the reader's mind may supply the deficiency. An instance of it occurs in the 15th Iliad, where Homer, describing the enfeebled condition of Hector bruised by Ajax with a stone says σε Επει 8 μιν αφαυροταῖος βαλ' Αχαιων.” c. * It is remarkable that all the sublimest poets of the modern world, Dante, Camoens, Tasso, Shakespeare, and Milton, seem to have taken a delight in the com position of sonnets, as if they had all entertained the sentiment expressed in a verse of Boileau. "Un sonnet parfait vaut seul un long poeme." Nor is it less remarkable, that Shakespeare, the poet of this lofty group, who possessed in general the most extensive mastery of language, both serious and sportive, appears the most deficient in the graces of this petty composition. The Italians are said to have invented this popular little poem before Petrarch was born, but Faria, the indefatigable commentator of Camoens, in one of his discourses prefixed to the minor poems of his favorite author, disputes the title of Italy to this invention, by relating, that Jordi and Febrer two poets of Valentia, who happening to be with their king Don Jayme, in a storm at sea, in the year 1250, composed sonnets on that event. He goes still farther for the honour of Portugal, and cites some Portuguese verses of the year 1090, addressed by a valiant knight Gonzalo Hermiguez to his wife Oroana. This profound scholar was so fond of sonnets, that he intimates he had composed almost two thousand sonnets himself; his modesty however sets but little value on his own compositions, and declares Petrarch and Camoens to be the chief sonneteers of the world, or to cite dos felicissimos Heroes en este son los Polos, sobre que se libra este genero de escritura.” Faria cites a sonnet written by Don Pedro, Prince of Portugal, son of King John the First, in praise of the Portuguese knight Vasco de Lobeyra, whom he styles the inventor of books of chivalry by his Amadis. To compose sonnets was so fashionable an amusement of the great in the different kingdoms of Europe, that a complete catalogue of sonneteers would include several princes and sovereigns. When Milton employed himself on this attractive species of composition, he imparted to it the force and dignity of sentiment, that were the characteristics of his elevated mind. The following verse that closes one of his sonnets may serve to impress on a contemplative spirit a deep sense of all our duties "For ever in my great Task-master's eye." NOTE 46. H. My heart, which I have found It has ever been thought difficult for an author to speak gracefully of himself, especially in commendation, but Milton, who was gifted with powers to overcome difficulties of every kind, is eminently happy in this particular. He has spoken frequently of himself both in verse and prose, and he continually shews, that he thought highly of his own endowments; but if he |