ay there it is only known that he was received with
distinction by the English Ambassador, Lord Scudamore, and owed to him
an introduction to one of the greatest men in Europe, Hugo Grotius, then
residing at Paris as envoy from Christina of Sweden. Travelling by way
of Nice, Genoa, Leghorn, and Pisa, he arrived about the beginning of
August at Florence; where, probably by the aid of good recommendations,
he "immediately contracted the acquaintance of many noble and learned,"
and doubtless found, with the author of "John Inglesant," that "nothing
can be more delightful than the first few days of life in Italy in the
company of polished and congenial men." The Florentine academies, he
implies answered one of the purposes of modern clubs, and enabled the
traveller to multiply one good introduction into many. He especially
mentions Gaddi, Dati, Frescobaldi, Coltellini, Bonmattei, Chimentelli,
and Francini, of all of whom a full account will be found in Masson. Two
of them, Dati and Francini, have linked their names with Milton's by
their encomiums on him inserted in his works. The key-note of these
surprising productions is struck by Francini when he remarks that the
heroes of England are accounted in Italy superhuman. If this is so, Dati
may be justified in comparing a young man on his first and last foreign
tour to the travelled Ulysses; and Francini in declaring that Thames
rivals Helicon in virtue of Milton's Latin poems, which alone the
panegyrist could read. Truly, as Smollett says, Italian is the language
of compliments. If ludicrous, however, the flattery is not nauseous, for
it is not wholly insincere. Amid all conventional exaggerations there is
an under-note of genuine feeling, showing that the writers really had
received a deep impression from Milton, deeper than they could well
explain or understand. The bow drawn at a venture did not miss the mark,
but it is a curious reflection that those of his performances which
would really have justified their utmost enthusiasm were hieroglyphical
to them. Such of his literary exercises as they could understand
consisted, he says, of "some trifles which I had in memory composed at
under twenty or thereabout; and other things which I had shifted, in
scarcity of books and conveniences, to patch up among them." The former
class of compositions may no doubt be partly identified with his college
declamations and Latin verses. What the "things patched up among them"
may have been