observed at a distance by some friends of Milton, and they explained to
him the whole silent adventure. Milton on opening the paper read _four
verses_ from Guarini, addressed to those "human stars," his own eyes! On
this romantic adventure, Milton set off for Italy, to discover the fair
"incognita," to which undiscovered lady we are told we stand indebted
for the most impassioned touches in the Paradise Lost! We know how
Milton passed his time in Italy, with Dati, and Gaddi, and Frescobaldi,
and other literary friends, amidst its academies, and often busied in
book-collecting. Had Milton's tour in Italy been an adventure of
knight-errantry, to discover a lady whom he had never seen, at least he
had not the merit of going out of the direct road to Florence and Rome,
nor of having once alluded to this _Dame de ses pensees_, in his letters
or inquiries among his friends, who would have thought themselves
fortunate to have introduced so poetical an adventure in the numerous
_canzoni_ they showered on our youthful poet.

This _historiette_, scarcely fitted for a novel, first appeared where
generally Steevens's literary amusements were carried on, in the
_General Evening Post_, or the _St. James's Chronicle_: and Mr. Todd, in
the improved edition of Milton's Life, obtained this spurious original,
where the reader may find it; but the more curious part of the story
remains to be told. Mr. Todd proceeds, "The preceding highly-coloured
relation, however, is _not singular_; my friend, Mr. Walker, points out
to me a counterpart in the extract from the preface to _Poesies de
Marguerite-Eleanore Clotilde, depuis Madame de Surville, Poete Francois
du XV. Siecle. Paris, 1803_."

And true enough we find among "the family traditions" of the same
Clotilde, that Justine de Levis, great-grandmother of this unknown
poetess of the fifteenth century, walking in a forest, witnessed the
same beautiful _spectacle_ which the Italian Unknown had at Cambridge;
never was such an impression to be effaced, and she could not avoid
leaving her tablets by the side of the beautiful sleeper, declaring her
passion in her tablets by _four Italian verses_! The very number our
Milton had meted to him! Oh! these _four_ verses! they are as fatal in
their _number_ as the _date_ of Peele's letter proved to George
Steevens! Something still escapes in the most ingenious fabrication
which serves to decompose the materials. It is well our veracious
historian dropped