SONNET II.: ON HIS HAVING ARRIVED AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-THREE. (Editions of 1645 and 1673; and Draft, in Milton's own hand, among the Cambridge MSS.) Milton prints this Sonnet after his Five Italian Sonnets and Canzone, so as to make it the seventh in the general series; but it may fitly be placed second. At all events, we know its exact date. He wrote it at or about the moment when Time had "stolen on his wing" the "three-and-twentieth year of his life; and that was on the 9th of December 1631. He was then at Cambridge, a B.A. of three years' standing, and was looking forward to his degree of M.A., and the close of his Cambridge career, in a few months. But the occurrence of the draft of the Sonnet among the Cambridge MSS. adds other illustrative particulars. It occurs there as an insertion into the first of two drafts, in Milton's hand, of a prose letter, of some length, which, most probably some time in 1633,-he sent, or meant to send, to a friend. This friend, whose name we do not know, had remonstrated with Milton on the aimless course of merely studious life he was then leading, and on the impropriety of his continuing it instead of dedicating his talents to the Church or some other active profession. Milton's reply is a courteous acknowledgment of the interest shown by the friend in his behalf, with a defence of his conduct, and a statement of his reasons for being in no hurry to enter the Church. Though all ordinary motives conspired to urge him into that or some other profession, yet a "sacred reverence and religious advisement," a principle of "not taking thought of being late, so it gave advantage to be more fit," had hitherto held him back. "That you may see," he adds, "that I am something "suspicious of myself, and do take notice of a certain belatedness in "me, I am the bolder to send you some of my nightward thoughts "some little while ago, because they come in not altogether unfitly, "made up in a Petrarchian stanza, which I told you of." Here, accordingly, follows the sonnet on which we are now commenting. It had been written "some while ago,"-probably on Dec. 9, 1631; he had mentioned it to his friend in conversation; and now he sends him a copy of it. Whatever his friend thought of it, we read it now with admiration. SONNETS III-VII.: Five ITALIAN SONNETS, WITH (Editions of 1645 and 1673.) These Italian pieces, which precede Sonnet II. in Milton's own editions, form a little group by themselves. They relate the story of Milton's love for some Italian lady, beautiful, dark-haired, accomplished, and fascinating by her grace and her powers of singing. In one of the pieces Charles Diodati is addressed as a confidant, and is told that his stubborn friend, who had laughed at love hitherto, has at length yielded, and that his conqueress is not a fair-haired English maiden, but one of Diodati's own countrywomen, a foreign beauty, of stately carriage, and with eyes of a splendid black. In three others the lady herself is addressed directly; and in one, and in the Canzone, Milton excuses himself for writing in Italian, saying that this is the language of love, and that in which his lady delights. Where, then, in Milton's life, are the Sonnets and Canzone, and the incident which they chronicle, to be dated? Towards determining this, the fact that one of the Sonnets is addressed to Diodati is of some consequence. Diodati died in the summer of 1638, shortly after Milton set out on his Italian journey, though Milton did not know the fact till that journey was near its close and he was on his way home. Therefore, the Sonnets, if they are one series and refer to the same incident (which there is no reason to doubt), must have been written during Milton's stay in Italy, before he had heard the sad news of Diodati's death, and while he was still fancying him alive and well in England; or else they must have been written at some earlier period, before the visit to Italy, and while Diodati and Milton were together or within reach of each other in England itself. --The first supposition has been generally adopted, and there is much in its favour. There is an Italian air about the Sonnets; they breathe of Italy. They have been referred therefore, by common consent, to the time of Milton's Italian journey (1638-9). Some time and some where during that journey, it is supposed, he met the foreign beauty who captivated him. Warton imagines that she may have been the celebrated singer, Leonora Baroni, whom Milton heard at Rome, and to whom he addressed three pieces of complimentary Latin verse (see them among the Latin Poems, and the Introduction to them). There is no ground whatever for the fancy. The lady, whoever she was, is described, in the first Sonnet, as a native of the Vale of the Reno, in the north of the Papal States, between Bologna and Ferrara. Now, Milton visited this part of Italy in 1639, or towards the end of his tour, when, after having returned from Naples, and paid second visits, of two months each, to Rome and Florence, he passed through Bologna and Ferrara on his way to Venice and homewards. But the lady, though a Bolognese, may have been met in Venice, or perhaps even in Florence or Rome, before Milton had passed through Bologna. On the supposition that it was somewhere in Italy that he did meet her, the address to Diodati in one of the Sonnets must be regarded as a poetic apostrophe, by which Milton, desiring a confidant for his secret, introduced the name of the dearest of his friends left at home in England, himself of Italian name and descent. It was as if he said, "How surprised Diodati will be when he hears this!", little knowing that Diodati was then dead.- -After all, however, may not the Italian Sonnets and Canzone have been written in England before the Italian journey, and even a good while before it? May not Milton, while at Cambridge, or after he had left Cambridge, have met, in English society, the Bolognese beauty who charmed him? May not his attempts in Italian have been a tribute to her foreign loveliness, and to the sweetness of the language as heard from her lips,-an obedience even to some such little saying of hers as the Canzone seems to record? Would not the appeal to Diodati in the affair have then been the most natural thing in the world?—On the whole, I still think the former supposition the likelier. I would rather not disturb the belief that the Sonnets and Canzone were written during the Italian journey, and that the vision of the Bolognese beauty was an incident of that journey. Yet the alternative supposition is tenable, and might be supported. In the second of the Sonnets and in the Canzone there are expressions which might be construed in its favour. Nor must the fact be concealed that Italian critics find evidence in all the pieces of a less perfect knowledge of Italian than we should suppose Milton to have had after a year or more of residence in Italy. My friend Signor Saffi, whom I consulted on the subject in the year 1858, obliged me with a verdict which is perhaps as kindly as any an Italian could give. VOL. I P "As regards the form of the language," Signor Saffi wrote, "there "are here and there irregularities of idiom and grammar, and "metaphors which remind one of the false literary taste prevalent in "Italy when Milton visited that country; although such a defect "appears, in the English imitator, modified by the freshness of his "native genius. The measure of the verse is generally correct, nay, more than this, musical; and one feels, in perusing these poems, "that the mind of the young aspiring poet had, from Petrarch to "Tasso, listened attentively to the gentlest notes of the Italian Muse, "though unable to reproduce them fully in a form of his own." For those who do not read Italian the following attempted translation of the Sonnets and Canzone may be better than nothing: I. Thou graceful lady, whose fair name knows well That frankly makes its sweetness visible, At no time sparing of its winning ways, And of those gifts, Love's bow and piercing rays, When thou dost softly speak or gaily sing, So as might move the hard wood from the hills, Let each one guard his hearing and his seeing Whom secret sense of his own vileness fills; Let Heaven's own grace its high deliverance bring II. As on a hill, at brown of evening-time, A shepherd-maiden from some neighbouring bower Far from the genial summer of its prime, So love in me, quick to express his power, And change fair Thames for Arno's as fair tide. Right well I wot Love will not be denied. Ah! were my heart, so hard, so slow to yield, CANZONE. Laughing, the ladies and the amorous youth Accost me round :-" Why dost thou write," ask they, "Tell us; so may thy hope not be in vain, "Are growing, even now are growing, for thy hair "My lady said (and what she says I treasure), III. Diodati, 'tis marvellous but true, This stubborn I, who held Love's law in scorn What dazzles me is not the casual view Of vermeil cheeks and tresses like the morn, Eyes calmly splendid of a lovely black, Words that command more tongues than one in tune, Of Night's mid vault might lure the labouring moon, That, though I stopped my ears, the gleams would kill me. IV. For certain, lady mine, your lovely eyes Must be my sun they beat on me as strong As do his rays on one who toils among All in that quarter where my sorrow lies, Part, shut in turbidly, my breast conceals; Some fluttering few, that will not so be pent, |