a civil war beginning in England; efteeming it an8 unworthy thing for him fecurely to be diverting himself abroad, when his countrymen were contending at bome for their liberty. Intending therfore to return to Rome, he was advis'd by fom merchants to the contrary; for they had learnt from their correspondents, that the English Jefuits were framing plots against him by reafon of the great freedom he us'd in his difcourfes of religion. Notwithstanding, having refolv'd not to begin any difputes, but, being afk'd, not to diffemble his fentiments whatever might infue, he went the fecond time to Rome, and fay'd there two months longer, neither concealing his name, nor declining openly to defend the truth under the pope's nose, when any thought fit to attack him: yet be return❜d safe to his learned and affectionat friends in Florence. I forgot all this while to mention that he paid a visit to GALILEO, then an old man, and a prifoner to the Inquifition for thinking otherwise in aftronomy than pleas'd the Franciscan and Dominican friers. He tarry'd two other months in Florence, and having seen Lucca, Bononia, Ferrara, he arriv'd in Venice. After fpending one month here, and shipping off all the books he collected in his travels, he came thro Verona, Milan, cross the Alps, and along the lake Lemanno to Geneva, where he contracted an intimat familiarity with GIOVANNI DIODATI, a noted profeffor of divinity, and was known to feveral others, particularly to the celebrated critic and antiquary FREDERIC SPANHEMIUS Now alive, to whom he wrote the 17th of his familiar letters, and who, together with CALAN CALANDRINI, and fom more of that city, fent him intelligence afterwards concerning his antagonist MORUS, wherof in due order. So leaving this place, and paffing back again thro France, he did after one year and three months peregrination return fafe into England, much about the fame time that king CHARLES the first made his fecond un→ successful expedition against the Scots. As foon as the complements of friends or acquaintance were over, he hir'd a handfom lodging in the city, to be a retreat for himself and his books in fuch uncertain and troublesom times. But he continu'd a long while inconfolable for the lofs of his dearest friend and schoolfellow CHARLES DIODATI, mention'd before, who dy'd in his abfence. He was from Lucca originally, but an Englishman born, a student in phyfic, and an excellent scholar, as I have good reasons to believe, and appears by two Greec letters of his to MILTON, very handfomly written, and which I have now in my hands. Our author in mournful notes bitterly laments the immature fate of this young gentleman, whom he denotes by the appellation of DAMON in an eclog nothing inferior to the Maronian Daphnis, and which is to be still feen among his Latin mifcellanies. By this piece we plainly find that he had already conceiv'd the plan of an epic poem, wherof he then defign'd the subject should be the warlike actions of the old British heroes, and particularly of king ARTHUR, as he declares himself in these verfes. Ipfe ego Dardanias Rutupina per æquora puppes But this particular subject was referv'd for the celebrated pen of Sir RICHARD BLACKMORE. Som few lines after he declares his ambition of performing fomthing in his native language that might perpetuat his name in these ilands, tho he fhould be the mere obfcure and inglorious by it to the rest of the world. His words, because they are wonderfully fine, I fhall here infert. Mi fatis ampla Merces, & mibi grande decus (fim ignotus in avum I said above that it was by his conversation with the marquifs of Villa, who fo nobly honor'd the immortal memory of TASSO, that our MILTON form'd his vaft defign. That this was not a mere conjecture, and that king ARTHUR alfo was to be the hero of that piece, let but these verses of his Manfus be confider'd. O mibi fi mea fors talem concedat amicum BUT to return to his lodgings, where we left him, there, both to be eas'd in the reading of the beft authors, and to discharge his duty to his fifter's fons that were partly committed to his tuition, he undertook the care of their education, and inftructed them in Latin, Greec, Hebrew, and other oriental dialects; likewife in feveral parts of the mathematics, in cofmography, history, and som modern languages, as French and Italian. Som gentlemen of his intimat friends, and to whom he could deny nothing, prevail'd with him to impart the fame benefits of learning to their fons, fpecially fince the trouble was no more with many than a few. He that well knew the greatest perfons in all ages to have bin delighted with teaching others the principles of knowlege and virtue, eafily comply'd; nor was bis fuccefs unanswerable to the opinion which was generally entertain'd of his capacity. And not content to acquaint his difciples with thofe books that are commonly read in the fchools, wherof feveral, no doubt, are excellent in their kind, tho others are as trivial or impertinent; he made them likewife read in Latin the antient authors concerning husbandry, as CATO, VARRO, COLUMELLA, and RALLADIUS; alfo CORNELIUS CELSUS the phyfician, phyfician, PLINY's Natural History, the Architecture of VITRUVIUS, the Stratagems of FRONTINUS, and the philofophical poets LUCRETIUS and MANILIUS. To the ufual Greec books, as HOMER and HESIOD, he added ARATUS, DIONYSIUS PERIEGETES, OPPIAN, QUINTUS CALABER, APOLLONIUS RHODIUS, PLUTARCH, XENOPHON, ELIAN'S Tactics, and the Stratagems of POLYÆNUS. It was this greatest fign of a good man in him, and the highest obligation he could lay on his friends, without any fordid or mercenary purposes, that gave occafion to his adverfaries with opprobriously terming him a School-mafter; tho were this charge as true as it is utterly false, I fee not how it should any way tend to his dishonor, if he had bin neceffitated to fuch a laborious occupation for his living, and difcharg'd it with due honesty and care. But what's very remarkable is, that the most forward to reproach him in this manner were themselves mean tutors in the university, and the greatest of 'em only a profeffor, which are but nominally distinguishable from schoolmasters. He tells us himself in his fecond defence, "That "on his return from travelling he found all "mouths open against the bishops, fom com"plaining of their vices, and others quarelling at "the very order; and that thinking from fuch "beginnings a way might be open'd to true li 1 berty, he heartily ingag'd in the difpute, as well "to refcue his fellow-citizens from flavery, as to "help the puritan minifters, who were inferior to "the bishops in learning." He first of all therfore, in the year 1641. publish'd two books of Reformation, |