Aufus es infandum, perfide Fauxe, nefas, Fallor? An et mitis voluisti ex parte videri, Et penfare malâ cum pietate scelus? Scilicet hos alti miffurus ad atria cœli, Sulphureo curru, flammivolifque rotis : Qualiter ille, feris caput inviolabile Parcis, Liquit lördanios turbine raptus agros. II. In eandem. SICCINE tentâfti cœlo donâffe Iacobum, Ver. 2. Quæ feptemgemino, Bellua, monte lates?] The Pope, called in the theological language of the times The Beaft. WARTON. Ille quidem fine te confortia ferus adivit Aftra, nec inferni pulveris ufus ope. Sic potiùs fœdos in cœlum pelle cucullos, Et quot habet brutos Roma profana deos : Namque hac aut aliâ nifi quemque adjuveris arte, Crede mihi, cœli vix bene scandet iter. 10 III. In eandem. PURGATOREM animæ derifit läcobus ignem, Et fine quo fuperûm non adeunda domus. Frenduit hoc trinâ monftrum Latiale coronâ, Movit et horrificum cornua dena minax. "Et nec inultus," ait," temnes mea facra, Bri tanne : Supplicium, spretâ relligione, dabis. "Et, fi ftelligeras unquam penetraveris arces, "Non nifi per flammas trifte patebit iter." O quàm funefto cecinisti proxima vero, Verbáque ponderibus vix caritura fuis! Nam prope Tartareo fublimè rotatus ab igni, Ibat ad æthereas, umbra perusta, plagas, 5 10 IV. In eandem. QUEM modò Roma fuis devoverat impia diris, V. IN INVENTOREM BOMBARDE. IAPETIONIDEM laudavit cæca vetuftas, Ver. 4. Et trifidum fulmen, furripuiffe Jovi.] This thought wasafterwards transferred to the Paradife Loft. Where the fallen angels are exulting in their new invention of fire-arms, B. vi. 490. "They fhall fear we have difarm'd "The thunderer of his only dreaded bolt." WARTON. Compare, with this epigram, Drummond's Madrigals, 1616. "The Cannon." "When firft the cannon, from her gaping throte, << Against the heauen her roaring fulphure shote, VI. Ad LEONORAM Rome canentem *. ANGELUS unicuique fuus, fic credite gentes, Quid mirum, Leonora, tibi fi gloria major ? * Adriana of Mantua, for her beauty furnamed the Fair, and her daughter Leonora Baroni, the lady whom Milton celebrates in these three Latin Epigrams, were esteemed by their contem. poraries the finest fingers in the world. Giovanni Battista Doni, in his book De præftantia Mufica veteris, published in 1647, fpeaking of the merit of fome modern vocal performers, declares that Adriana, or her daughter Leonora, would fuffer injury by being compared to the ancient Sappho. B. ii. p. 57. There is a volume of Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and Spanish, poems in praise of Leonora, printed at Rome, entitled " Applaufi poetici alle glorie della Signora LEONORA BARONI." Nicius Erythreus, in his Pinacotheca, calls this collection the Theatrum of that ex. quifite Songftrefs Eleonora Baroni, "in quo, omnes hîc Romæ quotquot ingenio et poeticæ facultatis laude præftant, carminibus, cum Etrufcè tum Latinè fcriptis, fingulari ac propè divino mulieris illius canendi artificio, tamquam fauftos quofdam clamores et plaufus edunt, &c." Pinac. ii. p. 427. Lipf. 1712. 12mo. In the Poefie Liriche of Fulvio Tefti, there is an encomiaftick Sonnet to Leonora, Poef. Lyr. del Conte Fulvio Festi, Ven. 1691. p. 361. "Se l'angioletta mia tremolo, e chiaro, &c." M. Maugars, Priour of S. Peter de Mac at Paris, king's interpreter of the English language, and in his time a capital practitioner on the viol, has left this eulogy on Leonora and her mother, at the end of his judicious Difcours fur la Mufique d' Italia, printed with the life of Malherbe, and other treatifes, at Paris, 1672. 12mo. "Leonora has fine parts, and a happy judgement in diftinguishing good from bad mufick: fhe understands it perfectly Aut Deus, aut vacui certè mens tertia cœli, 5 Per tua fecretò guttura ferpit agens; well, and even compofes, which makes her abfolute miftrefs of what fhe fings, and gives her the most exact pronunciation and expreffion of the fenfe of the words. She does not pretend to beauty, yet she is far from being disagreeable, nor is fhe a coquet. She fings with an air of confident and liberal modefty, and with a pleafing gravity. Her voice reaches a large compafs of notes, is juft, clear, and melodious; and the foftens or raises it without conftraint or grimace. Her raptures and fighs are not too tender; her looks have nothing impudent, nor do her geftures betray any thing beyond the referve of a modeft girl. In paffing from one fong to another, fhe fhews fometimes the divifions of the enhar monick and chromatick fpecies with fo much air and sweetness, that every hearer is ravished with that delicate and difficult mode of finging. She has no need of any perfon to affift her with a theorbo or viol, one of which is required to make her finging complete; for fhe plays perfectly well herself on both those in. ftruments. In short, I have been so fortunate as to hear her fing feveral times above thirty different airs, with fecond and third ftanzas of her own compofition. But I must not forget, that one day she did me the particular favour to fing with her mother and her fifter her mother played upon the lute, her fifter upon the harp, and herself upon the theorbo. This concert, compofed of three fine voices, and of three different inftruments, fo powerfully captivated my fenfes, and threw me into fuch raptures, that I forgot my mortality, et crus etre deja parmi les anges, jouissant des contentemens des bienherueux." See Bayle, Dict. Baroni. Hawkins, Hift. Muf. iv. 196. To the excellence of the mother Adriana on the lute, Milton alludes in these lines of the fecond of these three Epigrams, v. 4. "Et te Pieriâ fenfiffet voce canentem "Aurea maternæ fila movere lyræ.” When Milton was at Rome, he was introduced to the concerts of Cardinal Barberini, afterwards Pope Urban the eighth, where he heard Leonora fing and her mother play. It was the fashion for all the ingenious strangers, who vifited Rome, to leave fome verfes |