P. [44]. To Charles Diodati: Milton's schoolfellow at St. Paul's, and his dearest friend; he died in August, 1638, while Milton was on his Continental tour; on his return he wrote the In memoriam poem, Epitaphium Damonis.
To Benedetto Bonmattei of Florence. (Familiar Letters, No. VIII.)
P. [46]. To Benedetto Bonmattei: mentioned by Milton among his Florentine friends, in the autobiographical passage in the Second Defence; see [note], p. 247.
Mansus
P. [47]. our native kings: the ancient kings of Britain.
P. [47]. stirring wars even under the earth: King Arthur, after his death, was supposed to be carried into the subterraneous land of Faerie, or of Spirits, where he still reigned as a king, and whence he was to return into Britain, to renew the Round Table, conquer all his old enemies, and reëstablish his throne. He was, therefore, etiam movens bella sub terris, still meditating wars under the earth. The impulse of his attachment to this subject was not entirely suppressed; it produced his History of Britain. By the expression revocabo in carmina, the poet means, that these ancient kings, which were once the themes of the British bards, should now again be celebrated in verse.—Warton. Warton renders bella moventem [v. 81 of the Latin] meditating wars, but that is not the true sense; it is waging wars, and Arthur is represented as so employed in Fairy-land in the romances.—Keightley.
P. [47]. Paphian myrtle: the myrtle was sacred to Venus; Paphos was an ancient city of Cyprus, where was a temple of Venus.
Areopagitica
P. [48]. Galileo: b. 1564, d. 1642; he was seventy-four years old when Milton visited him in 1638; whether he was actually imprisoned at the time is somewhat uncertain; he may have been, as Hales suggests, in libera custodia, i.e. 'only kept under a certain restraint, as that he should not move away from a specified neighborhood, or perhaps a special house.'