I have been looking whether my memory had served me right as to Milton having occasionally imitated Dante, which I mentioned on Sunday, when we were speaking of Dante being or not being known in England before the last century. I have found several passages which I think bear me out; for instance:—
‘Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda, e passa.’
‘Therefore eternal silence be their doom.’—P. L. 6, 385.
But I don’t quote more, as in his prose works (vol. IV., p. 11, edit. of 1753) he actually quotes as his authority against Rome Dante’s lines, c. 19, v. 115—
‘Ahi Costantin, di quanto, mal fu matre,’ and translates them thus:—
‘Ah, Constantine! of how much ill was cause
Not thy conversion, but those rich demains
That the first wealthy Pope receiv’d of thee.’
and then he, moreover, refers to the twentieth Canto of the Paradiso.