The one, like his own Adam, with fair large front and hyacinthine locks, serene and blooming as his own Eden; in all the dignified graces which temperance and self-conquest lend to youth,[139] in all the purity of his stainless mind, radiant like another Moses, with the reflected glories of the Empyreum,—and then look upon the other!—But it is an awful thing for little people, to meddle with great and sacred names; and so leaving the Hippopotamus of literature in his den—proceed we.
It relieves the heart from an oppressive contradiction to behold Milton, such as he is represented by his other biographers, and such as undoubtedly he really was. It is well known, that in his youth, and even at a late age, he had an uncommonly fine person, almost to effeminacy; and was as gracefully endowed in form and manners, as he was highly and holily gifted in mind. His natural mildness, cheerfulness, and courtesy, are commemorated by all who knew him, or lived near his time.[140] He whom Johnson accuses of a "Turkish contempt of females, as inferior beings," and whom he represents in a light so ungentle and gloomy, that we cannot imagine him under the influence of beauty, was early touched by the softest passions, and during his whole life peculiarly sensible to the charm of female society: witness his successive marriages, and his friendship and intercourse with Lady Margaret Ley, and the all-accomplished Countess of Ranelagh, who supplied to him, as he says, the place of every friend:[141]—witness, too, a thousand most lovely and glorious passages scattered through his works, which women may quote with triumph, as proofs that we had no small influence over the imagination of our great epic poet. What but the most reverential and lofty feeling of the graces and virtues proper to our sex, could have embodied such an exquisite vision as the Lady in Comus? or created his delightful Eve? on whom, "as on a queen, a pomp of winning graces waited still."
All higher knowledge in her presence falls
Degraded; wisdom, in discourse with her,
Loses discountenanc'd, and like folly shows;
Authority and reason on her wait,
As one intended first, not after made
Occasionally; and to consummate all,
Greatness of mind and nobleness their seat,
Build in her loveliest, and create an awe
About her, as a guard angelic plac'd.
And this is the being whom a lady-author calls a "great overgrown baby, with nothing to recommend her but her submission, and her fine hair!"[142]—two things, be it observed, among the most graceful of our feminine attributes, mental and exterior. The poet who conceived and wrote this description, most assuredly had not a "Turkish contempt" for the female character.
Milton was in love, as he tells us himself, at nineteen; but the object cannot even be guessed at. He has celebrated this boyish passion very beautifully in one of his Latin elegies. One of the passages in this poem, in which he compares the effect produced on him by the first momentary view of his mistress, followed by her immediate absence to the Theban Œclides,[143] swallowed up by the abyss which opens beneath him, and gazing back upon the parting light of day, is admired for its classic sublimity and appropriate beauty.
There is a tradition mentioned by all his biographers, that while Milton was a student at Cambridge, an Italian lady of rank, who was travelling in England, found him sleeping one day under the shade of a tree, and, struck with his beauty, wrote with her pencil on a slip of paper, the pretty madrigal of Guarini, which Menage translated for Madame de Sevigné, "Occhi, stelle mortali," and leaving it in his hand, pursued her journey. This fair unknown is said to have been the cause of Milton's travels into Italy; but the story rests on no authority: and it is clear, that the "foreign fair" to whom the Sonnets are addressed, was neither imaginary nor unknown. During his stay at Rome, he was received with particular distinction by the Cardinal Barberini, the nephew of the reigning Pope, and at his palace had frequent opportunities of hearing Leonora Baroni, the finest singer in Italy. She was the daughter of Adriana of Mantua, surnamed, for her beauty, La Bella Adriana, and the best singer and player on the lute of her time. Leonora inherited her mother's extraordinary talent for music, and conquered all hearts by the inexpressible charm of her voice and style. She was also a poetess, frequently composing the words of her own songs. Though not a regular beauty, she had brilliant eyes, and a captivating countenance and manner. Count Fulvio Testi, in a Sonnet addressed to her, celebrates the union of so many charms:
Tra il concento e 'l fulgor, dubbio è se sia
L'udir più dolce, o il rimirar più caro.
Deh fammi cieco, o fammi sordo, amore!
M. Maugars, himself a musician, who saw and heard Leonora at Rome, praises her talents generally, and adds, that she was no coquette; that she sang with confidence, but with modesty; that there was nothing in her manners that could be censured; that the effect she produced on those who heard her, was owing, not only to the wonderful rapidity and delicacy of her execution, but to the care with which she gave the exact sense and proper expression of the words she sang. He tells us, that on one occasion, she favoured him by singing with her mother and her sister, each accompanying herself on a different instrument (in those days pianos were not, and Leonora's favourite instrument was the Theorbo, on which she excelled). This little concert so enraptured our musician, that, to use his own words, he forgot his mortality, "et crut être dejà parmi les anges, jouissant des contentemens des bienheureux."
It is no wonder that the charms and talents which exalted this prosaic Frenchman almost into a poet, should turn the heads of poets themselves. The verses addressed to Leonora were collected into a volume, and published under the title of "Applausi poetici alle glorie della Signora Leonora Baroni."—"Poetical eulogies to the glory of Signora Leonora Baroni." A similar homage had been paid to her mother, Adriana, who reckoned Tasso among her panegyrists. This may seem too high a distinction for a species of talent, which, however admirable, can leave behind no durable monument, and therefore can claim no interest with posterity. Yet is it just, that those whom heaven has enriched with the gift of melody, and who have cultivated that delicious faculty to its height, until with angel-skill they can suspend the dominion of pain in aching hearts,[144]—that such should ravish with delight a whole generation, and then perish from the earth, they and their memory, with the pleasure they bestowed, and gratitude be voiceless and tuneless in their praise? The gift of song is fleeting as that of beauty; but while the painter fixes on his canvas
The vermeil-tinctur'd lip,
Love-darting eyes, and tresses like the morn,