perhaps approaches him nearest. Beautiful
beyond praise, and just sufficiently conscious of it to be careful never
to appear at a disadvantage, dignified in manners, versed in foreign
tongues, yet full of the ancient learning--a gentleman, a scholar, a
poet, a musician, and a Christian--he moved about in a leisurely manner
from city to city, writing Latin verses for his hosts and Italian sonnets
in their ladies' albums, buying books and music, and creating, one cannot
doubt, an all too flattering impression of an English Protestant. To
travel in Italy with Montaigne or Milton, or Evelyn or Gray, or Shelley,
or, pathetic as it is, with the dying Sir Walter, is perhaps more
instructive than to go there for yourself with a tourist's ticket. Old
Montaigne, who was but forty-seven when he made his journey, and whom
therefore I would not call old had not Pope done so before me, is the
most delightful of travelling companions, and as easy as an old shoe. A
humaner man than Milton, a wiser man than Evelyn--with none of the
constraint of Gray, or the strange, though fascinating, outlandishness of
Shelley--he perhaps was more akin to Scott than any of the other
travellers; but Scott went to Italy an overwhelmed man, whose only fear
was he might die away from the heather and the murmur of Tweed. However,
Milton is the most improving companion of them all, and amidst the
impurities of Italy, 'in all the places where vice meets with so little
discouragement, and is protected with so little shame,' he remained the
Milton of Cambridge and Horton, and did nothing to pollute the pure
temple of a poet's mind. He visited Paris, Nice, Genoa, Pisa, and
Florence, staying in the last city two months, and living on terms of
great intimacy with seven young Italians, whose musical names he duly
records. These were the months of August and September, not nowadays
reckoned safe months for Englishmen to be in Florence--modern lives being
raised in price. From Florence he proceeded through Siena to Rome, where
he also stayed two months. There he was present at a magnificent
entertainment given by the Cardinal Francesco Barberini in his palace,
and heard the singing of the celebrated Leonora Baroni. It is not for
one moment to be supposed that he sought an interview with the Pope, as
Montaigne had done, who was exhorted by His Holiness 'to persevere in the
devotion he had ever manifested in the cause of the Church;' and yet
perhaps Montaigne