e lady is spoken
of as an inhabitant of "Reno's grassy vale," and the Reno is a river
between Bologna and Ferrara. But there are many difficulties in the way
of this theory, and, on the whole, it seems most reasonable to conclude
that the sonnets were composed in England, and that their
autobiographical character is at least doubtful. That nominally
inscribed to Diodati, however, would well suit Leonora Baroni. Diodati
had been buried in Blackfriars on August 27, 1638, but Milton certainly
did not learn the fact until after his visit to Naples, and possibly not
until he came to pass some time at Geneva with Diodati's uncle. He had
come to Geneva from Venice, where he had made some stay, shipping off to
England a cargo of books collected in Italy, among which were many of
"immortal notes and Tuscan air." These, we may assume, he found awaiting
him when he again set foot on his native soil, about the end of July,
1639.

Milton's conduct on his return justifies Wordsworth's commendation:--

"Thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay."

Full, as his notebooks of the period attest, of magnificent aspiration
for "flights above the Aonian mount," he yet quietly sat down to educate
his nephews, and lament his friend. His brother-in-law Phillips had been
dead eight years, leaving two boys, Edward and John, now about nine and
eight respectively. Mrs. Phillips's second marriage had added two
daughters to the family, and from whatever cause, it was thought best
that the education of the sons should be conducted by their uncle. So it
came to pass that "he took him a lodging in St. Bride's Churchyard, at
the house of one Russel, a tailor;" Christopher Milton continuing to
live with his father.

We may well believe that when the first cares of resettlement were over,
Milton found no more urgent duty than the bestowal of a funeral tribute
upon his friend Diodati. The "Epitaphium Damonis" is the finest of his
Latin poems, marvellously picturesque in expression, and inspired by
true manly grief. In Diodati he had lost perhaps the only friend whom,
in the most sacred sense of the term, he had ever possessed; lost him
when far away and unsuspicious of the already accomplished stroke; lost
him when returning to his side with aspirations to be imparted, and
intellectual treasures to be shared. _Bis ille miser qui serus amavit._
All this is expressed with earnest emotion in truth and tenderness,
s