Zeuxis selected five, and united their separate beauties
in his picture.
3 A river in Boeotia which took its rise in Helicon. See Virgil
Ecl. vi.64
To Mr. John Milton of London
A youth eminent from his country and his virtues,
Who in his travels has made himself acquainted with many
nations, and in his studies, with all, that, life another
Ulysses, lie might learn all that all could teach him;
Skilful in many tongues, on whose lips languages now mute so
live again, that the idioms of all are insufficient to his
praise; happy acquisition by which he understands the
universal admiration and applause his talents trace excited;
Whose endowments of mind and person move us to wonder, but at the same time fix
us immovable: whose works prompt us to
extol him, but by their beauty strike us mute;
In whose memory the whole world is treasured; in whose
intellect, wisdom; in whose heart, the ardent desire for
glory; and in whose mouth, eloquence. Who with Astronomy for
his conductor, hears the music of the spheres; with
Philosophy for the teacher, deciphers the hand-writing of
God, in those wonders of creation which proclaim His
greatness; and with the most unwearied literary industry for
his associate, examines, restores, penetrates with case the
obscurities of antiquity, the desolations of ages, and the
labyrinths of learning;
"But wherefore toil to reach these arduous heights?"
To him, in short, whose virtues the mouths of Fame are too few to celebrate, and
whom astonishment forbids us to praise
a he deserves, this tribute due to his merits, and the
offering of reverence and affection, is paid by Carlo Dati, a
patrician Florentine.
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