Front all in Florence born, or taught Our country's sweetest accent there, Whose works, with learned labor wrought, Immortal honors justly share, Then hast such treasure drawn of purest ore, That not even Tuscan bards can boast a richer store. Babel, confused, and with her towers Unfinished spreading wide and plain, Has served but to evince thy powers, With all hot, tongues confused in vain, Since not alone thy England's purest phrase, But every polished realm thy various speech displays. The secret things of heaven and earth, By nature, too reserved. concealed From other minds of highest worth, To thee ate copiously revealed; Thou knowest them clearly, and thy views attain The utmost bounds prescribed to moral truth's domain. Let Time no snore his wing display, And boast his ruinous career, For Virtue, rescued front his sway. His injuries may cease to fear; Since all events that claim remembrance find A chronicle exact in thy capacious mind. Give me, that I may praise thy song, Thy lyre, by which alone I can, Which, placing thee the stars among, Already proves thee more than man; And Thames shall seem Permessus,3 while his stream Graced with a swan like thee. shall be my favorite theme. I, who beside the Arno, strain To match thy merit with my lays, Learn, after many an effort vain, To admure thee rather than to praise; And that by mute astonishment alone, Not by the fathering tongue, thy worth may best be shown. --Signor Antonio Francini, Gentleman, of Florence. 1 The muse of History. 2 The portrait of Helen was painted at the request of the people of Crotna, who sent to the artist all their lovliest girls for models. 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;