There is another way of publication—viz., subscription, but I do not much like this. Yours, &c., &c., VERNON.” This letter was followed not long afterwards by another, in which Lord Vernon entered into details regarding the sale and profits likely to accrue from it. He was, evidently, still undecided as to the title of the book, and urged Panizzi to suggest one. As to the place of publication, his Lordship, with a certain amount of reason, desired that it should be in London; he very justly observes that:—“Being done at the expense of an Englishman, printed in England, on English paper, and from four editions, which are found together only in the British Museum, moreover, being the homage of an Englishman to Italy’s greatest poet, to her literature, and to her most celebrated Academies, it would appear with better grace, as coming from London, than any Italian city.” By March, 1858, the book was completed, when Lord Vernon expressed himself thus: “I hope to hear in a short time that, like the _Great Leviathan_, it has overcome all stops and hindrances, and been fairly launched in the stream of literature.” Some writers—and amongst them the subject of our memoir—have looked upon Milton as an occasional imitator of Dante. _A propos_ of this theory (which may best be studied in Professor Masson’s biography of the great Puritan poet), we propose to give, at some length, a correspondence on the subject between Panizzi and Sir G. Cornewall Lewis. The letters of the former are so full of sound thought and such fair specimens of his literary knowledge that we append them, together with Sir G. C. Lewis’s reply, for the reader’s edification. “British Museum, January 22, 1856. My dear Sir George, [Illustration: Sir G. Cornwall Lewis] I have been looking whether my memory had served me right as to Milton having occasionally imitated Dante, which I mentioned on Sunday, when we were speaking of Dante being or not being known in England before the last century. I have found several passages which I think bear me out; for instance:— ‘Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda, e passa.’ ‘Therefore eternal silence be their doom.’—P. L. 6, 385. But I don’t quote more, as in his prose works (vol. IV., p. 11, edit. of 1753) he actually quotes as his authority against Rome Dante’s lines, c. 19, v. 115— ‘Ahi Costantin, di quanto, mal fu matre,’ and translates them thus:— ‘Ah, Constantine! of how much ill was cause Not thy conversion, but those rich demains That the first wealthy Pope receiv’d of thee.’ and then he, moreover, refers to the twentieth Canto of the _Paradiso_.