It is a curious circumstance, and one but little consonant with the popular idea of Milton's austerity, that the object of his poetical homage, and even of his serious admiration, was an Italian singer; but it must be remembered, that Milton, the son of an accomplished musician,[145] was, by nature and education, peculiarly susceptible to the power of sweet sounds. Next to poetry, music was with him a passion; and the profession of a singer in those days, when the art was in its second infancy, was more highly estimated, in proportion as excellence was more rare and less publicly exhibited. I cannot find that either Leonora Baroni, or her mother Adriana, ever appeared on a stage; yet their celebrity had spread from one end of Italy to the other. Milton joined the crowd of Leonora's votaries at Rome, and has expressed his enthusiastic admiration, not only in verse but in prose.[146] He addressed her in Latin and Italian, the languages she understood, and which he had perfectly at command. In one of his Latin poems, "To Leonora, singing at Rome," the allusion to Leonora d'Este, Another Leonora once inspired Tasso, by hopeless love to phrenzy fired, &c. is as happy as it is beautiful, and shows the belief which then prevailed of the real cause of Tasso's delirium. Two of Milton's Italian sonnets are very beautiful, and have been translated by Cowper with singular felicity. All his biographers agree that Leonora Baroni is the subject of both; the first, addressed to Carlo Diodati, describes the lady, whose dark and foreign charms are opposed to those of the _blonde_ beauties he had admired in his youth. SONNET. _Diodati! e te 'l diro con maraviglia, &c._ Charles,--and I say it wondering,--thou must know That I, who once assumed a scornful air, And scoffed at Love, am fallen into his snare; (Full many an upright man has fallen so.) Yet think me not thus dazzled by the flow Of golden locks, or damask rose; more rare The heartfelt beauties of my foreign fair! A mien majestic, with dark brows, that show The tranquil lustre of a lofty mind,-- Words exquisite, of idioms more than one; And song, whose fascinating power might bind, And from her sphere draw down the lab'ring moon; With such fire-darting eyes, that should I fill Mine ears with wax, she would enchant me still! In this translation, though elegant and faithful, the lines A mien majestic, with dark brows, that show The tranquil lustre of a lofty mind, have much diluted the energy of Milton's Portamenti alti onesti, e nelle ciglia Quel sereno fulgor d'amabil nero. In the other Sonnet, addressed to Leonora, he gives, with all the simplicity of conscious worth, this lofty description of himself, and of his claims to her preference. SONNET. _Giovane, piano, e semplicetto amante, &c._