For as
soon as they found that they were safe with the young Briton, they
disclosed their own bitter hatred of the church's yoke which they had
to bear. "I have sate among their learned men," Milton wrote in 1644,
"and been counted happy to be born in such a place of philosophic
freedom as they supposed England was, while themselves did nothing
but bemoan the servile condition into which learning amongst them was
brought, that this was it which had dampt the glory of Italian wits,
that nothing had been written there now these many years but flattery
and fustian." Milton was introduced at the meetings of their
academies; his presence is recorded on two occasions, of which the
latest is the 16th September at the Svogliati. He paid his scot by
reciting from memory some of his youthful Latin verses, hexameters,
"molto erudite," says the minute-book of the sitting, and others,
which "I shifted, in the scarcity of boots and conveniences, to patch
up." He obtained much credit by these exercises, which, indeed,
deserved it by comparison. He ventured upon the perilous experiment of
offering some compositions in Italian, which, the fastidious Tuscan
ear at least professed to include in those "encomiums which the
Italian is not forward to bestow on men of this side the Alps.
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