will dismiss it here with one remark. Milton's Latin verses are
distinguished from most Neo-latin verse by being a vehicle of real
emotion. His technical skill is said to have been surpassed by others;
but that in which he stands alone is, that in these exercises of
imitative art he is able to remain himself, and to give utterance to
genuine passion. Artificial Arcadianism is as much the frame-work of
the elegy on Diodati as it is of _Lycidas_. We have Daphnis and Bion,
Tityrus and Amyntas for characters, Sicilian valleys for scenery,
while Pan, Pales, and the Fauns represent the supernatural. The
shepherds defend their flocks from wolves and lions. But this
factitious bucolicism is pervaded by a pathos, which, like volcanic
heat, has fused into a new compound the dilapidated debris of the
Theocritean world. And in the Latin elegy there is more tenderness
than in the English. Charles Diodati was much nearer to Milton than
had been Edward King. The sorrow in _Lycidas_ is not so much personal
as it is the regret of the society of Christ's. King had only been
known to Milton as one of the students of the same college; Diodati
was the associate of his choice in riper manhood.

The _Epitaphium Damonis_ is further memorable as Milton's last attempt
in serious Latin verse. He discovered in this experiment that Latin
was not an adequate vehicle of the feeling he desired to give vent to.
In the concluding lines he takes a formal farewell of the Latian
muse, and announces his purpose of adopting henceforth the "harsh and
grating Brittonic idiom" (_Brittonicum stridens_).