To Lucas Holstenius. (Familiar Letters, No. IX.)
P. 49. Lucas Holstenius: see note, p. 21.
P. 49. Alexander Cherubini: Roman friend of Milton, ‘known in his lifetime as a prodigy of erudition, though he died at the early age of twenty-eight.’
P. 49. Virgil’s ‘penitus convalle virenti’: Virgil’s ‘souls enclosed within a verdant valley, and about to go to the upper light.’
P. 49. Cardinal Francesco Barberini: b. 1597, d. 1679; librarian of the Vatican, and founder of the Barberini Library.