But it would have been an anachronism if he could have contemplated the comprehensive and scientific scheme of self-culture by Italian influences of every kind which, a hundred and fifty years later, was conceived and executed by Goethe.

At the time of Milton's visit Italian letters and arts sloped midway in their descent from the Renaissance to the hideous but humorous rococo so graphically described by Vernon Lee.
Free thought had perished along with free institutions in the preceding century, and as a consequence, though the physical sciences still numbered successful cultivators, originality of mind was all but extinct.

Things, nevertheless, wore a gayer aspect than of late.

The very completeness of the triumph of secular and spiritual despotism had made them less suspicious, surly, and austere.

Spanish power was visibly decaying.