PAGE Sir Walter Raleigh. And once againe doth loves of gods revive, John Florio. 14-XXVI. This sonnet, with nothing to indicate its authorship, was first printed prefixed to Essayes written in French by Michael Lord of Montaigne, &c., Done into English by John Florio. Second Edition. Lond. fol. 1613: whence it is here given. It reappears in the third edition of the same work, 1632, but, so far as I am aware, has not since been reprinted, except by Henry Brown in his Sonnets of Shakespeare Solved, 1870, who was content to give it corruptly as he found it, and, on what authority I know not, describes it as 'attributed to Shakespeare.' Its present ascription to the Resolute' himself is, it must be confessed, purely conjectural; and since in both editions of the Montaigne the sonnet immediately follows (separated, however, by a line extending right across the page) a longish commendatory poem of a kindred character addressed by Samuel Daniel To my deare brother1 and friend M. John Florio, it is just possible that the real author was Daniel, of whom it is abundantly worthy, and indeed most characteristic in sentiment and diction, if not in structure. A claim must also in justice be recognized for each of those other tuneful friends of Florio's who were wont to bring him their votive wreaths, in sonnetform for the most part, as often as he challenged public attention; especially the anonymous writer of that well-turned sonnet prefixed to Queen Anna's New World of Words, fol. 1611, and subscribed with the three stars [***], beginning 'Kinde friend, the strictnesse of these few-few lines,' a writer, by the way, whom probably we ought to identify with the friendly 'gentleman' referred to by Florio in that famous address of his To the Reader in the first edition of the work just named (4 Worlde of Wordes, 4to, 1598), where he is understood by some commentators to be wincing under Shakspeare's supposed caricature of That is, brother in office, as one of the Gentlemen of the Royal Privy Chamber. The oft-asserted relationship of Florio and Daniel as brothers-in-law was disproved by the late Bolton Corney in Notes and Queries, 3rd S. viii, July 1, 1865. 2 Only three per cent. of the sonnets composing Delia are built on the principle of the one in question. 3 See Variorum Shakspeare, ed. Malone, 1821, iv, 479-483. him in the Holofernes of Love's Labour's Lost, acted in the previous year. There is,' complains Florio, another sort of leering curs, that rather snarle then bite, whereof I coulde instance in one, who lighting upon a good sonnet of a gentlemans, a friend of mine,' that loved better to be a Poet then to be counted so, called the auctor a rymer, notwithstanding he had more skill in good Poetrie, then my slie gentleman seemed to have in good manners or humanitie.' But for none of these, any more than for Florio or Daniel, does there exist the slightest particle of direct evidence. Such being the case, it seems only justice to assign the poem to the author of the book containing it. Nor will this hypothesis appear unreasonable to those who can recall Florio's mastery in our English speech, his affectedly archaic but idiomatic style, and his persistent poetical ambition. It has also the advantage of explaining, satisfactorily as I think, the complete anonymity of the poem,-the entire absence of initials or mark of any kind, which it would almost certainly have borne, had anyone other than Florio been responsible for it. Looking at the position of the sonnet in relation to Daniel's eloquent and friendly lines, which, as was stated above, had appeared in the first edition unaccompanied by the sonnet, I should suggest that Florio took advantage of the opportunity which this second edition afforded him of paying a responsive tribute to the man who had done his book honour, and whɔ, be it remembered, as the author of The Civile Warres and The Historie of England, was the most distinguished living representative of those who 'memorize And leave in bookes for all posterities The names of worthyes, and their vertuous deedes.' Unfortunately the materials for a study of Florio in his poetical capacity are alike scanty and inaccessible; but there seem to be two things about which we may feel pretty certain: first, that, as befitted the accredited representative of Italian culture at the English court, he occasionally practised in the sonnet-form ; and, second, that whatever his weaknesses of character, he cannot have been the fool I am aware that Warburton held the sonnet to have been Florio's own; but he can hardly be allowed to have made good his position by assuming of a thing he never saw that it affected the letter' and was 'parodied' in the alliterative 'sonnet' (as he calls it) spoken by Holofernes in Love's Labour's Lost, iv, 2, 58. Nor is Farmer any more conclusive than Warburton, the sonnet he cites as one of Florio's to his patrons' not being Florio's at all, but one of a series by Il Candido, who is now known to have been Matthew Gwinne. 2 Samuel Daniel, the most noted poet and historian of his time,' as Anthony à Wood describes him (Athen, Oxon., ed. Bliss, ii, 1815, col. 268). 3 See, for example, a reference to one of Florio's sonnets in the heading of a sonnet addressed to him by Il Candido, prefixed to the first edition of the Montaigne, 1603. John Florio. familiar to us in commentarial tradition, as there seems indeed to be a disposition on the part of modern critics to own. 1 We have seen how Samuel Daniel addresses him. That he had the honour and love of other friends, poets some of them whose names we would fain know, the following beautiful sonnet will here fitly attest. It is prefixed to Florios Second Frutes, To be gathered of twelve Trees, &c., 4to, 1591, and bespeaks in the writer an almost Shakspearian delicacy and freshness of touch. The 'ever greene Laurell' is of course Spenser. PHETON TO HIS FRIEND FLORIO. Sweete friend whose name agrees with thy increase, For when each branche hath left his flourishing, Hearbes, gummes, and plants do vaunt of their release. Thou with thy Frutes our barrennes o're-spread, Photon. memorize to commemorate, or cause to be remembered. The old and John Davies of Hereford's to Sr. John Popham, subjoined to 'If best deservers of the publike weale And so conceal'd, should that and them abuse.' For other instances see Shakspeare (Macbeth, i, 2, 40); Drayton (Polyolbion, S. 5, 41); Sonnet initialed 'S. S.,' prefixed to Sir A. 1 See Joseph Hunter's New Illustrations of the Life, Studies, and Writings of Shakespeare, 1845, i, 261, 273-281. Mr. Massey must cast about for some other 'fitting candidate' for identification as the 'heavy ignorance' of Shakspeare's 78th Sonnet. Gorges' translation of Lucan's Pharsalia, 1614; &c. Ll. 7-8, Cp. Eccles. ix, 5-6. 1-8 Florio, who in the Epistle Dedicatorie of his Second Frutes calls Spenser 'the sweetest singer of all our westerne shepheards,' seems to have been haunted by a passage in the Teares of the Muses here (Globe Spenser, p. 502, col. 1). in respect Of = in comparison with – a rare usage; e.g. Hackluyt's Voyages, iii, 33 (apud Richardson, ed. 1875): To whose diligence imminent dangers and difficult attempts seemed nothing, in respect of his willing mind, for the commoditie of his prince and countrey.' Sir Philip Sidney. With an exception perhaps in favour of Raleigh's prose, general opinion seems to confirm the verdict of Hallam, that the first good prose writer, in any positive sense of the word, is Sir Philip Sidney.' An impartial judgment will probably accord him a like distinction in sonnetwriting. He made a special study of Italian metres and modes of expression at a time when it was of peculiar importance that good models should be kept in view; and his most beautiful poems take the form of the sonnet. Those both of the Arcadia and Astrophel and Stella unite with rare charms of speech a rhythmical melody previously all but unknown in our literature, many of them having the veritable 'sweete attractive kinde of grace' ascribed by old Matthew Roydon to the muchloved poet himself-a grace which their frequent quaintness rather enhances than impairs, as one şings to-day of the Silurist's poems: 'So quaintly fashioned as to add a grace To the sweet fancies which they bear, Even as a bronze delved from some ancient place How Charles Lamb delighted in their very extravagancies! -the 'glorious vanities' so pathetically abjured at last in XXXIII. 'They are stuck full of amorous fancies-far-fetched conceits, befitting his occupation; for True Love thinks no labour to send out Thoughts upon the vast, and more than Indian voyages, to bring home rich pearls, outlandish wealth, gums, jewels, spicery, to sacrifice in self-depreciating similitudes, as shadows of true amiabilities in the Beloved.' They contain whole passages of sustained beauty, and abound,' as Elia again puts it, 'in feli citous phrases :' 'O heav'nly foole, thy most kisse-worthie face.' 1 Literature of Europe, 5th ed. 1855, ii, 296. 2 To an Unknown Poet (Songs of Two Worlds, by a New Writer, 2nd series, The Last Essays of Elia, 1833, p. 139. 1874, P. 3). But Sidney's sonnets have strength as well as sweetness; and the thoughtfulness and earnestness of spirit by which they are imbued ought effectually to distinguish them from those vehicles of spurious and inane passion wherewith they have sometimes inconsiderately been classed. How far different they are from mere literary exercises or pastimes the reader will best learn from a study of the complete poems, Songs as well as Sonnets, in connection with those facts in the poet's life of which we may reasonably recognize the impress on his verse; and it is no more than the truth to say that this has only of late been rendered practicable for ordinary students by the publication of Dr. Grosart's edition of Sidney (3 vols., Lond., 1877). A passage in Milton's Eikonoklastes (Works, ed. Mitford, 1851, iii, 346) is frequently cited as impugning the moral character of Sidney's chief work, the vaine amatorious Poem of Sir Philip Sidneys Arcadia.' It ought to be borne in mind that Milton's criticism was made, and is therefore to be understood, not in an absolute but in a relative sense-entirely with reference to the circumstances in which the book had been used by the king: a book in kind 'full of worth and witt,' as he continues, but not worthy in time of trouble and affliction to be a Christians Prayer-Book.' A modern worshipper and imitator of the 'starry paladin,' as Mr. Browning has called Sidney, bestows the following united tribute on him and Spenser (Select Poems, 1821, p. 9): ON BEHOLDING THE PORTRAITURE OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, IN THE GALLERY AT PENSHURST. The man that looks, sweet Sidney, in thy face, And musing virtue, prodigal of blood : 1 Cp. the phrase 'sweet reasonableness.' |