We have record that Southampton's name was entered as a student of Gray's Inn in July 1590,—that is, three months before his arrival in London,—and may therefore assume that some of his subsequent time in London was occupied in more or less perfunctory legal studies.
As continental travel and an acquaintance with foreign tongues—at least Italian and French—had then come to be regarded as a part of a nobleman's education, Burghley, soon after Southampton's coming to Court, provided him with a tutor of languages in the person of John Florio, who thereafter continued in his pay and patronage as late as, if not later than, 1598. Even after this date Southampton continued to befriend Florio for many years.
As Florio continued in Southampton's service during the entire Sonnet period and played an important rôle in what shall hereafter be developed as The Story of the Sonnets, and as he shall also be shown to have provided Shakespeare with a model for several important characters in The Plays of the Sonnet Period, a brief consideration of his heredity and personal characteristics may help us to realise the manner in which Shakespeare held "the mirror up to nature" in his dramatic characterisations.
John Florio was born before 1553 and was the son of Michael Angelo Florio, a Florentine Protestant, who left Italy in the reign of Henry VIII. to escape the persecution in the Valteline. Florio's father was pastor to a congregation of his religious compatriots in London for several years. He was befriended by Archbishop Cranmer, and was patronised by Sir William Cecil during the reign of Edward VI.; but lost his church and the patronage of Cecil on account of charges of gross immorality that were made against him. We are informed by Anthony Wood that the elder Florio left England upon the accession of Mary, and moved to the Continent, probably to France, where John Florio received his early education. The earliest knowledge we have of John Florio in England is that he lived at Oxford for several years in his youth, and that, in or about 1576, he became tutor in Italian to a Mr. Barnes, son of the Bishop of Durham. In 1581, according to Anthony Wood, Florio matriculated at Magdalen and was teacher and instructor to certain scholars at the University. In 1578 he was still living at Oxford when he dedicated his First Fruites to the Earl of Leicester, his dedication being dated "From my lodgings in Worcester Place." In 1580 he dedicated a translation from the Italian of Ramusio to Edward Bray, sheriff of Oxford, and two years later dedicated to Sir Edmund Dyer a MS. collection of Italian proverbs, which is also dated from Oxford on the 12th of November 1582.
Nothing definite is known concerning Florio between 1582 and 1591; in the latter year he published his Second Fruites, dedicating it to a recent patron, Mr. Nicholas Saunder of Ewell. Between about 1590 and 1591, and the end of 1598 and possibly later, he continued in the pay and patronage of the Earl of Southampton, dedicating his Worlde of Wordes in the latter year "To the Right Honourable Patrons of Virtue, Patterns of Honour, Roger, Earl of Rutland; Henry, Earl of Southampton; and Lucy, Countess of Bedford." A new and enlarged edition of this book containing his portrait was published in 1611. In the medallion surrounding this picture he gives his age as fifty-eight, which would date his birth in 1553, the year of Queen Mary's accession. It is probable that Florio understated his age, as he is said to have received his early education in France and to have returned to England with his father upon the accession of Elizabeth in 1558. Anthony Wood gives the date of his birth as 1545, and though I cannot find his authority am inclined to believe the earlier date to be correct. Florio was vain enough to prevaricate on a matter of this nature. In 1603 he published his chief work, a translation of The Essaies of Montaigne. Florio was attached to the Court of James I. as French and Italian tutor to Prince Henry and the Queen, and also held the appointment of Gentleman of the Privy Chamber.
Florio was married on 9th September 1617 to a Rose Spicer, of whom nothing earlier than the marriage record is known. From the facts that his daughter Aurelia was already married at the time of his death in 1625, and that in his will he leaves her "the wedding ring wherewith I married her mother," it is evident that Rose Spicer was his second wife.
Following a suggestion made by the Rev. J.H. Halpin, it is supposed that his first wife was a Rose Daniel, a sister of Samuel Daniel, the poet, who was Florio's classfellow at Oxford. In the address to dedicatory verses by Daniel, prefixed to the 1611 edition of Florio's Worlde of Wordes he calls Florio "My dear friend and brother, Mr. John Florio, one of the gentlemen of Her Majesties Royal Privy Chamber." From this it has been supposed that Florio's first wife was Daniel's sister, and Mr. Halpin inferred that she was named Rose from his assumption that Spenser refers to her as Rosalinde, and to Florio as Menalcas in The Shepheards Calendar in 1579. Mr. Grosart, who carefully investigated the matter, states that Daniel—who in 1611 was also a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber—had only two sisters, neither of them being named Rose. It is likely, then, that Daniel referred to his official connection with Florio by the term "brother," as in 1603, in a similar address to dedicatory verses prefixed to Montaigne's Essaies he refers to him only as "My Friend." There is no record of Florio's first marriage.
It is very unlikely, however, that two women named Rose should have come so intimately into Florio's life, and probable, when all the evidence is considered, that Rose Spicer, the "dear wife Rose" mentioned in his will, was the "Rosalinde" of his youth, whom, it appears, he had seduced, and with whom he had evidently lived in concubinage in the intervening years; making tardy amends by marriage in 1617, only eight years before his death. His marriage to Rose Spicer was evidently brought about by the admonitions of his friend Theophilus Field, Bishop of Llandaff, under whose influence Florio became religious in his declining years.
In Florio's will, in which he bequeaths nearly all of his small property to his "beloved wife Rose," he regrets that he "cannot give or leave her more in requital of her tender love, loving care, painful diligence, and continual labour to me in all my fortunes and many sicknesses, than whom never had husband a more loving wife, painful nurse, and comfortable consort." The words I have italicised indicate conjugal relations covering a much longer period than the eight years between his formal marriage in 1617 and his death in 1625. The term "all my fortunes" certainly implies a connection between them antedating Florio's sixty-fourth year.
We may infer that the Bishop of Llandaff and Florio's pastor, Dr. Cluet, whom he appointed overseers and executors of his will, held Florio in light esteem, as "for certain reasons" they renounced its execution. The Earl of Pembroke, to whom he bequeathed his books, apparently neglected to avail himself of the legacy, and probably for the same reasons. An examination of Florio's characteristic will—in the Appendix—will suggest the nature of these reasons.