Between the year 1598 (when Florio dedicated his World of Wordes to the Earl of Southampton) and 1603, when Southampton was released from the Tower upon the accession of James I., we have no record of Florio's connection with that nobleman. It was undoubtedly due to Southampton's influence in the new Court that Florio became reader to Queen Anna and Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to James I. His native vanity and arrogance blossomed into full bloom in this connection, in which he seems to have been tolerated as a sort of superior Court jester. The extravagant and grandiloquent diction of his early dedications read like commonplace prose when compared with the inflated verbosity of his later dedications to Queen Anna. In 1613 he issued a new edition of Montaigne's Essays which he dedicated to the Queen. A comparison of the flattering sycophancy of this dedication with the quick transition of his tone in his curt and insolent address "To the Reader" in the same book will give some idea of the man's shallow bumptiousness.
"To the Most Royal and Renowned Majestie of the Highborn Princess Anna of Denmark
By the grace of God, Queen of England, Scotland, France and Ireland. Imperial and Incomparable Majestic. Seeing with me all of me is in your royal possession, and whatever pieces of mine have hitherto under the starres passed the public view, come now of right to be under the predomination of a power that both contains all their perfections and hath influences of a more sublime nature. I could not but also take in this part (whereof time had worn out the edition) which the world had long since had of mine and lay it at your sacred feet as a memorial of my devoted duty, and to show that where I am I must be all I am and cannot stand dispersed in my observance being wholly (and therein happy)—Your Sacred Majesties most humble and Loyal servant,
John Florio.
To the Reader
Enough, if not too much, hath been said of this translation, if the faults found even by my own selfe in the first impression be now by the printer corrected, as he was directed, the work is much amended; if not, know, that through this mine attendance on her Majestic I could not intend it: and blame not Neptune for thy second shipwrecke. Let me conclude with this worthy mans daughter of alliance 'Que l'en semble donc lecteur.'
Still Resolute John Florio,
Gentleman Extraordinary and Groome of the Privy Chamber."
FOOTNOTES:
[29] Shakespeare and the Rival Poet, 1903; Mistress Davenant, the Dark Lady of Shakespeare's Sonnets, 1913.