Florio, JOHN

Florio, JOHN, the translator of Montaigne, was born in London about 1553. His father was a Protestant exile and Italian preacher in London, but his labours came to a discreditable conclusion. Wood says that for safety's sake he kept his family out of England till after the death of Mary. John Florio appears as a private tutor in foreign languages at Oxford about 1576, and two years later published his First Fruits, which yield Familiar Speech, Merry Proverbs, Witty Sentences, and Golden Sayings, accompanied by A Perfect Induection to the Italian and English Tongues. In 1581 Florio was admitted a member of Magdalen College, and became a teacher of French and Italian. He enjoyed the patronage successively of Leicester, the Earl of Southampton, and other noble persons. His next work was Second Fruits, to be gathered of Twelve Trees, of diuers but delightsome Tastes to the Tongues of Italian and English men, with, annexed to it, the Garden of Recreation, yielding six thousand Italian Proverbs (1591). His Italian and English dictionary, entitled A World of Words, was published in 1598. Florio was appointed reader in Italian to Queen Anne, and afterwards groom of the privy-chamber. In 1603 he published in folio his famous translation of Montaigne, of which it is praise enough to say that it is a version worthy of its original. A copy of this work in the British Museum bears the authentic autograph of Ben Jonson; another, that of Shakespeare, although its authenticity is more than dubious. At anyrate it is certain from the Tempest that the great dramatist was familiar with the book. It was long believed that the pedantic Holofernes in Love's Labour's Lost was a study after Florio; but it is satisfactory to lovers of Montaigne to know that for this there is no foundation. Florio died of plague at Fulham in 1625. Second and third editions of his Montaigne appeared in 1613 and in 1632. A reprint of this noble monument of Elizabethan English was issued in the 'Tudor Translations' series (1892-93), with Introduction by Mr Saintsbury.