John Florio

“ Her closing eye a trembling lustre fir'd;
'Twas life's last spark—it flutter'd and expir'd!
The father strew'd his white hairs in the wind,
Call'd on his child, nor linger'd long behind:
And Florio liv'd to see the willow wave,
With many an evening-whisper, o'er their grave.
Yes, Florio liv'd—and, still of each possest,
The father cherish'd, and the maid caress'd!
For ever would the fond enthusiast rove,
With Julia's spirit, thro' the shadowy grove;
Gaze with delight on every scene she plann'd,
Kiss every flow'ret planted by her hand. ”

“ Florio was not quite sure that he fully understood all that was said to him, but he was delighted at the idea of leaving Fuss, and said so.
Florella smiled upon him, and continued, "It may not be so easy as you imagine; those who serve me have to stand a test of faithfulness, energy, and courage. Our life seems one of careless mirth, but it is not so. We, of course, are happy, and enjoy ourselves; but we have many duties, and are not altogether free, as would be supposed. I am at the head of this little band. We are Flower Fairies, cousins to the Wind Fairies and Herb Elves. ”

“ Florio meant to include our poet, we may, without scruple, infer. To an actor, to a rising dramatic writer, to one who had placed the first fruits of his genius under his protection, and who was still contending with the difficulties incident to his situation, the taste, the generosity, and the feeling of Lord Southampton, would naturally be attracted; and the donation which, in all probability, followed the dedication of Venus and Adonis, we have reason, from the voice of tradition, to conclude, was succeeded by many, and still more important, proofs of His Lordship's favour. ”

“ John, when she and her daughter found themselves alone for a moment, "I saw him take you to the conservatory. You were gone a long time. Did he propose?"
"Yes!" returned the girl, languidly.
"Yes!" echoed Mrs. St. John. "Why, how can you take it so calmly, my Florence? You accepted him, of course?"
"No," returned the girl, calmly. "I said that I would like to have two months to consider the matter before the subject was broached to you."
"You are mad, Florence!" cried her mother. "A wealthy young man like that is not captured every day." ”

“ His style, at once elegant and easy, has universally recommended him to the teachers of language, and Telemachus is commonly succeeded or supplanted by some work of Florian. In the circulating libraries the Tales of Florian are almost as generally read as those of Voltaire and Marmontel. He possesses indeed very great attractions for the lovers of light reading. His narrative is spirited and interesting. Love, Friendship, and Heroism are his themes, and he commonly descants upon them with that genuine warmth which results from the combination of sensibility with genius. ”

“ Florio wanders into various countries to seek her; they go through a variety of disasters, which end in their happy marriage; and, the birth of Biancafiore being discovered, they are converted to the Christian {Pg 123} faith. The story is long drawn out and very unreadable; though interspersed by traits of genius peculiar to Boccaccio, natural touches of genuine feeling, and charming descriptions. Florio, during his erratic travels in search of Biancafiore, arrives at Naples: the author introduces him into the company of his lady and himself, under the names of Fiammetta and Caleone. ”

“ If Armado's letters to Jaquenetta and to the King be compared with Florio's dedication of his Second Fruites—which was published in 1591, several months preceding the original composition of Love's Labour's Lost—and also with his "Address to the Reader," a similitude will be found that certainly passes coincidence. A comparison of Parolles' and Falstaff's opportunist and materialistic [Pg 207] philosophy with Florio's outlook on life as we find it unconsciously exhibited in his Second Fruites, reveals a characteristic unity that plainly displays intentional parody on Shakespeare's part. ”

“ John, like the Carnival, is but a meagre semblance of festivity, kept alive factitiously, and dying a lingering death of centuries. It takes the exuberant mind and heart of a people to keep its holidays alive.
I do not know whether there be any populace in Florence, but I saw none that I recognized as such, on this occasion. All the people were respectably dressed and perfectly well behaved; and soldiers and priests were scattered abundantly among the throng. ”

“ When the cigar was brought, Flummers said, "That's the stuff!" and a moment later he broke out with, "Say, Witherspoon, why don't you kill the geyser that does the county building for your paper?"
"Why so?"
"Oh, he flashes his star and calls himself a journalist. What time is it? I must hustle; can't stay here and throw away time on you fellows. Say, John"—
Richmond shut him off with: "Don't call me John. A man—I'll say man out of courtesy to your outward form—a man that hasn't sense enough to lift a bass into a boat is not to be permitted such a familiarity. ”

“ The wind sighed in the pines, and the moonlight cast fearful shadows from the gnarled and knotty boughs.
Florio rose with a sigh and stretched his limbs, wondering if it was worth while to try and do the fairy's bidding when he had to go back to hear the dreaded voice of old Fuss. Then he made sure of the birch-bark case, and again with the aid of the fire-flies found the road. Fuss was sound asleep still when he laid himself down on his bundle of straw in the farthest corner of the cavern. ”

“ Florio undoubtedly indicated this meaning to his own name in entitling his earliest publication First Fruites and a later publication Second Fruites. In a sonnet addressed to him by some friend of his who signs himself "Ignoto," his name is also referred to in this sense. In his Italian-English dictionary, published in 1598, he does not include the word Florio. In the edition of 1611, however, he includes it, but states that it means, "A kind of bird." In using the word "columbine" Shakespeare gives the double meaning of a flower and also a bird. ”

“ King Florus held her for three years, but never might have child of her. But here the tale holdeth peace of King Florus, and betaketh it again to Sir Robin, and to John who were at Marseilles.
Here telleth the tale that much sorry was Sir Robin when he came to Marseilles, whereas he heard tell of nought toward in the country; so he said to John: “What do we? Thou hast lent me of thy moneys, whereof I thank thee: I will give them back to thee, for I will sell my palfrey, and quit me toward thee.” “Sir,” said John, “if it please thee, believe me, and I shall tell thee what we shall do. ”

“ John, the city of Florence being in a happy and good state of repose,—a tranquil and peaceable state, excellent for merchants and artificers,—there was formed a company of a thousand men or more, all clothed in white dresses, with a leader called the Lord of Love, who devoted themselves to games and sports and dancing, going through the city with trumpets and other instruments of joy and gladness, and feasting often together. ”

“ Her cousins, knowing her independent spirit, and perhaps fearing an outcry if they sequestered her too closely, had thought to soften her resistance by placing her in a convent noted for its leniencies; but to Fulvia such surroundings were more repugnant than the strictest monastic discipline. The corruption of the religious orders was a favourite topic with her father's friends, and the Venetian nuns were noted throughout Italy for their frivolous and dissipated lives; but nothing that Fulvia had heard or imagined approached the realities that awaited her. ”

“ Fox appears as "nobody," and a cat is seen escaping from a bag. The Whig chief, with whom, as the occasional companion of the young Prince's excesses, the public were not slow to connect the transaction, is encouraging Florizel to "leap over the broomstick" with Mrs. Fitzherbert. The ex favourites, in a second apartment, surmounted by the Prince's crest, tranquilly regard the coming change. "All I desire of mortal man is to love whilst he can," says Perdita. ”

“ He does not merely laugh, but mixes satire with ribaldry, and points buffoonery with biting sarcasm. Since the burlesque style had by its nature to be parasitical and needed an external motive, Folengo chose for the subject of his parody the romance of Orlando, which was fashionable to the point of extravagance in Italy after the appearance of the Furioso. ”

“ Like the Athenians of old, they had no warmer passion than their love for their city. However much we may deplore the rancorous dissensions which from time to time split up the commonwealth into parties, the remorseless foreign policy which destroyed Pisa, the political meanness of the Medici, and the base egotism of the ottimati, the fact remains that, æsthetically and intellectually, Florence was 'a city glorious,' a realised ideal of culture and humanity for all the rest of Italy, and, through Italian influence in general, for modern Europe and for us. ”

“ The plainer they, the deeper wilt thou sigh.
Look on thy lovely boy; in him behold
The best that can befall the best on earth;
The boy has virtue by his mother’s side: 240
Yes, on Florello look: a father’s heart
Is tender, though the man’s is made of stone;
The truth, through such a medium seen, may make
Impression deep, and fondness prove thy friend.
Florello lately cast on this rude coast
A helpless infant; now a heedless child;
To poor Clarissa’s throes, thy care succeeds;
Care full of love, and yet severe as hate!
O’er thy soul’s joy how oft thy fondness frowns! ”

“ The early part of the winter was spent in Italy, where Lord John came into personal contact with Cavour and many other Italian patriots, whose cause he so staunchly supported during the next few years. The Villa Capponi, where they lived at Florence, became the meeting-place of all the Liberal spirits in Tuscany; and the Tuscan Government, who thought that Lord John had come to Florence to estimate the probable success of the revolutionaries, set spies upon his visitors. ”

“ Filelfo deserves commemoration among the greatest humanists of the Italian Renaissance, not for the beauty of his style, not for the elevation of his genius, not for the accuracy of his learning, but for his energy, and for his complete adaptation to the times in which he lived. ”

“ Probably, if a Venetian were asked by what right he does so, the question would seem to him much as if one asked by what right the tide covers the shallows of the lagoon. It always has been so. It is in the natural order of things. And how could Venice live without Florian's?
But it is not Florian's alone which is thus a trespasser on the domain of the public. The other less celebrated caffès do the same thing. One immediately opposite to Florian's, on the other side of the piazza—Quadri's—has almost as large a spread of chairs and tables as Florian himself. ”

“ Florian, born two years after the adoption of Shafto Gyle in his infancy, always regarded and looked up to the latter as a species of elder brother and undoubted senior.
In his twentieth year Florian was really a handsome fellow, and if, without absurdity, the term 'beautiful' could be applied to a young man, he was so, in his perfect manliness. Tall in figure, hard and well developed in muscle, regular in features, he had clear, dark, honest eyes, with lashes like a girl's, and a dark, silky moustache. ”

“ I don’t say Curtis is an angel. No man is; at least, I never met any such. But he is no worse than the generality of men. In marrying him you will carry out my cherished wish. Florence, I have not long to live. I shall be glad to see you well established in life before I leave you. As the wife of Curtis you will have a recognized position. You will go on living in this house, and the old home will be maintained.”
“But why is it necessary for me to marry at all, Uncle John?”
“You will be sure to marry some one. ”

“ Such then was the joyous living, painted with colors of the fancy by a Tuscan poet, and realized in-58- Florence at the close of that eventful century which placed the city under Guelf rule, in the plenitude of peace, equality, and wealth by sea and land. Distinctions of class had been obliterated. The whole population enjoyed equal rights and equal laws. No man was idle; and though the simplicity of the past, praised by Dante and Villani, was yielding to luxury, still the pleasure-seekers were controlled by that fine taste which made the Florentines a race of artists. ”

“ In both the genius of individuals was even stronger than the character of the state. Again, as Athens displayed more of a Panhellenic feeling than any other Greek city, so Florence was invariably more alive to the interests of Italy at large than any other state of the peninsula. Florence, like Athens, was the center of culture for the nation. Like Athens, she give laws to her sister towns in language, in literature, in fine arts, poetry, philosophy, and history. Without Florence it is not probable that Italy would have taken the place of proud pre-eminence she held so long in Europe. ”

“ The voluptuousness of Folgore is here heightened to ecstasy. Cecco desires to be fire, wind, sea, God, that he might ruin the world; the emperor, that he might decapitate its population; death, that he might seek out his father and mother; life, that he might fly from both; being Cecco, he would fain take all fair women, and leave the foul to his neighbors. The spite of Cene is deepened to insanity. ”