, what I had not observed in my occasional access
to the old folio, not then reprinted, that the very metaphor of
"rough-hewing" occurs in Florio's rendering of a passage in the
Essays:--[12] "My consultation doth somewhat roughly hew the matter, and
by its first shew lightly consider the same: the main and chief point of
the work I am wont to resign to Heaven." This is a much more exact
coincidence than is presented in the passage cited by Mr. Feis from the
essay OF PHYSIOGNOMY:--[13] "Therefore do our designs so often
miscarry.... The heavens are angry, and I may say envious of the
extension and large privilege we ascribe to human wisdom, to the
prejudice of theirs, and abridge them so much more unto us by so much
more we endeavour to amplify them." If there were no closer parallel
than that in Montaigne, we should be bound to take it as an expansion of
a phrase in Seneca's AGAMEMNON,[14] which was likely to have become
proverbial. I may add that the thought is often repeated in the Essays,
and that in several passages it compares notably with Shakspere's lines.
These begin:

"Rashly,
--And praised be rashness for it--Let us know
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well
When our deep plots do pall; and that should learn us
There's a divinity" etc.

Compare the following extracts from Florio's translation:--

"The _Daemon_ of Socrates were peradventure a certain
impulsion or will which without the advice of his discourse
presented itself unto him. In a mind so well purified, and
by continual exercise of wisdom and virtue so well prepared
as his was, it is likely his inclinations (though rash and
inconsiderate) were ever of great moment, and worthy to be
followed. Every man feeleth in himself some image of such
agitations, of a prompt, vehement, and casual opinion. It is
in me to give them some authority, that afford so little to
our wisdom. And I have had some (equally weak in reason and
violent in persuasion and dissuasion, which was more
ordinary to Socrates) by which I have so happily and so
profitably suffered myself to be transported, as they might
perhaps be thought to contain some matter of divine
inspiration."[15]

"Even in our counsels and deliberations, some chance or good
luck must needs be joined to them; for whatsoever our
wisdom can effect is no great matter."[16]

"When I consider the most glorious exploits of war