r, and to himself of indemnity from disturbance,
he adopted a formidable prefix to his name; and to "any bill, warrant,
quittance, or obligation," to every address, prelude, preface,
[8] introduction, or farewell, accompanying any of his numerous works,
he subscribed himself the Resolute,--"Resolute John Florio."

Conduct so absurd, coupled with some personal defects, and a
character so petulantly vainglorious, exposed the "Resolute" to the
bitter sarcasm of contemporary writers. Accordingly we find him
through life encompassed by a host of tormentors, and presenting his
_chevaux-de-frise_ of quills against them at all and every point.
In the Epistle Dedicatory to the second edition of his Dictionary,
we find him engaged _morsu et unguibus_ with a swarm of literary
hornets, against whom he inveighs as "sea-dogs,--land-critics,
--monsters of men, if not beasts rather than men,--whose teeth are
cannibals',--their tongues adders' forks,--their lips asps' poison,
--their eyes basilisks',--their breath the breath of a grave,--their
words like swords of Turks, which strive which shall dive deepest
into the Christian lying before them." Of a verity we may say that
John Florio was sadly exercised when he penned this pungent paragraph.
He then falls foul of the players, who--to use the technical phrase
of the day--"staged" him with no small success. "With this common
cry of curs" in general, and with _one poet_ and _one piece_ of said
poet's handiwork in particular, he enters into mortal combat with
such vehement individuality as enables us at a glance to detect the
offence and the offender. He says, "Let Aristophanes and his
comedians make plays and scour their mouths on Socrates, these very
mouths they make to vilify shall be the means to amplify his virtues,"
etc. "And here," says Doctor Warburton, "Shakspeare is so clearly
marked out as not to be mistaken." This opinion is fortified by the
concurrence of Farmer, Steevens, Reid, Malone, Knight, Collier, and
Hunter; and, from the additional lights thrown upon this subject by
their combined intelligence, no doubt seems to exist that Holofernes,
the pedantic schoolmaster in "Love's Labor's Lost," had his
prototype in John Florio, the Resolute.

"Florio," according to Farmer, "gave the first affront by asserting
that 'the plays they play in England are neither right comedies nor
tragedies, but representations of histories without any decorum.'"
We know that Shakspeare must, of