Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 Part 11

CHAPTER VIII

JOHN FLORIO AS SIR JOHN FALSTAFF'S ORIGINAL

Probably the most remarkable and interesting aesthetic study of a single Shakespearean character ever produced is Maurice Morgann's _Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff_, which was written in 1774, and first published in 1777. This excellent piece of criticism deserves a much wider cognizance than it has ever attained; only three editions have since been issued.

Morgann's _Essay_ was originally undertaken in jest, in order to disprove the a.s.sertion made by an acquaintance that Falstaff was a coward; but, inspired by his subject, it was continued and finished in splendid earnest. As his a.n.a.lysis of the character of Falstaff becomes more intimate his wonder grows at the concrete human personality he apprehends. Falstaff ceases to be a fictive creation, or the mere dramatic representation of a type, and takes on a distinctive individuality. He writes:

"The reader will not now be surprised if I affirm that those characters in Shakespeare, which are seen only in part, are yet capable of being unfolded and understood in the whole; every part being in fact relative, and inferring all the rest. It is true that the point of action or sentiment, which we are most concerned in, is always held out for our special notice. But who does not perceive that there is a peculiarity about it, which conveys a relish of the whole? And very frequently, when no particular point presses, he boldly makes a character act and speak from those parts of the composition, which are inferred only, and not distinctly shewn. This produces a wonderful effect; it seems to carry us beyond the poet to nature itself, and give an integrity and truth to facts and character, which they would not otherwise obtain. And this is in reality that art in Shakespeare, which being withdrawn from our notice, we more emphatically call nature. A felt propriety and truth from causes unseen, I take to be the highest point of Poetic composition. If the characters of Shakespeare are thus whole, and as it were original, while those of almost all other writers are mere imitation, it may be fit to consider them rather as Historic than Dramatic beings; and, when occasion requires, to account for their conduct from the whole of character, from general principles, from latent motives, and from policies not avowed."

Morgann was closer to the secret of Shakespeare's art than he realised; he had really penetrated to the truth without knowing it. The reason that his fine a.n.a.lytical sense had led him to feel that "it may be fit to consider them rather as Historic than Dramatic beings" is the fact that in practically every instance where a very distinctive Shakespearean character, such as Falconbridge, Falstaff, Armado, Malvolio, and Fluellen, acts and speaks "from those parts of the composition, which are inferred only, and not distinctly shewn," the characters so apprehended may be shown by the light of contemporary social, literary, or political records to have been, in some measure, a reflection of a living model. Shakespeare had literally, in his own phrase, held "the mirror up to nature"; the reflection, however, being heightened and vivified by the infusion of his own rare sensibility, and the power of his dramatic genius.

With all his genius Shakespeare was yet mortal, and human creativeness cannot transcend nature. What we call creativeness, even in the greatest artists, is but a fineness of sensibility and cognition, or rather recognition, coupled with the power to express what they see and feel in nature.

As a large number of Shakespeare's plays were written primarily for private or Court presentation, to edify or amuse his patron and his patron's friends, or with their immediate political or factional interests in mind to influence the Court in their favour, the shadowed purposes of such plays, the acting or speaking of a character "from those parts of the composition, which are inferred only, and not distinctly shewn," as well as a number of hitherto supposedly inexplicable asides and allusions, such as Bottom's "reason and love keep little company together nowadays; the more the pity, that some honest neighbours will not make them friends," would give to those acquaintances who were in Shakespeare's confidence an added zest and interest in such plays quite lacking to the uninitiated, or to a modern audience.

I propose in this chapter to demonstrate the facts that John Florio--the translator of _Montaigne's Essays_ and tutor of languages to Shakespeare's patron, the Earl of Southampton--was Shakespeare's original for Sir John Falstaff and other of his characters; that the Earl of Southampton and Lady Southampton were cognizant of the shadowed ident.i.ty, and that Florio himself recognised and angrily resented the characterisation when a knowledge of its personal application had spread among their mutual acquaintances.

In preceding chapters and in former books[29] I have advanced evidence of a c.u.mulative nature for Southampton's ident.i.ty as the patron addressed in the Sonnets; the ident.i.ty of Chapman as the "rival poet,"

and Shakespeare's caricature of him as Holofernes; the ident.i.ty of Matthew Roydon as the author of _Willobie his Avisa_, as well as Shakespeare's caricature of him as the curate Nathaniel; and the ident.i.ty of Mistress Davenant as the "dark lady" of the Sonnets. If, then, we find in the same plays in which these personal reflections are shown a certain distinctly marked type of character, bearing stronger _prima facie_ evidence than the others of having been developed from a living original, may we not reasonably infer that the individual so represented might also have been linked in life in some manner approximating to his relations in the play, with the lives and interests of the other persons shadowed forth?

With this idea in mind I have searched all available records relating to Southampton, in the hope of finding among his intimates an individual whose personality may have suggested Shakespeare's characterisation, or caricature, set forth in the successive persons of Armado, Parolles, and Sir John Falstaff. The traceable incidents of John Florio's life, his long and intimate a.s.sociation with Shakespeare's patron, and reasonable inferences for the periods where actual record of him is wanting, gave probability, in my judgment, to his ident.i.ty as Shakespeare's original for these and other characters. A further consideration of the man's personality, temperament, and mental habitude, as I could dimly trace them in his few literary remains that afford scope for unconscious self-revelation, left no doubt in my mind as to his ident.i.ty as Shakespeare's model.

Supposing it to be impossible, with our present records, to visualise Shakespeare more definitely in his contemporary environment, it has been common with biographers, in their endeavours to link him with the men of his times, to draw imaginative pictures of his intimate and friendly personal relations with such men as Sir Walter Raleigh, Bacon, Chapman, Marston, and others, equally improbable, forgetting the social distinctions, the scholastic prejudices, and still more, the religious or political animosities that divided men in public life in those days, as they do, though in a lesser degree, to-day. The intimate relations of the Earl of Southampton with Lord Burghley, during the earliest period of his Court life, when he was affianced to Burghley's granddaughter, and his later intimacy with the Earl of Ess.e.x and with the gentlemen of the Ess.e.x faction, coupled with Shakespeare's sympathy with the cause of his patron and his patron's friends, must be borne in mind in any endeavour that is made to trace in the plays either Shakespeare's political leanings or his probable affiliations with, or antagonisms to, his early contemporaries. The natural jealousies that would arise between the followers, dependants, or proteges of a liberal patron must also be considered.

John Florio became connected, in the capacity of Italian tutor, with the Earl of Southampton late in the year 1590, or early in 1591, shortly after his coming to Court, and a little before Southampton first began to show favour to Shakespeare. We have Florio's own statement for the fact that he continued in Southampton's "pay and patronage" at least as late as 1598, in which year he published his _Worlde of Wordes_. Whether or not he continued in Southampton's service after this date is uncertain, but we may safely impute to that n.o.bleman's good offices the favour shown to him by James I. and his Queen in 1604, and later.

From the first time that Shakespeare and Florio were thrown together, through their mutual connection with Southampton, in or about 1591, down to the year 1609, when the Sonnets were issued at the instigation of Shakespeare's literary rivals, I find intermittent traces of antagonism between them, and also of Florio's intimacy and sympathy with Chapman and his friends. In later years, Chapman, Jonson, and Marston, however, seem to have recognised in Florio an unstable ally, and tacitly to have regarded him as a selfish and shifty opportunist. Florio appears to have used his intimacy with Southampton, and his knowledge of that n.o.bleman's relations with Shakespeare and the "dark lady" in 1593 to 1594, to the poet's disadvantage, by imparting intelligence of the affair to Chapman and Roydon, the latter of whom exploited this knowledge in the production of _Willobie his Avisa_.

In Chapman's dedication to Roydon of _The Shadow of Night_ in 1594, he shows knowledge of the fact that Shakespeare was practically reader to the Earl of Southampton, and that he pa.s.sed his judgment upon literary matter submitted to that n.o.bleman. Referring to Shakespeare, Chapman writes: "How then may a man stay his marvailing to see pa.s.sion-driven men, reading but to curtail a tedious hour, and altogether hidebound with affection to great men's fancies, take upon them as killing censures as if they were judgment's butchers, or as if the life of truth lay tottering in their verdicts." This reference to Shakespeare as "pa.s.sion-driven" refers to the affair of the "dark lady," upon which Chapman's friend, Roydon, was then at work in _Willobie his Avisa_.

Florio, in later years, as shall appear, also makes a very distinct point at Shakespeare as a "reader." Unless there was an enemy in Shakespeare's camp to report to Chapman and Roydon the fact of his "reading" to curtail tedious hours for his patron, and to convey intelligence to Roydon of Shakespeare's and Southampton's relations with the "dark lady," either by reporting the affair or by bringing Shakespeare's earlier MS. _books_ of sonnets to his notice, it is improbable that these men would have had such intimate knowledge of the incidents and conditions of this stage of Shakespeare's friendship with his patron. Florio probably fostered the hostility of these scholars to Shakespeare by imputing to his influence their ill-success in winning Southampton's favour. It is not improbable that for his own protection he secretly used his influence with Southampton in defeating their advances while posing as their friend and champion. Shakespeare distrusted Florio from the beginning of his acquaintance, and deprecated his influence upon his patron.

In the earlier stages of Shakespeare's observation of Florio he appears to have been more amused than angered, but as the years pa.s.s his dislike grows, as he sees more clearly into the cold selfishness of a character, obscured to his earlier and more casual view by the interesting personality and frank and humorous worldly wisdom of the man. However heightened and amplified by Shakespeare's imagination the characterisation of Falstaff may now appear, a consideration of the actual character of Florio, as we find it revealed between the lines of his own literary productions, and in the few contemporary records of him that have survived, suggests on Shakespeare's part portrayal rather than caricature.

a.s.suming for the present that Shakespeare has characterised, or caricatured, Florio as Parolles, Armado, and Falstaff, the first and second of these characters are represented in plays originally produced in, or about, 1592, but reflecting the spirit and incidents of the Cowdray and Tichfield progress of the autumn of 1591. While these plays were altered at a later period, or periods, of revision, it is apparent that both characters pertain in a large measure to the plays in their earlier forms. If Shakespeare used Florio as his model for these characters, we have added evidence that by the autumn of 1591 Florio had already entered the "pay and patronage" of Southampton, who about this period, under his tuition and in antic.i.p.ation of continental travel, developed his knowledge of Italian and French. In his dedication of the _Worlde of Wordes_ to Southampton in 1598, Florio writes:

"In truth I acknowledge an entire debt, not only of my best knowledge, but of all, yea of more than I know or can, to your bounteous Lordship, most n.o.ble, most virtuous, and most Honourable Earl of Southampton, in whose pay and patronage I have lived some years, to whom I owe and vow the years I have to live."

Further on in this dedication he refers to Southampton's study of Italian under his tuition as follows:

"I might make doubt least I or mine be not now of any further use to your self-sufficiencie, being at home so instructed in Italian as teaching or learning could supply that there seemed no need of travell, and now by travell so accomplished as what wants to perfection?"

_All's Well that Ends Well_, in its earlier form of _Loves Labour's Won_, reflects the spirit and incidents of the Queen's progress to Tichfield House in September 1591; the widowed Countess of Rousillon personifies the widowed Countess of Southampton; the wise and courtly Lafeu the courtly Sir Thomas Heneage, who within three years married the Countess of Southampton. I have suggested that Bertram represented Southampton, and that his coolness towards Helena, and his proposed departure for the French Court, reflects Southampton's disinclination to the marriage with Elizabeth Vere, and the fact of his departure shortly afterwards for France. In Florio, who was at that time attached to the Earl of Southampton's establishment, and presumably was present upon the occasion of the progress to Tichfield, we have the prototype of Parolles, though much of the present characterisation of that person, while referring to the same original, undoubtedly pertains to a period of later time revision, which on good evidence I date in, or about, the autumn of 1598, at which period Shakespeare's earlier antipathy had grown by knowledge and experience into positive aversion.

In 1591 Southampton was still a ward in Chancery, and the management of his personal affairs and expenditures under the supervision of Lord Burghley, to whose granddaughter he was affianced. It is evident then that when Florio was retained in the capacity of tutor, or bear-leader, and with the intention of having him accompany the young Earl upon his continental travels, his selection for the post would be made by Burghley--Southampton's guardian--who in former years had patronised and befriended Florio's father.

In Lafeu's early distrust of Parolles' pretensions, and his eventual recognition of his cowardice and instability, I believe we have a reflection of the att.i.tude of Sir Thomas Heneage towards Florio, and a suggestion of his disapproval of Florio's intimacy with Southampton.

This leads me to infer that though Lady Southampton and Heneage apparently acquiesced in, and approved of, Burghley's marital plans for Southampton, secretly they were not displeased at their miscarriage.

When Southampton first came to Court he was a fresh and unspoiled youth, with high ideals and utterly unacquainted with the ethical lat.i.tude and moral laxity of city and Court life. In bringing him to Court and the notice of the Queen, and at the same time endeavouring to unite his interests with his own by marriage with his granddaughter, Burghley hoped that--as in the case of his son-in-law, the Earl of Oxford, some years before--Southampton would become a Court favourite, and possibly supplant Ess.e.x in the Queen's favour, as the Earl of Oxford had for a while threatened to displace Leicester. The ingenuous frankness and independence of the young Earl, however, appeared likely to defeat the plans of the veteran politician. Burghley now resolved that he must broaden his protege's knowledge of the world and adjust his ideals to Court life. He accordingly engaged the sophisticated and world-bitten Florio as his intellectual and moral mentor. I do not find any record of Southampton's departure for France immediately after the Cowdray progress, but it is apparent either that he accompanied the Earl of Ess.e.x upon that n.o.bleman's return to his command in France after a short visit to England in October 1591, or that he followed shortly afterwards. Ess.e.x was recalled from France in January 1592 (new style), and on 2nd March of the same year we have a letter dated at Dieppe from Southampton to Ess.e.x in England, which shows that Southampton was with the army in France within a few months of the Cowdray progress.

Conceiving both Parolles and Falstaff to be caricatures of Florio I apprehend in the military functions of these characters a reflection of a probable quasi-military experience of their original during his connection with Southampton in the year 1592.

An English force held Dieppe for Henry IV. in March 1592, awaiting reinforcements from England to move against the army of the League, which was encamped near the town. If Southampton took Florio with him at this time it is quite likely that he had him appointed to a captaincy, though probably not to a command. Captain Roger Williams, a brave and capable Welsh officer (whom I have reason to believe was Shakespeare's original for the Welsh Captain Fluellen in _Henry V_.), joined the army at the end of this month, bringing with him six hundred men. In a letter to the Council, upon his departure from England, he writes sarcastically of the number and inefficiency of the captains being made. This letter is so characteristic of the man, and so reminiscent of blunt Fluellen, that I shall quote it in full.

"Moste Honorables, yesterdaie it was your Lordship's pleasure to shewe the roll of captaines by their names. More then half of them are knowen unto me sufficient to take charges; a greate number of others, besides the rest in that roll, although not knowen unto me, maie be as sufficient as the others, perhapps knowen unto menn of farr better judgment than myselfe. To saie truthe, no man ought to meddle further than his owne charge. Touching the three captaines that your Lordships appointed to go with me, I knowe Polate and Coverd, but not the thirde. There is one Captaine Polate, a Hampshire man, an honest gentleman, worthie of good charge. There is another not worthie to be a sergeant of a band, as Sir John Norris knows, with many others; and I do heare by my Lord of Suss.e.x it is he.

Captain Coverd is worthie, but not comparable unto a dozen others that have no charge; but whatsoever your Lordships direct unto me, I muste accept, and will do my best endeavour to discharge my dutie towards the service comitted unto me. But be a.s.sured that the more new captaines that are made, the more will begg, I meane will trouble her Majestie after the warrs, unless the olde be provided for. I must confess I wrote effectual for one Captaine Smithe unto Sir Philipp Butler; two of the name Sir John Norris will confess to be well worthie to commande, at the least, three hundred men a-piece. He that I named, my desire is that he may be one of myne. I protest, on my poore credytt, I never delt with her Majestic concerning any of those captaines, nor anything that your Lordships spake yesterday before me; but true it is, I spake before the Earle of Ess.e.x and Sir John Norris, it was pittie that young captaines should be accepted and the old refused. True it is that I toulde them also that the lieutenants of the shire knew not those captaines so well as ourselves. On my creditt, my meaning was the deputies lieutenants, the which, as it was toulde me, had made all these captaines. My speeches are no lawe, nor scarce good judgment, for the warrs were unknowen to me 22 yeres agon. Notwithstanding, it shall satisfie me, that the greatest generalls in that time took me to be a souldier, for the which I will bring better proofs than any other of my qualitie shall deny. Humbly desiring your Lordships' accustomed good favor towards me, I reste to spend my life alwaies at her Majestie's pleasure, and at your Lordships' devotion. (27th March 1591.)"

Within a short period of the arrival of Sir Roger Williams he had dispersed the enemy and opened up the road to the suburbs of Paris; which city was then held by the combined forces of the League and the Spanish. I cannot learn whether Southampton accompanied the troops in the proposed attack on Paris or continued his travels into the Netherlands and Spain. Some verses in _Willobie his Avisa_ suggest such a tour at this time. He was back in England, however, by September 1592, when he accompanied the Queen and Court to Oxford. It is probable that Florio accompanied the Earl of Southampton upon this occasion, and that the n.o.bleman's acquaintance with the mistress of the Crosse Inn, the beginning of which I date at this time, was due to his introduction.

Florio lived for many years at Oxford and was undoubtedly familiar with its taverns and tavern keepers.[30]

In depicting Parolles as playing Pander for Bertram, and at the same time secretly pressing his own suit, I am convinced that Shakespeare caricatured Florio's relations with Southampton and the "dark lady." It is not unlikely that Florio is included by Roydon in _Willobie his Avisa_ among Avisa's numerous suitors.

The literary history of _All's Well that Ends Well_, aside from internal considerations, suggests that it was not composed originally for public performance, nor revised with the public in mind. It appeared in print for the first time in the Folio of 1623, and it is practically certain that no earlier edition was issued. If we except Meres' mention of the play, _Love's Labour's Won_, in 1598, the earliest reference we have to _All's Well that Ends Well_ is that in the Stationers' Registers dated 8th November 1623, where it is recorded as a play not previously entered to other men. There is no record of its presentation during Shakespeare's lifetime.

Though the old play of _Love's Labour's Won_ mentioned by Meres has been variously identified by critics, the consensus of judgment of the majority is in favour of its identification as _All's Well that Ends Well_. In no other of Shakespeare's plays--even in instances where we have actual record of revision--can we so plainly recognise by internal evidence both the work of his "pupil" and of his master pen. As I have a.s.signed the original composition of this play to the year 1592, regarding it as a reflection of the Queen's progress to Tichfield House and of the incidents of the Earl of Southampton's life at, and following, that period, so I infer and believe I can demonstrate that its revision reflects the same personal influences under new phases in later years.

In February 1598 the Earl of Southampton left England for the French Court with Sir Robert Cecil. He returned secretly in August and was married privately at Ess.e.x House to Elizabeth Vernon, whose condition had recently caused her dismissal from the Court. Southampton returned to France as secretly as he had come, but knowledge of his return and of his unauthorised marriage reaching the Queen, she issued an order for his immediate recall, and upon his return in November committed him, and even threatened to commit his wife (who was now a mother), to the Fleet.

It is not unlikely that Florio accompanied Southampton to France upon this visit, and that much of Shakespeare's irritation at this time arose from Southampton's neglect or coolness, which he supposed to be due to Florio's increasing influence, to which Shakespeare also imputed much of the young Earl's ill-regulated manner of life at this period.

In the happy ending of Helena's troubles, and in Bertram's recognition of his moral responsibility and marital obligations, and also in the significant change of the t.i.tle of this play from _Love's Labour's Won_ to _All's Well that Ends Well_, we have Shakespeare's combined reproof and approval of Southampton's recent conduct towards Elizabeth Vernon, as well as a practical reflection of the actual facts in their case.

At about this time, in addition to the revision of _All's Well that Ends Well_, I date the first production, though not the original composition, of _Troilus and Cressida_, and also the final revision of _Love's Labour's Lost_. In this latter play the part taken by Armado was, I believe, enlarged and revised, as in the case of Parolles in _All's Well that Ends Well_, to suit the incidents and characterisation to Shakespeare's developed knowledge of, and experience with, Florio. There are several small but significant links of description between the Parolles of 1598 and the enlarged Armado of the same date. Both of these characters are represented as braggart soldiers and also as linguists, which evidently reflect Florio's quasi-military connection with Southampton and his known proficiency in languages.

In Act IV. Scene iii. Parolles is referred to as "the manifold linguist and armipotent soldier." In _Love's Labour's Lost_, in Act I. Scene i., in lines that palpably belong to the play in its earliest form, Armado is described as "a man of fire-new words." He is also represented as a traveller from Spain. In Act V. Scene ii., in lines that pertain to the revision of 1598, he is made to take the soldier's part again, in giving him the character of Hector in _The Nine Worthies_. In this character Armado is made to use the peculiar word "armipotent" twice. It is significant that this word is never used by Shakespeare except in connection with Armado and Parolles. In giving Armado the character of Hector, I am convinced that Shakespeare again indicates Florio's military experience. In the lines which Armado recites in the character of Hector, Shakespeare intentionally makes his personal point at Florio more strongly indicative by alluding to the name Florio by the word "flower," in the interrupted line with which Hector ends his verses.

ARM. Peace!---- "The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty, Gave Hector a gift, the heir of Ilion; A man so breathed, that certain he would fight ye From morn till night, out of his pavilion.

I am that flower,----"

He reinforces his indication by Dumain's and Longaville's interpolations--"That mint," "That columbine." Florio undoubtedly indicated this meaning to his own name in ent.i.tling 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. Florio used a flower for his emblem, and had inscribed under his portrait in the 1611 edition of his _Worlde of Wordes_:

"Floret adhuc et adhuc florebit Florius haec specie floridus optat amans."

The frequent references to the characters of the _Iliad_ in this act and scene of _Love's Labour's Lost_ link the period of its insertion with the date of the original composition of _Troilus and Cressida_ in, or about, 1598, to which time I have also a.s.signed the revision of _Love's Labour's Won_ into _All's Well that Ends Well_, and the development of Parolles into a misleader of youth.

Another phase of Act V. Scene ii. of _Love's Labour's Lost_ appears to be a reflection of an affair in the life of the individual whom Shakespeare has in mind in the delineation of the characters of Armado and Sir John Falstaff. Costard accuses Armado regarding his relations with Jaquenetta.

COST. The party is gone, fellow Hector, she is gone; she is two months on her way.

ARM. What meanest thou?

COST. Faith, unless you play the honest Trojan, the poor wench is cast away: she's quick; the child brags in her belly already: 'tis yours.

ARM. Dost thou infamonize me among potentates?

Precisely similar conditions are shown to exist in the relations between Falstaff and Doll Tearsheet, in the _Second Part of Henry IV._, in which play there are also allusions to the characters of the _Iliad_, which link its composition with the same period as _Troilus and Cressida_; and an allusion to _The Nine Worthies_ that apparently link it in time with the final revision of _Love's Labour's Lost_ late in 1598.