Florio, in his
bombastic style, says:--'I, in this, serve but as Vulcan to hatchet
this Minerva from that Jupiter's bigge braine.' He calls himself 'a
fondling foster-father, having transported it from France to England,
put it in English clothes, taught it to talke our tongue, though many
times with a jerke of French jargon.'
The 'Essais' consist of three different books. Each of them is
dedicated to two noblewomen, the foremost of this country. The
first book isdedicated to Lucy, Countess of Bedford, and her mother,
Lady Anne Harrington. The second to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland,
daughter of the famous poet Sir Philip Sidney, therefore a near
relation of Shakspere's youthful friend, William Herbert, the later
Earl of Pembroke ('the only begetter' of the 'Sonnets'), whose mother
also was a daughter of that much-admired poet.
The second book is dedicated to the renowned as well as evilly notorious
Lady Penelope Rich, sister of the unfortunate Earl of Essex. She shone
by her extraordinary beauty as well as by her intellectual gifts. Of
her Sir Philip Sidney was madly enamoured, but she married a Croesus,
Lord Rich. This union was a most unhappy one. Her husband, a man far
below her in strength of mind, did not know how to value the jewel
that had come into his possession. A crowd of admirers flocked around
her, among whom was William Herbert, much younger in years than herself.
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