In later years the poet may have struck it out, as being only
comprehensible to a smaller circle of his friends. In the same way
that passage of act iv. sc. 4, which only contains thoughts
of Montaigne, was not received into the folio of 1623.
70: This is their title in Florio's translation: _Morall, Politike,
Millitarie Discourses of Lo. Michaell de Montaigne, Knight of the
noble order of Saint Michaell, and one of the Gentlemen in ordinary
of the French King Henry III. his Chamber_.
71: The sonnet runs thus:--
_To the Right Honourable Ladie Elizabeth Grey_. (She was a
daughter of Count Shrewsbury, a Talbot.)
Of honorable TALBOT honored farre,
The forecast and the fortune, by his WORD
_Montaigne_ here descrives; what by his Sword,
What by his wit; this, as the guiding starre;
That, as th' Aetolian blast, in peace or warre,
At sea, or land, as cause did use afforde,
_Avant le vent_, to tacke his sails aboarde,
So as his course no orethwart crosse might barre,
But he would sweetly sail _before the wind_;
For Princes service, Countries good, his fame.
Heire-Daughter of that prudent, constant kinde,
Joyning thereto of GREY as great a name, Of
both chief glories shrining in your minde,
Honour him that your Honor doth proclaime.'
We have already learned from the preface of the first book of the
_Essais_ how Florio was 'sea-tosst, weather-beaten,' 'ship-wrackt,'
'almost drowned,' when exerting himself to capture the
whale--Montaigne--and drag him through 'the rocke-rough Ocean'
with the assistance of his colleague Diodati, whom he compares to
'a guide-fish.
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