The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Israel Gollancz William Shakespeare [3563]
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 nobleman'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 nobleman'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 passed his judgment upon literary matter submitted to that nobleman. Referring to Shakespeare, Chapman writes: "How then may a man stay his marvailing to see passion-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 "passion-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 pass 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