MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS, Florio's Trans lation of. The interest of Florio's translation of the essays of Montaigne is manifestly due in the first place to Montaigne and only very secondarily to Florio. The world has never failed to find the good-natured and wise father of the modern essay both amusing and inter esting, and Montaigne, in whatever dress he might wear, would be sure of a welcome in any reflecting but not too serious society of men and women. Yet it is no small credit to Florio that he has not only kept Montaigne alive and to the fore in his translation, but has also managed to slip in by the way some considerable flavor of himself. His translation of his French original is not always accurate in detail, though it is perhaps not less accurate than translations customarily were in the days when it was made. It has something better, however, than simple verbal accuracy, it has color and life. Like most Elizabethan trans .
lators, Florio was seldom content to let a single English word stand as the equivalent of a significant word of his original. In order to be sure to get the full content of his French source, he amplified by the addition of inten sifying modifiers and synonyms. The result is that the translation is often more wordy and more highly colored stylistically than the orig inal, is often quaint and colloquially picturesque when Montaigne is simple and direct. Florio
was above all a lover of the ingenious style, and his ingenuity not infrequently betrayed him into the grotesque. He was fond not only of strange words, but also of puns, alliteration and the other frippery of the courtly writing of his day. When it suited his convenience he did not hesitate to Anglicize a French word, with the result that though he put Montaigne gin English clothes') it was done gmany times with a jerke of the French Yet when one compares the 'Epistle Dedicatorie) of the translation, addressed to his abest-best Bene factors and most-most honored Ladies, Lucie Countesse of Bedford; and her best-most loved loving Mother, Ladie Anne Harrington,' where he was writing in his own person, with the body of the translation, one notes with gratitude that Florio has not done his worst in the way of verbal ingenuity. His original exerted a salutary restraining influence when he came to the actual task of translating, and few readers will cavil at him for being occa sionally Florio, since he really gives us Montaigne.