his own personal knowledge of the
man, have been qualified to paint his character; for while the great
dramatist was the early and intimate friend of the Earl of
Southampton, the petulant lexicographer boasts of having for years
been domesticated in the pay and patronage of that munificent patron
of letters. Warburton thinks "it was from the ferocity of his temper,
that Shakspeare chose for him the name which Rabelais gives to his
pedant of Thubal Holoferne." Were the matter worth arguing, we
should say, it was rather from the proclivity with which (according
to Camden's rules) the abbreviated Latin name Johnes Florio or
Floreo falls into Holofernes. Rabelais and anagrammatism may divide
the slender glory of the product between them.

But neither Shakspeare's satire nor Florio's absurdities are
comprehended within this single character. Subsequent examination
of the text of "Love's Labor's Lost" has enabled the critics to
satisfy themselves that the part of _Don Adnano de Armado_, the
"phantastical courtier," was devised to exhibit another phase in
the character of the Resolute Italian. In Holofernes we have the
pedantic tutor; in Don Adriano a lively picture of a ridiculous
lover and pompous retainer of the court.

By a fine dramatic touch, Shakspeare has made each describe the other,
in such a way that the portrait might stand for the speaker himself,
and thus establishes a dual-identity. Thus, Armado, describing
Holofernes, says, "That's all one, my fair, sweet, honey monarch;
for I protest the schoolmaster is exceeding fantastical,--too, too
vain,--too, too vain; but we will put it, as they say, to _fortuna
della guerra_";--whilst Holofernes, not behind his counterpart in
self-esteem, sees in the other the defects which he cannot detect in
himself. "_Novi hominem tanquam te_" quoth he;--"his humor is lofty;
his discourse peremptory; his tongue filed; his eye ambitious; his
gait majestical; and his general behavior vain, ridiculous, and
thrasonical. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as
it were; too peregrinate, as I may call it; he draweth out the
thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I
abhor such fanatical phantasms," etc.

Should further proof be needed that Florio, Holofernes, and Armado
form a dramatic trinity in unity, we can find it in the personal
appearance of the Italian. There was something amiss with the
_face_ of the Resolute, which could not escape the obse