icture_ it accordingly. Whereupon," he adds, "who did not
busy his braine to hammer his devise out of this forge?" [10] This
wit-craft was the _rebus_.

Florio's rebus or device, then, was a Flower. We have specimens of
his fondness for this nomenclative punning subscribed to his portrait:
--

"Floret adhue, et adhue florebit: floreat ultra
Florius hae specie floridus,--optat amans."

And it was with evident allusion to this conceit that he named his
several works his "First Fruits," "Second Fruits," "Garden of
Recreation," and so forth. Spenser did not miss the occasion of
reducing this figurative flower to a worthless weed:--

"Go tell the las her flower hath wox a weed."

In the preceding stanza we find this weed distinctly identified as
Menalcas:--

"And thou, Menalcas! that by treachery
Didst underfong my lass to wax so light."

Another reason for dubbing Florio _Menalcas_ may be found in the
character and qualities ascribed to the treacherous shepherd by
Virgil. He was not without talent, for in one of the Eclogues he
bears his part in the poetical contention with credit; but he was
unfaithful and fraudulent in his amours, envious, quarrelsome,
scurrilous, and a braggart; and his _face_ was remarkable for its
dark, Italian hue,--"_quamvis ille fuscus_," etc. Compared with the
undoubted character of John Florio, as already exhibited, that of
Menalcas so corresponds as to justify its appropriation to the rival
of Spenser.

There is a further peculiarity in the name itself, which renders its
application to John Florio at once pointed and pregnant with the
happiest ridicule. Florio rejoiced in the absurd prefix of Resolute.
Now Menalcas is a compound of two Greek words ([Greek: menos] and
[Greek: ulkm]) fully expressive of this idea, and frequently used
together in the sense of RESOLUTION by the best classical authorities,
--thus, "[Greek: menos d'ulkmd te lathpsmat]." [11] Again, in Liddell
and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon [Greek: menos] in composition is
said to "bear always a collateral notion of _resolve_ and firmness."
And here we have the very _notion_ expressed by the very word we
want. Menalcas is the appropriate and expressive _nom de guerre_ of
the "Resolute."

Every unprejudiced reader will admit, that in emblem, name, character;
and appearance, John Florio and Menalcas are allegorically identical;
and it follows, as a consequence, that Rosalinde, married to the
same person as Ros