The grateful Florio calls this worthy colleague, 'Diodati as in name,
so indeed God's gift to me,' and a 'guide-fish' who in this
'rockie-rough ocean' helped him to capture the 'Whale'--that is,
Montaigne. He also compares him to a 'bonus genius sent to
me, as the good angel to Raimond in "Tasso," for my assistant to
combat this great Argante.'

The other welcome fellow-worker was 'Maister Doctor Guinne;' according
to Florio, 'in this perilous, crook't passage a monster-quelling
Theseus or Herkules;' aye, in his eyes the best orator, poet,
philosopher, and medical man (_non so se meglior oratore e poeta,
o philosopho e medico_), and well versed in Greek, Latin, Italian,
and French poetry. It was he who succeeded in tracing the many
passages from classic and modern writers which are strewn all over
Montaigne's Essays to the divers authors, and the several places
where they occur, so as to properly classify them.

Samuel Daniel, a well-known and much respected poet of that time, and a
brother-in-law of Florio, also made his contribution. He opens this
powerful, highly important work with a eulogistic poem. Florio, in his
bombastic style, says:--'I, in this, serve but as Vulcan to hatchet
this Minerva from that Jupiter's bigge braine.' He calls himself 'a
fondling foster-father, having transported it from France to England,
put it in English clothes, taught it to talke our tongue, though many
times with a jerke of French jargon.'

The 'Essais' consist of three different books. Each of them is
dedicated to two noblewomen, the foremost of this country. The
first book isdedicated to Lucy, Countess of Bedford, and her mother,
Lady Anne Harrington. The second to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland,