Shakespeare and Florio did know one another, and Shakespeare was among the first readers of the Essays translation. He may even have read parts in manuscript before it went to press: signs of Montaigne seem faintly discernible in Hamlet, which predates Florio’s edition. A much later play, The Tempest,7 contains one passage so close to Florio that there can be no doubt of his having read it. Eulogising his vision of a perfect society in the state of nature, Shakespeare’s Gonzalo says: I’th’ commonwealth I would by contraries Execute all things, for no kind of traffic Would I admit; no name of
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