The pastoral name Menalcas is obviously and pointedly enough adopted from the Eclogues of Virgil; in which, by comparing the fifteenth line of the second with the sixty-sixth of the third, we shall find he was the rival who (to use the expression of Spenser) “by treachery did underfong” the affections of the beautiful Alexis from his enamored master.  In this respect the name would well fit Florio, who, from his intimacy with the Daniels and their friends, could not but have known the passion of the poet, and the encouragement at one time given him by his fickle mistress.

Again, there was at this time prevalent a French conceit,—­“imported,” as Camden tells us, “from Calais, and so well liked by the English, although most ridiculous, that, learned or unlearned, he was nobody that could not hammer out of his name an invention by this wit-craft, and picture 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.”