That Shakespeare read Montaigne's Essays is made probable by the fact that they were well-known to his contemporaries. He was only sixteen when the first two books were published in Paris. By the end of the century, before he had begun to write his greatest tragedies, the popularity of the work had already spread to England. Of this fact there still remain many signs: “Seven or eight of great wit and worth,” Florio tells us, had made attempts to translate the Essays; two separate entries of such a translation had been made in the Stationers' Register; “divers of his peeces” in English, Cornwallis writes, were going from hand to hand in manuscript; and Bacon had published Essays, in which not only the name, but several appropriations of thought, acknowledged and unacknowledged, show the indebtedness of their author to Montaigne.