Shakspeare and His Times [Vol. 1 of 2] Including the Biography of the Poet; criticisms on his genius and writings; a new chronology of his plays; a disquisition on the on the object of his sonnets; and a history of the manners, customs, and amusements, superstitions, poetry, and elegant literature of his age

Act iv. sc. 2. And his Eclogues, be it remembered, were translated

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and printed, together with the Latin on the opposite page, for the use of schools, before the commencement of our author's education; and from a passage quoted by Mr. Malone, from Nashe's _Apologie of Pierce Penniless_, 1593, appear to have continued in use long after its termination. "With the first and second leafe, he plaies very prettilie, and, in ordinarie terms of extenuating, verdits Pierce Pennilesse for a grammar-school wit; saies, his margine is as deeply learned as, _Fauste, precor gelidâ_." Mantuanus was translated by George Turberville in 1567, and reprinted in 1591.—_Vide_ Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 95.

[28:A] Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 491.

[29:A] Worthies, p. iii. p. 126.

[30:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 85.

[31:A] Censura Literaria, vol. ix. p. 285.

[32:A] "If it were asked from what sources," observes Mr. Capel Lofft, "_Shakspeare_ drew these abundant streams of wisdom, carrying with their current the fairest and most unfading flowers of poetry, I should be tempted to say, he had what would be now considered a very reasonable portion of Latin; he was not wholly ignorant of Greek; he had a knowledge of the French, so as to read it with ease; and I believe not less of the Italian. He was habitually conversant in the chronicles of his country. He lived with wise and highly cultivated men; with Jonson, Essex, and Southampton, in familiar friendship. He had deeply imbibed the Scriptures. And his own most acute, profound, active, and original genius (for there never was a truly great poet, nor an aphoristic writer of excellence without these accompanying qualities) must take the lead in the solution." Aphorisms from Shakspeare: Introduction, pp. xii. and xiii.

Again, in speaking of his poems, he remarks—"Transcendent as his original and singular genius was, I think it is not easy, with due attention to _these_ poems, to doubt of his having acquired, when a boy, no ordinary facility in the _classic_ language of Rome; though his knowledge of it might be small, comparatively, to the knowledge of that great and indefatigable scholar, Ben Jonson. And when Jonson says he had 'less Greek,' had it been true that he had none, it would have been as easy for the verse as for the sentiment to have said 'no Greek.'"—Introduction, p. xxiv.