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later years he was able to go back to him with pleasure, and to read him both in Latin and in Golding's excellent translation. He refers to Ovid more often than to any other ancient writer, and on the title-page of "the first heir" of his invention, Venus and Adonis (itself based on the Metamorphoses), he placed a graceful couplet chosen from this his favorite author.1

Nor were the Roman playwrights neglected. Terence, who, as Hoole observes, "of all the school authors we read doth deservedly challenge the first place," he could not well have omitted. And he seems to have read also Seneca and Plautus: "Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light," exclaims Polonius. The former probably did not much appeal to him, although Senecan influence is clearly marked in his tragedies. Plautus must have delighted him more; the Plautine comedies gave him some of his early inspiration, and supplied him with the plot of his Comedy of Errors. Perhaps his familiarity with these authors went beyond a mere reading, for we know that in many schools the performance of a scene from Terence or Plautus was a weekly exercise.3

1 There is preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford a copy of the 1502 Aldine edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses in Latin, bearing on the title-page just above the Aldine anchor the abbreviated signature "Wm Shre." Facing this title-page is the manuscript note: "This little Booke of Ovid was given to me by W. Hall, who sayd it was once Will. Shakesperes. T.N. 1682." This identity of "T.N." is unknown; the "W. Hall" may be the William Hall, an admirer of the poet, who visited Stratford in 1694, and wrote to a friend: "Dear Neddy, I very greedily embrace this occasion of acquainting you with something which I found at Stratford upon Avon. That place I came unto on Thursday night, and ye next day went to visit ye ashes of the Great Shakspear." The authenticity of the signature on the title-page cannot be asserted, yet various circumstances tend to indicate that it may be genuine. And in this connection we are reminded of a line in Titus Andronicus, IV, i, 42: "'T is Ovid's Metamorphoses; my mother gave it me."

* The influence of Seneca's philosophical works on Shakespeare has also been demonstrated.

See W. H. Woodward in The Cambridge History of English Literature, iii, 429-30, and Foster Watson, The English Grammar Schools, pp. 319–24.

Other Latin works which he was made to read — if we may judge by the curriculum of similar schools were the poems of Horace, the letters of Cicero (upon which he was required to mold an epistolary style), the colloquies of Erasmus, and possibly Sallust.

But quite as important as the curriculum in the sixteenth-century schools was the method of study. Fortunately for us Hoole has preserved a detailed account of exactly how village schoolmasters taught their pupils; and this account relates to the generation preceding his (i.e., to the days of Shakespeare), for he gathered his information, he tells us, by careful inquiry from various men taught by his predecessors in the profession. The passages that are quoted below may be a little tiresome in reading, but will abundantly repay any one who is interested in the subject of Shakespeare's education. Of the grammar school students of the late sixteenth century Hoole writes:

These were first put to read the Accidents [in Lilly's Grammatica Latina), and afterwards made to commit it to memory; which when they had done they were exercised in construing and parsing the examples in the English rules; and this was called the first form.

...

The second form was to repeat the Accidents for Parts; to say forenoon's lessons in Propria quæ maribus, Quæ genus, and As in præsenti, which they repeated memoriter, construed, and parsed; to say an afternoon's lesson in Sententiæ Pueriles, which they repeated by heart, and construed, and parsed; they repeated their tasks every Friday memoriter, and parsed their Sentences out of English.

The third form was enjoyned first to repeat two parts together every morning, one out of the Accidents and the other out of that forementioned part of the Grammar; and together with their parts, each one was made to form one person of a verb Active in any of the four conjugations. Their forenoon's lessons were in Syntaxis, which they used to say memoriter; then to construe it, and parse only the words which contain the force

of the rule. Their forenoon lessons were two days in Æsop's Fables and other two days in Cato; both which they construed and parsed, and said Cato memoriter: these lessons they translated into English, and repeated all on Fridays construing out of the translations into Latin.

The fourth form having ended Syntaxis, first repeated it, and Propria quæ maribus, etc., together for parts, and formed a person of a verb Passive, as they did the Active before. For lessons they proceeded to the by-rules, and to Figura and Prosodia; for afternoon lessons they read Terence two days and Mantuan two days, which they translated into English, and repeated on Fridays as before [i.e., construing their English translations back into Latin].

The fifth form said one part in the Latin, and another in the Greek Grammar together. Their forenoon's lessons were in Butler's Rhetoric, which they said memoriter and then construed and applied the example to the definition. Their afternoon's lessons were two days in Ovid's Metamorphosis and two days in Tully's Offices, both which they translated into English. They learned to scan and prove verse in Flores Poetarum; and repeated their week's work on Fridays as before.

So Hoole proceeds to the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth forms. Whether in the fifth form Shakespeare acquired the little Greek of which Jonson speaks, we cannot say. His teachers, fellows of Oxford, were certainly qualified to give instruction in the elements of the language.

Although the curriculum was mainly concerned with the classics, pupils were commonly required to become familiar with the Bible 1 (in the Geneva version, which is very close to the King James's version). The young Shakespeare seems to have read with avidity the stirring histories contained within its pages, and he shows an intimate knowledge of both the Old and the New Testa- .. ment. Probably more than any other single book it helped to mold his English style, and to supply him with the noble vocabulary he was later to use with such effectiveness.

'See Foster Watson, The English Grammar Schools, pp. 50–62.

How many books he had access to outside the school we do not know. Doubtless not many in his own home,1 or in the home of his father's most intimate friends. On the other hand, from his schoolmasters, from his vicar, and from the homes of the better educated, he could, were he so disposed, have borrowed books on various subjects, particularly chronicles, the Latin classics, a few romances, and innumerable theological treatises; and that he borrowed some we must believe, for in general unless the habit of reading is formed before the age of twelve it is not easily acquired in later life. We have no evidence, however, that at this early date he was a voluminous reader. Probably he found his chief pleasure in outdoor sports, and in "nature's infinite book," which in the regions about Stratford lay wide open before him in unusual attractiveness.

1 That John Shakespeare on one occasion, at least, bought a book is shown by Mrs. Stopes, Shakespeare's Environment, p. 61.

2 Mrs. Stopes, Shakespeare's Environment, p. 57, has shown that Stratford was by no means a bookless place.

CHAPTER V

APPRENTICESHIP AND MARRIAGE

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WITH the passing of the years and the coming of his father's pecuniary troubles, the more serious problems of life began to close in upon the growing boy. It is generally asserted that he was taken from the Stratford free school "at an unusually early age," but of this there is no proof.1 Master John Shakespeare was at no expense in keeping his son in the school, nor were his difficulties at first so distressing the earliest indication of them appears in 1577 when William was beginning his fourteenth year that he would have to sacrifice the education of his first-born. The likelihood is that William remained in the Stratford school until he completed, or nearly completed, the courses of study there provided. This would be at about the age of fourteen, when he began to "speak between the change of man and boy with a reed voice."

Upon finishing his schooling he was probably set to learn a trade,2 for such was the common practice even among the better classes. Sir Thomas Elyot, in The Governour (Book i, Chapter xv), writes: "The aptest and most proper scholars, after they be well instructed in speaking Latin and understanding some poets, being taken from their school by their parents, and either be brought to the Court and made lackies or pages, or else

1 Rowe clearly speaks without definite information on the subject. William's younger brother Gilbert was apparently well educated, for his signature to a conveyance in 1610 is an admirable specimen of handwriting; and Edmund, sixteen years younger, became a successful actor in London, showing that at least he could read.

The customary age was fifteen. Cf. the case of the other Stratford boy, Richard Field, who after proper schooling, was apprenticed at the age of fifteen to a London printer, and later became eminent in his trade.

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