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for searching only. CHAPTER III
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY CANONIZES THE "LITTLE LATIN" TRADITION
BY THE BEGINNING of the eighteenth century one would find only the single opinion on Shakspere's learning. If one turned to the editions of Shakspere, he found at their portals the statement of Janson. If he turned to any of the reference works, he would find Jonson's statement interpreted with much embroidery as "little Latin," the impression being that the Latin was so small as to have been of no value whatever.
The time was ripe for canonization of the tradition of Shakspere's "little Latin" in yet another of Rowe's collection of current Shakspere myths, which is accepted to this day as resting on valid evidence, when all it rests on fundamentally is the tradition which had developed from Jonson's pronouncement on Shakspere's "small Latine, and lesse Greeke." Rowe in 1709 said of Shakspere's school-mg
His Father, who was a considerable Dealer in Wool, had so large a Family, ten Children in all, that tho' he was his eldest Son, he could give him no better Education than his own Employment. He had bred him, 'tis true, for some time at a Free-School, where 'tis probable he acquir'd that little Latin he was Master of: But the narrowness of his Circumstances, and the want of his assistance at Home, forc'd his Father to withdraw him from thence, and unhappily prevented his further Proficiency in that Language?.
For one thing Rowe is to be commended; he has bethought him-self of the Parish register, even if he does misinterpret its statistics. Malone, indeed, points out that Rowe alleges eleven facts concerning Shakspere, of which only the dates of christening and death, being from the parish registers, are certainly correct. Of a third, Malone is doubtful; the other eight he condemns as false.2 One of the condemned eight, that John Shakspere was a "woolman," is probably not wholly erroneous. Malone also justly tosses aside Rowe's inference concerning Shakspere's interrupted education. For, notice that Rowe is explicit that it was the ten children which prevented John Shakspere from giving his son William any better education than his
1 Rowe, N., The Works of Mr. William Shakespear (1709; first issue, corrected; copy in U. of Ili. Library, Vol. I, pp. II-III.)
' Malone, Edmond, The Ploys and Poems of William Shakspeare (1821), Vol. II, p. 6g, n. 9.
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