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for searching only. ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;and Mantuan are required in the same form as Terence. So again if Shakspere had either of these, he had also his Terence.
It will be seen that Shakspere had at least his share of the "Christian poets," since he had both of the modern ones, Mantuan and Palingenius. The older ones were still in request, as shown by copies, etc., though they were not usually specified in the grammar school curricula. One remembers Dean Colet's requirement of them at St. Paul's. The esteem in which the Christian poets were still held in England in 1567 is well illustrated by the prefatory puff which John Frere wrote to Haddon's Lucubrationes
Eloquium quis non Ciceronis laudet, & artem, Quis non Nasonis nobile carmen amet?
Cui non Sedulius, Prudentius atcq; Iuuencus In pretio? Quis non scripta vetusta probet?
Quemlibet istorum quis non rniretur? Et vnum
Haddonum cunctis quis neget esse parem?
In certain respects, the comparison is justified. Haddon's orations are mostly empty Ciceronics. Like the Christian poets, Haddon versified considerable portions of the Bible, more than a third of his Poemata being of that nature. He is supposed also to have revised the Latin translation of the Prayer Book. Ovid is introduced, of course, to keep countenance as the greatest Roman poet, not because Haddon is markedly Ovidian; not in content, at least, though there is something of Ovidian facility in the versification. Haddon has great facility in his use of Latin, both verse and prose; but where he is not versifying religious matter he is mostly much ado about nothing. And where he is versifying religious matter I, for one, prefer the originals. But he was trying to be a Christian poet, along with Sedulius, Prudentius, and Juvencus.
I find nothing to connect Shakspere with these, but a poem which was attached to Lactantius is a chief source of The Phoenix and the Turtle," and probably would have been available only in the Latin. There are numerous things in Lactantius proper which remind me strongly of Shakspere, but I have not found yet what I regard as a certain case of Shakspere's borrowing. But Shakspere may very well have read Lactantius in grammar school also, as well as Mantuan and Palingenius.
It appears, then, that Shakspere shows the conventional knowledge of the conventional authors for construction in the lower
In T. L. 8., June 14, 1941, p. 287.
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