OCRed data provided
for searching only. ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;"LITTLE LATIN" TRADITION 73
At least, Farmer inspired a salutary caution in the use of classical parallels. It was now agreed that Shakspere was not a learned man, and that decision can hardly be challenged if we accept their definition of a learned man as one who had mastered Greek and Latin literature in the original. Some Latin, at least, all were forced to grant Shakspere. The question thus became how much Latin, and whether to it should be added any Greek. Steevens, Malone, and others gathered voluminous parallels to Shakspere, and not a few of these were from the classics, though these latter might be submitted only as parallels. But it was not till the last quarter of the nineteenth century that the mode of approach implied in Colman's statement of the case and sketched by Malone was attempted in full form by Baynes, who aimed to place the facts as known to him into the background of a sixteenth century grammar school, though, as he himself points out, others, including Malone, had already made some tentative efforts in this direction.42 Baynes saw that a knowledge of the probable curriculum at Stratford would throw light on Shakspere's probable acquisition there, which could then sometimes be confirmed by reflections in Shakspere's own works. He hesitated, however, to take Shakspere completely through grammar school be-cause Rowe permits business difficulties to force Shakspere out be-fore he had completed the studies offered there. The year 1578 was then fixed on as the most probable time for Shakspere's withdrawal. As we have seen, these are all groundless inferences, and we are now free to give Shakspere a complete grammar school education if he can prove himself worthy of it. As authorities on the grammar school, Baynes uses Carlisle, Brinsley, and Hoole, relying most heavily on Hoole. He traces the authors that Shakspere shows knowledge of through the forms of the Rotherham system before Hoole revised it, up to Ovid in the fifth of nine forms. That far he feels certain, and I believe we may feel certain, Shakspere had gone. What Baynes did, he did soundly and along right lines. But he was far from utilizing all the material on the schools which was accessible in his day, and to which there have been important additions since. Nor did he pay much attention to texts and school editions. Had he worked harder and analyzed his problem more clearly, he might have gone considerably further in defining and evaluating the effects of this gram-mar school education upon Shakspere. The present study is aimed at making the problem somewhat clearer, and at indicating more fully
' Baynes, Shakespeare Studies, pp. 147 if., reprinted from Fraser's Magazine, 1879-So.
[ Volume
One ] 
