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for searching only. ;74 SMALL LATINE AND LESSE GREEKE
Selo quosdam inani diligetia p minutissimas ista partes secuisse, & esse aIi quid mine simile, vt simia homini, & vt marmora deformata prima manu: aliquid plus, vt illud, Non ouum tam simile ouo. Et dissimilibus inesse simile, vt est formicae & elephato genus, quia sunt animalia, Et similibus dissimile.
Vt canibus catulos, & rnatribus hoedos:
differunt enim aetate.
Here is the simile of egg to egg, and it occurs with other similes involving parent and offspring. It might, of course, have occurred to Shakspere independently; but in any case it is a stock simile, conventionally applied. Shakspere also uses a well-worn proverb which is ultimately from the same source, "Conscientia mille testes."157 Quintilian and Susenbrotus together would have furnished Shakspere's information, and should in grammar school have done so. While Peacham and Puttenham are rather full, and Day brief, yet no one of these or all together would have supplied all of Shakspere's information.
Many of the terms in Susenbrotus are so widely spread and general, such as adagium, proverbium, sententia, confessio, excusatio, definitio, interpretatio, expositio, divisio, digressio, that a consideration of them would lead us too far astray. Others seem to show a knowledge of the original sources in .dd Herennium and Quintilian, so can be better discussed in connection with those works. But perhaps the reader is by now convinced that a great deal of Shakspere's rhetorical knowledge was to be had in Susenbrotus, whether Shakspere himself had it from that source or not. From Susenbrotus some of these materials passed over to the English popularizers, especially to Peacham, Puttenham, and Day. But it is really very much more economical of Shakspere's time and energy to permit him the conventional drill upon Susenbrotus in grammar school rather than to send him through these English popularizers for here a gay rag and there a feather. And how did he know to pick from these fripperies only the materials which belonged to Susenbrotus? Since a great deal of Shakspere's knowledge from Susenbrotus could not have come through these intermediaries at all, and since none of it has been located in these intermediaries which was not in Susenbrotus, the case seems clear. I have not indeed attempted to make so detailed a comparison between Shakspere and these as I have between him and the regular grammar school texts and methods; but
sae Quintilian (158o), pp. 295-296; (1538), p. 75v. mr Quintilian (158o), p. 297; (1538), p. 76r.
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