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for searching only. QUINTILIAN, THE SUPREME AUTHORITY 237
Neyther let any man thinke, that because in common meetings and assemblies the woordes and tearmes of Logike bee not named, therefore the force and operation of Logike is not there vsed and apparant. For, as in Grammer wee name neyther Noune, Pronoune, Verbe, nor any other parte of speech: and as in Rhethorike, wee make mention neyther of Metonymia, Synecdoche, Exclamatio, nor any other Rhetoricall figure or trope: yet vse in our speech the helpe of the one in speaking grrammatically, and the direction of the other in talking eloquently: so, although in common conference wee neuer name syllogismes, axiomes, propositions, assumptions, & other woords of art, yet doo wee secretly practise them in our disputations, the vertue whereof is, to make our discourses seam true to the simple, and probable to the wise.='6
It would also be possible, as Wilson knew, for one to use many of these technical devices without knowing actually what they were.
I can not denie, but that a right wise man vnlearned, shall doe more good by his Naturall witte, then twentie of these common wittes that want Nature to helpe Arte. And I knowe that rules were made first by wisemen, and not wisemen made by rules. For these precepts serue onely to helpe our neede, such as by Nature haue not such plentifull giftes. And so for other vnto whom Nature is more favorable, they are rather put the sooner in remembrance, that such lessons are then so taught as though they neuer knewe them, or els neuer would vse them. And therefore a certain learned man and of much excellencie, being asked what was such a figure, and such a trope in Rhetorique: I can not tell (quoth he) but I am assured, if you looke in the booke of mine Orations, you shaI not faiie but find them. So that though he knewe not the name of such, and such figures, yet the Nature of them was so familiare to his knowledge, that he had the vse of them when soeuer he had neede. Now though this man could well thus doe, being of such notable vnderstanding, yet it were foly that I should followe his waie, which want so good a wit. And I thinke euen he him selfe should not haue lost by it neither, if he had seen that in a glasse, which he often vsed to doe without knowledge. Man is forgetfull, and there is none so wise but counsaill may doe him good. Yea, he shall doe much better that knoweth what arte other men haue vsed, what inuention they haue followed, what order they haue kept, and how they haue beste doers in euery parte. If he like not theirs, he may vse his owne, and yet none doth so euill (I thinke) but some good may be got by him. The wise therefore will not refuse to heare: and the ignoraunt for want had neede to seeke a will""
Shakspere's conscious use of these technicalities is thus only a small part of his knowledge; but since it is conscious, it is certain, and not the result of a good natural wit or of accident. These are technicalities which he knew as such, and they are sufficient to show that he had a mastery of the system as a whole, not merely of a few
"Fraunce, busies Logike, p. nor. 148 Wilson, Rhetorique (agog), pp. 159-160.
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