OCRed data provided
for searching only. SHAKSPERE'S EXERCISE OF VERSIFYING 383
Eaton, Westminster [(in which I was sometime an vnprofitable Grammarian vnder the reuerend father master Nowell, now deane of Paules)] and in those a great number of poore scholers, dailie mainteened by the liberalitie of the founders, with meat, bookes, and apparel!, from whence after they haue beene well entered in the knowledge of the Latine and Greeke toongs, and rules of versifieng [(the triall whereof is made by certeine apposers yearelie appointed to examine them)] they are sent to certeine especial! houses in each vniuersitie.6
Thus Harrison confirms the surviving records that there were gram-mar schools in most corporate towns of the time, and that they taught Latin, Greek, and versification. As we shall see, Samuel Daniel bears witness in 16oz on versification to the same effect.?
We may call just a few key witnesses to show the relative positions in sixteenth century critical opinion of Ovid, Virgil, and Horace. In educating the Prince, Sir Thomas Elyot places Virgil first and enlarges upon his virtues. Then,
I wolde set nexte vnto hym two bokes of Ouid / the one called Metamorpho" sios / whiche is as moche to saye / as chaungynge of men in to other figure or fourme: the other is intitled Defastis: where the ceremonies of the gentiles / and specially the Rornanes / be expressed: bothe right necessary for the vnderstandynge of other poetes. But by cause there is litell other Iernyng in them / concernyng either vertuous 'tuners or policie / I suppose it were bet-ter that as fables and ceremonies happen to come in a lesson / it were declared abundatly by the maister / than that in the saide two bakes / a longe tyme shulde be spente & almost lost: which mought be better employed on suche autors / that do minister both eloquence / ciuile policie / and exhortation to venue.
Wherfore in his place let vs bringe in Horace / in whom is contayned moche varietie of lernynge / and quickenesse of sentence.8
The personal taste of Ascham is exactly the same. "Tamen si carmen pangere vellern; nihil VXRGILIO divinius, nihil HoRA[TIIO doctius mihi possum proponere."s For his own personal models in verse, Ascham prefers Virgil and Horace, as he does Cicero in prose.
Elyot and Ascham would ignore Ovid as far as possible and would set Horace in Ovid's place next to Virgil. But other worshippers of Virgil would have none of Horace. An extreme statement of the Elizabethan view in poets is that of Stanyhurst in 1582, who in the name of executing "soom part of master 4skam his wyl" writes in
Furnivall, "Harrison's Description of England" (Nets Shakspere Society), Part I, pp. 83-84. Bracketed material was inserted in 1586. T See below, p. 409.
8 Elyot, Gouernour (x53i), fol. 34r; Croft, Vol. I, pp. 66-68.
' Giles, 4sclmm, Vol. II, p. -8o.
[ Volume
One ] 
