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for searching only. 458 SMALL LATINE AND LESSE GREEKE
with no larder declaring the maner and way, how the one loth folow the other, were but a coude helpe, to the encrease of learning a
The fact of imitation was not enough for Ascham; he wanted also the method.
Chapman in 1598 is thinking in terms of this current method of Virgilian interpretation when he writes,
Homers Poems were writ from a free furie, an absolute & full soule: Virgils out of a courtly, laborious, and altogether imitator le spirit: not a Simile hee hath but is Homers: not an inuention, person, or disposition, but is wholly or originally built vpon Homericall foundations, and in many places hath the verie wordes Homer vseth.4
Chapman accepts the fact, but uses it to condemn Scaliger for arguing that Virgil was greater than Vomer. Jonson agreed with Chap-man, and Shakspere would have agreed in principle with them both that natural ability in free fury was above artful imitation. Indeed, it is this critical principle which Jonson used in 1623 to extol Shakspere above all dramatists living or dead. But some schoolmasters and pedantic critics appeared not to agree with it. Whether or not Shakspere used some form of the notes of Manutius, he could hardly have remained ignorant of this stock illustration of imitation in poetry. And he has made it clear that he preferred Ovidian invention to Virgilian imitation.
Some form of this theory of imitation had Iong been traditional, but there was much more to Virgil than that. For instance, Sir
Thomas Elyot desired to have some Latin author mixed with the Greek for purposes of relief,
and specially Virgile: whiche in his warke called Eneidos / is most tyke to Homere / and a[l moste the same Homere in latine. Also by the ioynynge to gether of those autours / the one shall be the better vnderstande by the other. And verily (as I before saide) none one autour serueth to so diuers wittes as loth Virgile. For there is nat that affect or desire / wherto any childes fantasie is disposed / but in some of Virgils warkes may be founden matter therto apte and propise. For what thinge can be more familiar than his bucolikes? nor no warke so nighe approcheth to the c6mune dabaunce / and maners of children / and the praty cStrouersies of the simple shepeherdes therm cbtained / wonderfully reioyceth the childe that hereth hit well declared / as I knowe by myne owne experience. In his Georgikes / lorde what pleasaunt varietie there is: the diuers groynes / heroes / and flowres / that be there described / that redig therin hit semeth to a man to
Ascham, Scholemaster (z 570), p. 47v.
1 Chapman, G., Rchilles Shield (1598), A2v.
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