OCRed data provided
for searching only. CHAPTER XLIV
UPPER GRAMMAR SCHOOL: SHAKSPERE'S
LATIN POETS; HORACE
IN CONNECTION WITH HORACE, one significant fact appears at once. For while numerous parallels have been noticed between Shakspere and Horace, they are not usually from the Satires, but especially from the Odes and also the Epistles, including the Ors Poetica. If Shakspere had picked up fragments from the air, presumably he should have found as many fragments there from the Satires as from the other sections. This is the more significant because the Odes, which Shakspere reflects most, had not been translated into English, while the Satires and Epistles had been. It is thus strongly probable that in some way Shakspere had a certain direct familiarity with the Odes and the Epistles, including the sirs Poetica.
This range of Shakspere's knowledge conforms rather significantly to that supposed ordinarily to be acquired in grammar school. Usually the curricula simply require Horace, without specifying the sections to be read, but there are enough specific instances to indicate current practice. Out of the more than two dozen curricula that I have seen before 16oo, only three fail to specify Horace in some form. Wolsey in 1528 mentions the Epistles specifically for the seventh form at Ipswich, evidently to serve in connection with the writing of epistles. Rivington in 1570-76 required the Odes. Sandwich in 158o specifies "the Epistles of Horace, and certen of his chaste Odes chosen." The practice at Norwich was probably to read the Odes and Satires. For Sir Edward Coke
went to the fine old Grammar School at Norwich . . . A pleasant memorial of his schooldays has survived at Holkham in the shape of his wellused copy of Horace, an octavo of the fine French edition of H. Stephen. He had studied the "Odes" and the "Satires," making numerous notes in a neat, incredibly small script'
So Gabriel Harvey, writing in or before 1581, mentions all three-Odes, Epistles, Satires,-as possible subjects for the reading of the learned grammarian.2 And we shall see that Richard Edwards in 1571 refers to the llrs Poetica as being taught in school. William Rayne had provided at Merchant Taylors' before 1611 a construe of
1 James C. W., Chief Justice Coke, p. 4. 3 See Vol. I, p. 436.
[ Volume
One ] 
