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his fellows. We thus have no indication that Shakspere read Seneca's plays in the original. Nor do I find any evidence worth repeating that Shakspere had read English Seneca.
One of the passages which Shakspere reflects had wide currency through the Flores on grammar school circles. But Shakspere is not likely to have read Seneca himself in grammar school. For the plays come in with the vogue of Senecan philosophy in the seventeenth century, but Senec,a in any extended form seldom appears in the grammar schools of the sixteenth century. The Senecan rhetoric is mentioned with other standards at Rivington in 1566. Paul's had the Seneca of Erasmus in its library in 1582-83, but it is not clear whether it was the tragedies or the Opera. Ruthin in 1574 and Aldenham in 16oo are the only places known to me where the reference seems clearly to the tragedies. Curiously enough, both of these curricula have Westminster connections. And we happen to know that Dean Nowell when at Westminster was interested in Seneca's tragedies. In his notebook is a prologue for Seneca's Hippolytus at Westminster, probably the Christmas of 1546.0 It was Dean Good-man of Westminster who took the curriculum of Westminster as a basis for that at Ruthin in 1574. And the curriculum at Aldenham in i 6oo is also based upon the Westminster curriculum. It looks as if Westminster was the grammar school center of propagation for Seneca in the sixteenth century, though Seneca is not mentioned in its own curriculum. But the curricula indicate that the propagation had not extended far. Yet, as we have seen, there was a reprint at London, 1589, of the previous edition of Seneca by Gryphius. There was evidently some demand in England by that date. In the seventeenth century, there were to be many editions.
It is highly unlikely that Shakspere had anything more than sententiae from Seneca in grammar school, and as yet we have no convincing evidence that he ever had any considerable direct acquaintance with Seneca at any time. We will do well to remember here that the rage for Senecan tragedies, as Seneca, had passed before Shakspere began writing tragedies, and that already such tragedy was popular Seneca at its fullest height, which is rather a different thing. The very most that can be claimed for any of Shakspere's tragedies is that it is popular Seneca; no one of them aimed to be true Seneca. So early as 1589, Nashe had laughed out of court those who read English Seneca by candle light-not having read him in
48 Bodleian Library; MS. Brasenose Coll. 3!, pp. irr If.
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