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progressively less with time. While I doubt that so broad a statement is quite accurate, yet the statement may stand till some study has been made which is competent to show in what respects and directions Shakspere did evolve. But granting that it was Shakspere's first period before 1595 in which he makes greatest use of his gram-mar school classics, that is quite the expected thing. For it is also to the same period that the greater number of his revised or collaborated plays belongs. Further, the ideals of the earlier dramatists who originally wrote or collaborated on these plays were also more strongly classical than those of later dramatists. The atmosphere in which Shakspere wrote his earlier plays would tend to elicit more of such classical knowledge as he had than was true later. As a matter of fact, however, it can be shown that Shakspere did continue upon occasion to improve his knowledge of some things classical, Ovid, for instance, though there is no trace of systematic study. But whether Shakspere improved his knowledge of the classics in any respect or not, at least by common consent he made progressively less use of them. Not only did he not strive to improve his knowledge generally, but much of the knowledge which he is known to have had was permitted to "fast unused." Ignorance was no excuse; and there was no excuse for ignorance. Wilfully, Shakspere "sought his own salvation." He made no excuse; no one should be permitted to make excuse for him.
Instead of arguing about what Shakspere ought to have found useful in the classics, we shall doubtless be better employed in attempting to find out what Shakspere did find useful in them. Nor will it do any good to try to orient him on some modern scholar's idea of what Aristotle thought. If Shakspere ever heard of Aristotle, it was the Aristotle of his own age, not that of Greece, still Iess that of the latest expert. We must find out what Shakspere's age thought the classics were and then attempt to find out what use Shakspere found for the classics as he knew them.
At present, we can do no more than sketch-in a few points and hope that the future will find the sketch worth completing. We have seen that lower grammar school aimed to teach the boy grammatical Latin and that upper grammar school aimed to use the classics so to teach rhetoric (including Iogic) and poetic as to increase morality. The moral view we need not emphasize here; of it, we have no doubt seen instances enough. But we may notice briefly some facts concerning the grammar and rhetoric.
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