"
Aubrey writes that "old Mr. Beeston, whom Mr. Dryden calls 'the
chronicle of the stage,'" died in 1682. {56b}
This is a fair example of the genealogy of the traditions. Phillips,
a friend of Shakspere, dies in 1605, leaving a servant, Christopher
Beeston (he, too, was a versifier), whose son, William, dies in 1682;
he is "the chronicle of the stage." Through him Davenant gets the
story, through him Aubrey gets the story, that Shakspere "knew Latin
pretty well," and had been a rural dominie. Mr. Greenwood {57a}
devotes much space to disparaging Aubrey (and I do not think him a
scientific authority, moult s'en faut), but Mr. Greenwood here says
not a word as to the steps in the descent of the tradition. He
frequently repeats himself, thereby forcing me to more iteration than
I like. He had already disparaged Aubrey in note I to p. 105, but
there he approached so closely to historical method as to say that
"Aubrey quotes Beeston, a seventeenth-century actor, as his
authority." On p. 209 he dismisses the anecdote (which does not suit
his book) as "a mere myth." "HE knows, HE knows" which traditions
are mythical, and which possess a certain historical value.
My own opinion is that Shakspere did "know Latin pretty well," and
was no SCHOLAR, as his contemporaries reckoned scholarship. He left
school, if tradition speak true, by a year later than the age,
twelve, when Bacon went to Cambridge.
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