Will, a clever kind of lad (on
my theory), left school at an age when some other clever lads became
freshmen. Why not? Gilbert Burnet (of whom you may have heard as
Bishop of Salisbury under William III) took his degree at the age of
fourteen.
Taking Shakspere as an extremely quick, imaginative boy, with nothing
to learn but Latin, and by the readiest road, the colloquial, I
conceive him to have discovered that, in Ovid especially, were to be
found the most wonderful and delightful stories, and poetry which
could not but please his "green unknowing youth." In the years
before he left Stratford, and after he left school (1577-87?), I can
easily suppose that he was not ALWAYS butchering calves, poaching,
and making love; and that, if he could get books in no other way,
this graceless fellow might be detected on a summer evening, knitting
his brows over the stories and jests of the chained Ovid and Plautus
on his old schoolroom desk. Moi qui parle, I am no genius; but
stories, romance, and humour would certainly have dragged me back to
the old desks--if better might not be, and why not Shakspere? Put
yourself in his place, if you have ever been a lad, and if, as a lad,
you liked to steal away into the world of romance, into fairyland.
If Will wrote the plays, he (and indeed whoever wrote the plays) was
a marvel of genius. But I am not here claiming for him genius, but
merely stating my opinion that if he were fond of stories and
romance, had no English books of poetry and romance, and had acquired
as much power of reading Latin as a lively, curious boy could easily
gain in four years of exclusively Latin education, he might continue
his studies as he pleased, yet be, so far, no prodigy.
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