Mr. Greenwood himself observes that a
Baconian critic goes too far when he makes Will incapable of writing.
Such a Will could deceive no mortal. {150a} But does Mr. Greenwood,
who finds in the Author of the plays "much learning, and remarkable
classical attainments," or "a wide familiarity with the classics,"
{150b} suppose that his absolutely bookless Will could have persuaded
his intimates that he was the author of plays exhibiting "a wide
familiarity with the classics," or "remarkable classical
attainments." The thing is wholly impossible.
I do not remember that a single contemporary allusion to Shakespeare
speaks of him as "learned," erudite, scholarly, and so forth. The
epithets for him are "sweet," "gentle," "honeyed," "sugared," "honey-
tongued"--this is the convention. The tradition followed by Milton,
who was eight years of age when Shakespeare died, and who wrote
L'Allegro just after leaving Cambridge, makes Shakespeare "sweetest
Shakespeare, Fancy's child," with "native wood-notes wild"; and gives
to Jonson "the LEARNED sock." Fuller, like Milton, was born eight
years before the death of Shakespeare, namely, in 1608. Like Milton
he was a Cambridge man. The First Folio of Shakespeare's works
appeared when each of these two bookish men was aged fifteen. It
would necessarily revive interest in Shakespeare, now first known as
far as about half of his plays went: he would be discussed among
lovers of literature at Cambridge.
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