Mr. Greenwood quotes Fuller's
remark that Shakespeare's "learning was very little," that, if alive,
he would confess himself "to be never any scholar." {151a} I cannot
grant that Fuller is dividing the persons of actor and author. Men
of Shakespeare's generation, such as Jonson, did not think him
learned; nor did men of the next generation. If Mr. Collins's view
be correct, the men of Shakespeare's and of Milton's generations were
too ignorant to perceive that Shakespeare was deeply learned in the
literature of Rome, and in the literature of Greece. Every one was
too ignorant, till Mr. Collins came.
CHAPTER VIII: "THE SILENCE OF PHILIP HENSLOWE"
When Shakespeare is mentioned as an author by contemporary writers,
the Baconian stratagem, we have seen, is to cry, "Ah, but you cannot
prove the author mentioned to be the actor." We have seen that Meres
(1598) speaks of Shakespeare as the leading tragic and comic poet
("Poor poet-ape that would be thought our chief," quoth Jonson), as
author of Venus and Adonis, and as a sonneteer. "All this does
nothing whatever to support the idea that the Stratford player was
the author of the plays and poems alluded to," says Mr. Greenwood,
playing that card again. {155a}
The allusions, I repeat, DO prove that Shak(&c.), the actor, was
believed to be the author, till any other noted William Shak(&c.
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