power; and in 1580 Thomas Jenkins was installed. Shakespere was then fixteen, an age at which boys are very keen to detect the weaknesses of their masters. In the " Merry Wives of Windfor" he pays off Sir Thomas Lucy; may he not also have drawn his quondam pedagogue in the admirable fcene where Sir Hugh Evans puts William Page through his parts of fpeech? Thomas Jenkins is obviously the name of a Welshman, for which the Poet probably substituted the equally Welsh combination of names, Hugh Evans. At fixteen, Shakespere had either left, or was about to leave, school, and therefore we can hardly fuppofe "William" to have been himself; but he may have remained for a time after he had finished his own ftudies to affift Jenkins-and this, by the way, would account for the tradition that he was at one time a schoolmaster—when he would have had abundant opportunities of obferving fuch fcenes as the following. We might, therefore, perhaps, read "Thomas Jenkins" for "Hugh Evans" in this passage :— Mrs. Page. How now, Sir Hugh? no school to-day? Evans. No; Mafter Slender is let the boys leave to play. Quickly. Bleffings of his heart! Mrs. Page. Sir Hugh, my husband fays my fon profits nothing in the world at his book; I pray you, ask him some questions in his accidence. Evans. Come hither, William; hold up your head, come. Mrs. Page. Come on, firrah: hold up your head; answer your master, be not afraid. Evans. William, how many numbers is in nouns? William. Two. Quickly. Truly, I thought there had been one number more; because they fay od's nouns. Evans. Peace your tattlings. What is fair, William ? William. Pulcher. Quickly. Polecats! there are fairer things than polecats, fure. Evans. You are a very fimplicity 'oman; I pray you, peace. lapis, William? William. A stone. Evans. And what is a stone, William? William. A pebble. Evans. No, it is lapis; I pray you remember in your prain. What is Evans. That is a good William. What is he, William, that doth lend articles? William. Articles are borrowed of the pronoun; and be thus declined, Singulariter, nominativo, hic, hæc, hoc. Evans. Nominativo, hig, hag, hog;-I pray you mark: genitivo, hujus. Well, what is your accusative case? William. Accusativo, hunc. Evans. I pray you, have your remembrance, child; Accusativo, hung, hang, hog. Quickly. Hang hog is Latin for bacon, I warrant you. Evans. Leave your prabbles, 'oman. What is the focative case, William ? William. O-vocativo O. Evans. Remember, William, focative is, caret, Quickly. And that's a good root. If poor William Shakespere learned his accidence in this style, it is no wonder that he had "fmall Latin;" and Farmer has clearly fhown that the tradition of his lack of scholarship, embodied even in the encomiums of his contemporaries, is probably true. But perhaps Thomas Hunt, the curate of Shottery, was a better scholar than Thomas Jenkins. The grammar school is alfo probably the parent of the comical scene in "Love's Labour Loft," where Sir Nathaniel-called “ Sir” because a Master of Arts-and Holofernes, the schoolmaster or pedant, show off their learning before Goodman Dull; but whether Holofernes were intended to reprefent either William Roche or Thomas Hunt we have no means even to form a conjecture. Nathaniel. Very reverend sport, truly; and done in the testimony of a good confcience. Holofernes. The deer was, as you know, fanguis,-in blood; ripe as a pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of celo-the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab, on the face of terra-the foil, the land, the earth. Nathaniel. Truly, Mafter Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly varied, like a scholar at the leaft; but, fir, I affure you, it was a buck of the first head. Holofernes. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo. Dull. 'Twas not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket. Holofernes. Moft barbarous intimation! yet a kind of infinuation as it were, in via, in way, of explication; facere, as it were, replication; or, rather, oftentare, to thow, as it were, his inclination, after his undreffed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or, rathereft, unconformed fashion-to infert again my haud credo for a deer. Dull. I faid the deer was not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket. Holofernes. Twice fod fimplicity, bis coctus!-O thou monfter ignorance, how deformed doft thou look! Nathaniel. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book: he doth not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink: his H intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only fenfible in the duller parts. It is not unlikely that Shakefpere, in this excellent caricature of a scholar, may have intended to retaliate upon Ben Jonfon and his other more learned friends for their reflections upon his "fmall Latin." The whole scene is an example of the euphuifm brought into fashion by Lilly-the far-fetched and fantastic style which has defcended to the second-rate writers in newspapers. A man who, like Shakefpere, has fed upon the banquet that Nature provided for him, is apt to be a little impatient of those who have," as it were, eaten paper and drunk ink," just as Lord Bacon told his friend, Sir Thomas Bodley, that he was going to write a treatise against great libraries. . CHAPTER V. FROM the grammar school in Chapel Street I returned to Henley Street, and from thence, by a footpath across the fields and over ftiles, to the little village of Shottery. Many a time had Shakefpere trodden this very path when he had attained the lover ftage of life, "fighing like a furnace, with a woful ballad made to his mistress' eyebrow." Here, perhaps, when the fighs became too deep, he may have cheered himself with "Jog on, jog on, the footpath way, And merrily hent the ftile-a; Your merry heart goes all the day, The village is a ftraggling one, and the cottages are picturesque though poor. At the bottom of the village to the left of a pretty country lane, ftands the cottage to which tradition points as having been the refidence of Anne Hathaway, who afterwards became the Poet's |