we have already fhown, reports that he was naturally inclined to poetry and acting. According to these ingenious reafoners, therefore, he may have been a glover, a woolftapler, a butcher, a teacher, an attorney's clerk, a doctor, a failor, a foldier, a pfalm-finger, and an actor; nor would there be anything incompatible in his being most of these, for there are many distinguished men of the present day whofe pursuits have been quite as multifarious.

Next to the uncertainty respecting our poet's education and early employments, is the mystery of his extenfive, we may fay marvellous, knowledge. There is no doubt but that at the Grammar School, whether pupil or teacher, he would, with his manifeft energy and diligence, pick up fufficient Latin' and even Greek,

In former times, and indeed until the

to guide him afterwards in the use of the claffics, aided by translations, many of them remarkably good, which had been produced fo abundantly before the end of the fixteenth century. He evidently had been

prefent century, it was the rule in grammar fchools to mafter the principal Latin authors, Æfop, Horace, Virgil, Ovid, Terence, Salluft, and Seneca, before Greek was commenced; therefore Shakespeare must have been tolerably verfed in Latin, if he understood Greek at all.

1 Dr. Farmer, in his ingenious Essay on the 'Learning of Shakespeare,' in proving that he did not refort to foreign languages for his matter, has traced him in the use of a variety of translations, among which he especially names Plutarch's Lives, by Thomas North,' 1579, folio; the early tranflations of 'Ovid, Homer, Virgil, Plautus, Terence, and Ariosto;' alfo Painter's Palace of Pleasure, 1566-7' (which contains tranflations from the French and Italian Novelifts); Pierce Plowman's Vifion, 1550, "Holinfhed's Chronicles, 1577' (which give an English digeft of the Monkish Latin Hiftorians); De Loier's Treatise on Sprites and Strange Sights, tranflated from the French, 1605; and the Works of 'Gower,

well grounded in verfification,1 which with the practice afforded him when fairly embarked in his theatrical career, ftimulated as it was by ne

Chaucer, Lydgate, Spenfer, Sydney, Thomas Heywood,' &c. But this proves little or nothing. We know familiarly that many an accomplished linguift will, for convenience, ufe an English translation, though competent to make one himself.

1 Even in his first poem, 'Venus and Adonis,' Shakespeare has exhibited a more general attention to accuracy of rhythm and harmony of cadence than was cuftomary in his age; indeed few metrical imperfections are discoverable either in this or in any of his minor poems. He would probably take for his guide one or more of the following then popular books:- Gascoigne's certayne Notes of Inftruction concerning the making of Verfe, 1587;' 'Webbe's Discourse of English Poetrie, together with the author's judgment touching the reformation of our English verfe, 1586; Puttenham's Art of English Poesie, 1589;' 'Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of Poefie,' first printed in 1595, but long previously circulated in manufcript; 'Fraunce's Arcadian Rhetoricke, or the Precepts of Rhetoric (in) profe and verfe) made plain by examples,

ceffity, and fupported by extraordinary genius, would account for much of his literary development. The queftion has been raised and discusfed with fome animation, whether he understood French or Italian; we think he must have had a smattering of both, gained no doubt by fubfequent application, as these languages, though not taught in grammar schools, were dominant in the reign of Elizabeth. That he understood French1 may be implied from his quoting, almoft in the identical words, a remarkable line in his 'Seven Ages of Man,' from Gar

Greek, Latin, English, Italyan, and Spanishe, 1588.'

Dr. Farmer difputes his knowledge of French because he puns upon the word bras as if it were pronounced brass. But in fome of the French provinces, the finals is often founded, as in the name of Garnier Pagès (provincial), which is pronounced Pagefs, and the town of Arras, which is pronounced Arrass.

nier's 'Henriade,' published in 1594, and never translated. The following is the paffage :

"Sans pieds, fans mains, fans nez, fans " oreilles, fans yeux. Meurtri de toutes "parts,""

which Shakespeare renders—

"Sans teeth, fans eyes, fans taste, fans every thing."

And that he understood Italian may be affumed from there being in his time no translations of the Italian tales on which he founded his 'Merchant of Venice," Othello," and 'Twelfth Night."

1 Derived principally from Il Pecorone, by Ser Giovanni, first published at Milan in 1558.

2 Founded on a tale in the Hecatommithi of Giraldi Cinthio, first published in 1565. There was a French translation of it in 1584, but Shakespeare's use of this would only be an additional proof that he understood French.

Founded on Bandello's amplification of a ftory in Cinthio. See Dunlop's Hiftory of

Fiction.