"Prophesyings" and such like disorderly gatherings, it will go far to explain the ferocities of witch-finding and the excesses which fouled the name of religion. This inference is confirmed by a passage put into the mouth of George Pyeboard in the psuedo-Shakespearean play The Puritan, Act 1, Scene 2 (1607). George Pyeboard is unquestionably George Peele, a baker's pieboard still being sometimes called a peel (paelle Fr. instrument de pâtissier).

"The multiplicity of scholars, hatch'd and nourish'd in the idle calms of peace, makes them, like fishes, one devour another; and the community of learning has so played upon affections, that thereby almost religion is come about to phantasy and discredited. by being too much spoken of, in so many and mean mouths. I myself, being a scholar and a graduate, have no other comfort by my learning but the affectation of my words, to know how, scholar-like, to name what I want; and can call myself a beggar both in Greek and Latin. And therefore not to cog with peace, I'll not be afraid to say, 'tis a great breeder, but a barren nourisher; a great getter of children, which must either be thieves or rich men, knaves or beggars."

Gloomy evidence to a similar effect is furnished on this subject by the anonymous comedy The Return from Parnassus. As Professor Arber observes :—

"This Satirical Drama seems to have been composed by the wits and scholars of Cambridge, where it was acted at the opening of the last century. The design of it was, to expose the vices and follies of the rich in those days, and to show that little attention was paid by that class of men to the learned and ingenious.

"Several Students, of various capacities and dispositions, leave the University in hopes of advancing their fortunes in the metropolis. One of them attempts to recommend himself by his publications; another, to

procure a benefice by paying his court to a young spark, named Amoretto, with whom he had been intimate at College; two others endeavour to gain a subsistence by successively appearing as physicians, actors, and musicians: but the Man of Genius is disregarded, and at last prosecuted for his productions; the benefice is sold to an illiterate Clown; and in the end, three of the scholars are compelled to submit to a voluntary exile, another returns to Cambridge as poor as when he left it; and the other two, finding that neither their medicines nor their music would support them, resolve to turn shepherds, and to spend the rest of their days on the Kentish Downs."

In Act IV., Scene 5, the players Burbage and Kemp are introduced, and make overtures to the students to throw in their lot with the players.

"Is it not better," says Kemp, "to make a foole of the world as I have done, than to be fooled of the world, as you schollers are? But be merry, my lads, you have happened upon the most excellent vocation in the world for money: they come North and South to bring it to our playhouse, and for honours, who of more report, then Dick Burbage and Will. Kempe, he is not counted a Gentleman, that knowes not Dick Burbage and Wil Kempe, there's not a country wench than can dance Sellingers Round but can talke of Dick Burbage and Will Kempe."

The students contemptuously proposition :

repudiate the

"And must the basest trade yeeld us reliefe ?

Must we be practis'd to those leaden spouts,

That nought downe vent but what they do receive?”

Yet, eventually, two of them by stress of necessity become wandering fiddlers. They soliliquise as follows:

"Better it is mongst fidlers to be chiefe,

Then at plaiers trencher beg reliefe.

But ist not strange this mimick apes should prize
Unhappy Schollers at a hireling rate.

Vile world, that lifts them up to hye degree,
And treades us downe in groveling misery.
England affordes those glorious vagabonds,

That carried earst their fardels on their backes,
Coursers to ride on through the gazing streetes,
Sooping it in their glaring Satten sutes,
And Pages to attend their maisterships:

With mouthing words that better wits have framed."

Whether Marlowe ultimately became a "leaden spout" or one of the better wits who framed words for the stagers' "mouthing " is elsewhere discussed.

T

"SHAKESPEARE'S

BOOKS."

HIS book somewhat narrowly escapes meeting a distinct want, inasmuch as the subject whereof

it treats has as yet received neither the amount of, nor sort of attention which its importance deserves. It affords evidence of much reading and research, and is almost completely free from those truculent amenities of language which so disfigure, not to say disgrace, the writings of too many of the "Shakespearean school. The work is prefaced by a table of contents and a Synopsis very useful to the general reader, and is furnished as well with a good index.

The subject matter of Mr. Anders' book has already been partly covered by the pretentious work of Paul Stapfer in 1880, whose title, Shakespeare and "Classical

"A Dissertation on Shakespeare's Reading and the Immediate Sources of His Works," by H. R. D. Anders, B.A. (Univ. of the Cape of Good Hope, Ph.D. Berlin Univ.). Berlin, Publisher and printer, George Reimer, 1904, 10/-.

Antiquity," is so miserably supported by its contents. That work is divided into 25 chapters, the fourth chapter of which alone deals in reality with Shakespeare's classical acquirements, to the extent of 34 pages out of a total of 483. Nothing of this sort can be laid to the charge of Mr. Anders, who is, moreover, a little more generous than Paul Stapfer, who would deny "Shakespeare" any knowledge of Greek, or Latin either, save perhaps Lily's Grammar and a few school books. Mr. Anders confines Shakespeare's knowledge of Greek to the following authors: Plutarch (as translated by North); Homer (perhaps through Chapman or Arthur Hall); Josephus (directly or indirectly); Heliodorus (translation by Thomas Underdowne, of the "Aethiopica "); and Marianus, who would appear to have been the source of the last two sonnets (pp. 40-44), and who was Latined in 1529.

As regards Latin, our author clearly feels himself on firmer ground, as after enumerating Lily's Grammar, Æsop's Fables, Mantuanus, Cæsar, and Cicero, he adds, "It is my purpose to show that Ovid, a favourite with Shakespeare, was known to him both in the original and in the English translation" (p. 21).

Mr. Anders might with perfect safety have expressed himself more strongly with respect to "Shakespeare's" acquaintance with the works of Ovid, as the plays contain not only numerous references (over 70) covering the whole fifteen books of the Metamorphoses, but another 24 references at least, derived from the Tristia, Heroides, Amores, Epistolæ, Fasti, Ars Amatoria, and the Ibis. Mr. Anders then goes on and adds Horace, Plautus, Seneca, Livy, Lucan and Juvenal to the list of authors with whom "Shakespeare" was acquainted. But Mr. Anders' summing up of the question on page 39 cannot pass without remark. “I have made no attempt at drawing a hard and fast line

between school-classics and Roman authors whom 'Shakespeare' may have perused in later life."

Here is contraband matter attempting to run the blockade of the "Historic Muse" and no mistake! What means this allusion to the literary studies of "Shakespeare's" "later life"? After his retirement to the fragrant vicinity of the kitchen-middens of his native village, there is not the slightest historical evidence that "Shakespeare" ever handled a book unless it was one of Accounts or a Ledger. There is no evidence whatever that Shakespeare in "later life" ever opened a book for improvement or pleasure. Considering, then, the deep erudition of the author of the plays (embracing as we now know some one hundred and thirty Greek and Latin authors), this account of "Shakespeare's" reading cannot be considered satisfactory; indeed, it must be condemned as careless and superficial. Take Juvenal, for instance, who has allotted to him five lines on page 38, and a single parallel quoted from Warburton; Sat. X. 188. Now Juvenal happens to be a favourite author with "Shakespeare," as the twenty-six parallelisms here given from sixteen plays sufficiently prove, the Satire and verse in each case being here quoted.*

For this very imperfect account of the classical element in the plays, Mr. Anders has made some amends by the elaborate investigation he has carried out in the remainder of the field of Shakespeare biblio

*Merchant of Venice, III., 73; XV., 65. Hamlet, III., 100; IX., 67. The Winter's Tale, X., 340. As You Like It, X., 325 and 331; VI., 278. Troilus and Cressida, XV., 163; XV., 134. Coriolanus, XIII.. 180; VIII., 272. Antony and Cleopatra, VIII., 171; X., 349 and 365. Richard II., IX., 67. Much Ado About Nothing, XV., 131. Measure for Measure, V., 131 ; VI., 23. Timon of Athens, X., 85. Merry Wives, XI. 21; XIV., 47. All's Well, X., 41.