WHAT SHAKESPEARE LEARNT AT SCHOOL.
We may imagine young William wending his way to the Grammar School for the first time on a May morning in 1571. If he was born on the 23d of April, 1564 (or May 3d, according to our present calendar), he had now reached the age of seven years, at which he could enter the school. The only other requirement for admission, in the case of a Stratford boy, was that he should be able to read; and this he had probably learned at home with the aid of a "horn-book," such as he afterwards referred to in Love's Labour's Lost (v. 1. 49):—
"Yes, yes; he teaches boys the horn-book.
What is a, b, spelt backward with the horn on its head?"
This primer of our forefathers, which continued in common use in England down to the middle of the last century at least, was a single printed leaf, usually set in a frame of wood and covered with a thin plate of transparent horn, from which it got its name. There was generally a handle to hold it by, and through a hole in the handle a cord was put by which the "book" was slung to the girdle of the scholar.
In a book printed in 1731 we read of "a child, in a bodice coat and leading-strings, with a horn-book tied to her side." In 1715 we find mention of the price of a horn-book as twopence; but Shakespeare's probably cost only half as much.
The leaf had at the top the alphabet large and small, with a list of the vowels and a string of easy monosyllables of the ab, eb, ib sort, and a copy of the Lord's Prayer. The matter varied somewhat from time to time.
Here is an exact reproduction of the text of one specimen, from a recent catalogue of a London antiquarian bookseller, who prices it at twelve guineas, or a trifle more than sixty dollars. These old horn-books are now excessively rare, having seldom survived the wear and tear of the nursery.
The alphabet was prefaced by a cross, whence it came to be called the Christ Cross row,[4] corrupted into "criss-cross-row" or contracted into "cross-row"; as in Richard III. (i. 1. 55), where Clarence says:—
"He harkens after prophecies and dreams,
And from the cross-row plucks the letter G,
And says a wizard told him that by G
His issue disinherited should be."
Shenstone alludes to the horn-book in The School-mistress:—
"Their books of stature small they take in hand,
Which with pellucid horn secured are
To save from fingers wet the letters fair."
Possibly, the boy William, instead of a horn-book, had an "A-B-C book," which often contained a catechism, in addition to the elementary reading matter. To this we have an allusion in King John, i. 1. 196:—
"Now your traveller—
He and his toothpick at my worship's mess,
And when my knightly stomach is sufficed,
Why, then I suck my teeth and catechise
My picked man of countries: 'My dear sir,'—
Thus, leaning on my elbow, I begin,—
'I shall beseech you'—that is question now;
And then comes answer like an Absey book."
"Absey" is one of many old spellings for "A-B-C"—abece, apece, apecy, apsie, absee, abcee, abeesee, etc.
It was not a long walk that our seven-year-old boy had to take in going to school. Turning the corner of Henley Street, where his father lives (compare the map, [page 42] above), he passes into the High Street, on which (though the street changes its name twice before we get there) the Guildhall is situated. The adjoining Guild Chapel is separated only by a narrow lane from the "great house," as it was called, the handsomest in all Stratford.
The child, as he passes that grand mansion, little dreams that, some twenty-five years later, he will buy it for his own residence.
DESK SAID TO BE SHAKESPEARE'S
The school-room probably looks much the same to-day as it did when William studied there, the modern plastered ceiling which hid the oak roof of the olden time having been removed. The wainscoted walls, with the small windows high above the floor, are evidently ancient. An old desk, which may have been the master's, and a few rude forms, or benches, are now the only furniture; for the school was long since removed to ampler and more convenient quarters. A desk, said with no authority whatever to have been used by Shakespeare, is preserved in the Henley Street house.
What did William study in the Grammar School? Not much except arithmetic and Latin, with perhaps a little Greek and a mere smattering of other branches.
His first lessons in Latin were probably from two well-known books of the time, the Accidence and the Sententiæ Pueriles. The examination of Master Page by the Welsh parson and schoolmaster, Sir Hugh Evans, in The Merry Wives of Windsor (iv. 1) is taken almost verbally from the Accidence. Mrs. Page, accompanied by her son and the illiterate Dame Quickly, meets Sir Hugh in the street, and this dialogue ensues:—
"Mrs. Page. How now, Sir Hugh! no school to-day?
Evans. No; master Slender is get the boys leave to play.
Quickly. Blessing of his heart!
Mrs. Page. Sir Hugh, my husband says, my son 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, sirrah; 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 say, 'od's nouns.
Evans. Peace your tattlings!—What is fair, William?
William. Pulcher.
Quickly. Pole-cats! there are fairer things than pole-cats, sure.
Evans. You are a very simplicity 'oman; I pray you peace.—What is 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.
William. Lapis.
Evans. That is a good William. What is he, William, that does lend articles?
William. Articles are borrowed of the pronoun; and be thus declined, Singulariter, nominativo, hic, hæc, hoc.
Evans. Nominativo, hig, hag, hog;—pray you, mark: genitivo, hujus. Well, what is your accusative case?
William. Accusativo, hinc.
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.
Evans. 'Oman, forbear.
Mrs. Page. Peace!
* * * * *
Quickly. You do ill to teach the child such words.—He teaches him to hick and to hack, which they'll do fast enough of themselves. Fie upon you!
Evans. 'Oman, art thou lunatics? hast thou no understandings for thy cases, and the numbers of the genders? Thou art as foolish Christian creatures as I would desires.
Mrs. Page. Prithee, hold thy peace.
Evans. Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns.
William. Forsooth, I have forgot.
Evans. It is qui, quæ, quod; if you forget your quis, your quæs, and your quods, you must be preeches. Go your ways, and play; go.
Mrs. Page. He is a better scholar than I thought he was.
Evans. He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, mistress Page.
Mrs. Page. Adieu, good Sir Hugh."
The Sententiæ Pueriles was a collection of brief sentences from many authors, including moral and religious passages intended for the use of the boys on Saints' days.
The Latin Grammar studied by William was certainly Lilly's, the standard manual of the time, as long before and after. The first edition was published in 1513, and one was issued as late as 1817, or more than three hundred years afterward. In The Taming of the Shrew (i. 1. 167) a passage from Terence is quoted in the modified form in which it appears in this grammar.
There are certain people, by the way, who believe that Shakespeare's plays were written by Francis Bacon. Can we imagine the sage of St. Albans, familiar as he was with classical literature, going to his old Latin Grammar for a quotation from Terence, and not to the original works of that famous playwright?
In Love's Labour's Lost (iv. 2. 95) Holofernes quotes the "good old Mantuan," as he calls him, the passage being evidently a reminiscence of Shakespeare's schoolboy Latin. The "Mantuan" is not Virgil, as one might at first suppose (and as Mr. Andrew Lang, who is a good scholar, assumes in his pleasant comments on the play in Harper's Magazine for May, 1893), but Baptista Mantuanus, or Giovanni Battista Spagnuoli (or Spagnoli), who got the name Mantuanus from his birthplace.
He died in 1516, less than fifty years before Shakespeare was born, and was the author of sundry Eclogues, which the pedants of that day preferred to Virgil's, and which were much read in schools. The first Eclogue begins with the passage quoted by Holofernes.
A little earlier in the same scene the old pedant gives us a quotation from Lilly's Grammar. Other bits of Latin with which he interlards his talk are taken, with little or no variation, from the Sententiæ Pueriles or similar Elizabethan phrase-books.