Of affectation which hath overgrowne
Ungraciously the good and native séede,
As for to borrowe where wée have no néede:
It would pricke néere the learned tungs in strength,
Perchance, and match mée some of them at length."[449:A]
The ardour for classical acquisition was, at this time, indeed, so prevalent among the learned and the great, that the mythology as well as the diction of the ancients became fashionable. The amusements, and even the furniture of the opulent, their shows, and masques, the hangings and the tapestries of their houses, and their very cookery, assumed an erudite, and what would now be termed, a pedantic cast. "Every thing," says Warton, speaking of this era, "was tinctured with ancient history and mythology.—When the Queen paraded through a country town, almost every pageant was a pantheon. When she paid a visit at the house of any of her nobility, at entering the hall she was saluted by the Penates, and conducted to her privy-chamber by Mercury. Even the pastry-cooks were expert mythologists. At dinner, select transformations of Ovid's metamorphoses were exhibited in confectionary: and the splendid iceing of an immense historic plumb-cake, was embossed with a delicious basso-relievo of the destruction of Troy. In the afternoon, when she condescended to walk in the garden, the lake was covered with Tritons and Nereids: the pages of the family were converted into Wood-nymphs, who peeped from every bower: and the footmen gamboled over the lawns in the figure of Satyrs."[449:B]
In the course of a few years the same taste descended to the inferior orders of society, owing to the numerous versions which rapidly appeared of the best writers of Greece and Rome. The rich catalogue of translations to which Shakspeare had access, may be
estimated from the very accurate list which is inserted in the Variorum editions of the poet, and before the death of James the First, not a single classic, we believe, of any value, remained unfamiliarized to the English reader.
The height which classical learning had attained about the year 1570, may be estimated from the testimony of Ascham, a most consummate judge, who, quoting Cicero's assertion with regard to Britain, that "there is not one scruple of silver in that whole isle; or any one that knoweth either learnyng or letter[450:A]," thus apostrophizes the Roman Orator:
"But now, master Cicero, blessed be God, and his sonne Jesus Christ, whom you never knew, except it were as it pleased him to lighten you by some shadow; as covertlie in one place ye confesse, saying, Veritatis tantum umbram consectamur[450:B], as your master Plato did before you: blessed be God, I say, that sixten hundred yeare after you were dead and gone, it may trewly be sayd, that for silver, there is more comlie plate in one citie of Englande, than is in four of the proudest cities in all Italie, and take Rome for one of them: and for learning, beside the knowledge of all learned tonges and liberal sciences, even your owne bookes, Cicero, be as well read, and your excellent eloquence is as well liked and loved, and as trewly folowed in Englande at this day, as it is now, or ever was since your own tyme, in any place of Italie, either at Arpinum, where you was borne, or els at Rome, where you was brought up. And a little to brag with you, Cicero, where you yourselfe, by your leave, halted in some point of learning in your own tongue, many in Englande at this day go streight up, both in trewe skill, and right doing therein."[450:C]