In a former part of this work we have mentioned some of the books to which our great poet must have had recourse in the progress even of his limited education in the country; and on his settlement in London, we cannot, with any probability, conceive, that a mind so active, comprehensive, and acute, would sit down content with its juvenile acquisitions, and hesitate to inspect those treatises on philology and criticism which had acquired the popular approbation, and were adapted to the years of manhood. Not only, indeed, did he peruse with avidity the Arte of Rhetoricke of Wilson, and the Scolemaster of Ascham, but we are convinced, from a thorough study of his writings, that so extensive was his range of reading, that not a translation from the Greek, the Latin, the Italian, Spanish, or French
appeared, but what was soon afterwards to be found in the hands of Shakspeare. His dramas, in fact, even without the aid of his indefatigable commentators, assure us, in almost every page, that, if not erudite from the possession of many languages, he was truly and substantially learned in every other sense; in the vast accumulation of materials drawn through the medium of translation, from the most distant and varied sources.
That he had not only read, but availed himself professionally of Wilson's Rhetoric, will be evident, we think, from a passage quoted by Mr. Chalmers, from this critic, in support of a similar opinion. Wilson has mentioned Timon of Athens in such a manner as might lead Shakspeare to select this misanthrope for dramatic exhibition; but the very character and language of Dogberry seem to be anticipated in the following sketch:—"Another good fellow of the countrey, being an officer and mayor of a toune, and desirous to speak like a fine learned man, having just occasion to rebuke a runnegate fellowe, said after this wise, in a greate heate:—Thou yngraine and vacation knave, if I take thee any more within the circumcision of my dampnation; I will so corrupt thee, that all other vacation knaves shall take ilsample by thee."[473:A]
We cannot, however, coalesce with Mr. Chalmers, in considering the character of Holofernes as founded on the Scholemaster of Ascham, and that in drawing the colloquial excellence ascribed to the pedagogue by Sir Nathaniel, the poet had in his minds-eye the conversation at Lord Burleigh's table, so strikingly recorded by Ascham in his preface. We have not the smallest doubt but that our author had read, and with much pleasure and profit, the invaluable treatise of that accomplished scholar; but the general folly and pedantry of Holofernes are such, notwithstanding the eulogium of his clerical companion, as to preclude all idea that the character could have
been sketched from such a model;—it is, in fact, a broad caricature of some well known pedant of the day, and we must agree with the commentators in fixing upon Florio as the most probable prototype.
It will readily be granted, that, if Shakspeare were the assiduous reader which we have supposed him to be, and no judge, indeed, of his works can doubt it, he must have perused with peculiar interest the critical treatises on poets and poetry which were published during his march to fame. It will be considered, therefore, scarcely as an assumption to conclude, that the works of Webbe, Puttenham, Sidney, and Meres were familiar to his mind; and though he must have written with too much haste, and with too much attention to the gratifications of the million, to carry their precepts, and especially the strictures of Sidney, into perfect execution, yet it is very reasonable to conceive that even his early works may have been rendered less imperfect by the perusal of Webbe and Puttenham; and that, as he advanced in his professional career, the improved mechanism of his dramas, and his greater attention to the unities, may have been in some degree derived from the keen invectives of Sir Philip.
That Shakspeare, in return, contributed, more than any other poet, to enrich and modulate his native language, is now freely admitted; but that he was held in similar estimation by his contemporaries, and even at an early period of his poetical progress, may be inferred from what Markham has said of the "poets of his age" in 1595, when Shakspeare had published some of his poems, and had produced his "Romeo," and from what Meres, in 1598, more specifically applies to our author; the former observing, in the Dedication of his Gentleman's Academie, with reference to the Booke of St. Albans, originally published in 1486, that "our tong being not of such puritie then, as at this day the Poets of our age have raised it to: of whom, and in whose behalf I wil say thus much, that our Nation may only thinke herselfe beholding for the glory and exact compendiousnes of our longuage;" and the latter expressly terming our poet, from the superiority
of his diction and versification, "mellifluous and hony-tongued Shakspeare."[475:A]
Reverting to the subject of National Literature, we proceed to notice the progress which History, General, Local and Personal, may be deemed to have made, during the era to which we are limited.
History appears in every country to have been late in acquiring its best and most legitimate form, and to have been usually preceded by annals or chronicles, which, aspiring to no unity in arrangement, and void of all political or philosophical deduction, were confined to a bare chronological detail of facts. Such was the state of this important branch of literature on the accession of Elizabeth; numerous chroniclers had flourished from Robert of Gloucester to Fabian and Hall, but with little to recommend them, except the minuteness of their register, and the occasional illustration of manners and customs; and more distinguishable for credulity and prolixity than for any other characteristics.