Gallo canente spes redit, &c.,
has the following remark. “Some future Dr. Farmer may, perhaps, show how Shakspeare became acquainted with this passage, without being able to read the original; for the resemblance is too close to be accidental. But this, with many other passages, and especially his original Latinisms of phrase, give evidence enough of a certain degree of acquaintance with Latin,—doubtless not familiar nor scholar-like, but sufficient to give a coloring to his style, and to open to him many treasures of poetical thought and diction not accessible to the merely English reader. Such a degree of acquirement might well appear low to an accomplished Latinist like Ben Jonson, and authorize him to say of his friend,—
Though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek;—
yet the very mention of his ‘small Latin’ indicates that Ben knew that he had some.”
Mr. Fox, the orator, remarked on one occasion that Shakspeare must have had some acquaintance with Euripides, for he could trace resemblances between passages of their dramas: e.g. what Alcestis in her last moments says about her servants is like what the dying Queen Katharine (in Henry the Eighth) says about hers, &c.
That Shakspeare “may often be tracked in the snow” of Terence, as Dryden remarks of Ben Jonson, is evident from the following:—
Master, it is no time to chide you now:
Affection is not rated from the heart.
If love hath touched you, naught remains but so,—
Redime te captum quam queas minimo.—Taming of the Shrew, I. 1.