and owed whatever
knowledge he displayed of the classics and of Italian and French
literature to English translations. But several of the books in French
and Italian whence Shakespeare derived the plots of his
dramas--Belleforest's 'Histoires Tragiques,' Ser Giovanni's 'Il
Pecorone,' and Cinthio's 'Hecatommithi,' for example--were not accessible
to him in English translations; and on more general grounds the theory of
his ignorance is adequately confuted. A boy with Shakespeare's
exceptional alertness of intellect, during whose schooldays a training in
Latin classics lay within reach, could hardly lack in future years all
means of access to the literature of France and Italy.

The poet's classical equipment.

With the Latin and French languages, indeed, and with many Latin poets of
the school curriculum, Shakespeare in his writings openly acknowledged
his acquaintance. In 'Henry V' the dialogue in many scenes is carried on
in French, which is grammatically accurate if not idiomatic. In the
mouth of his schoolmasters, Holofernes in 'Love's Labour's Lost' and Sir
Hugh Evans in 'Merry Wives of Windsor,' Shakespeare placed Latin phrases
drawn directly from Lily's grammar, from the 'Sententiae Pueriles,' and
from 'the good old Mantuan.' The influence of Ovid, especially the
'Metamorphoses,' was apparent throughout his earliest literary work, both
poetic and dramatic, and is discernible in the 'Tempest,' his latest play
(v. i. 33 seq.) In the Bodleian Library there is a copy of the Aldine
edition of Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' (1502), and on the title is the
signature Wm. She., which experts have declared--not quite
conclusively--to be a genuine autograph of the poet. {15} Ovid's Latin
text was certainly not unfamiliar to him, but his closest adaptations of
Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' often reflect the phraseology of the popular
English version by Arthur Golding, of which some seven editions were
issued between 1565 and 1597. From Plautus Shakespeare drew the plot of
the 'Comedy of Errors,' but it is just possible that Plautus's comedies,
too, were accessible in English. Shakespeare had no title to rank as a
classical scholar, and he did not disdain a liberal use of translations.
His lack of exact scholarship fully accounts for the 'small Latin and
less Greek' with which he was credited by his scholarly friend, Ben
Jonson. But Aubrey's report that 'he understood Latin pretty well' need
not be contested, and his knowle