Judge opens his case by noting an essential distinction between
'Shakspere,' the actor, and 'Shakespeare,' the playwright. The
name, referring to the man who was both actor and author, is spelled
both 'Shakspeare' and 'Shakespeare' in the 'Returne from Parnassus'
(1602).* The 'school of critics' which divides the substance of
Shakespeare on the strength of the spelling of a proper name, in the
casual times of great Elizabeth, need not detain the inquirer.

*The Returne from Parnassus, pp. 56,57,138. Oxford, 1886.

As to Shakespeare's education, Judge Webb admits that 'there was a
grammar school in the place.' As its registers of pupils have not
survived, we cannot prove that Shakespeare went to the school. Mr.
Collins shows that the Headmaster was a Fellow of Corpus Christi
College, Oxford, and describes the nature of the education, mainly
in Latin, as, according to the standard of the period, it ought to
have been.* There is no doubt that if Shakespeare attended the
school (the age of entry was eight), minded his book, and had 'a
good sprag memory,' he might have learned Latin. Mr. Collins
commends the Latin of two Stratford contemporaries and friends of
Shakespeare, Sturley and Quiney, who probably were educated at the
Grammar School. Judge Webb disparages their lore, and, on the
evidence of the epistles, says that Sturley and Quiney 'were not men
of education.' If Judge Webb had compared the original letters of
distinguished Elizabethan officials and diplomatists--say, Sir
William Drury, the Commandant of Berwick--he would have found that
Sturley and Quiney were at least on the ordinary level of education
in the upper classes. But the whole method of the Baconians rests
on neglecting such comparisons.