The intelligence of Cuthbert Burbage may be gauged by anyone who will
read pp. 481-484 in William Shakespeare, His Family and Friends, by
the late Mr. Charles Elton, Q.C., of White Staunton. Cuthbert was a
puzzle-pated old boy. The silence as to Will's authorship on the
part of this muddle-headed old Cuthbert, in 1635-36, cannot outweigh
the explicit and positive public testimony to his authorship, signed
by his friends and fellow-actors in 1623.

Men believe what they may; but I prefer positive evidence for the
affirmative to negative evidence from silence, the silence of
Cuthbert Burbage.

One may read through Mr. Greenwood's three books and note the
engaging varieties of his views; they vary as suits his argument; but
he is unaware of it, or can justify his varyings. Thus, in 1610, one
John Davies wrote rhymes in which he speaks of "our English Terence,
Mr. Will Shakespeare"; "good Will." In his period patriotic English
critics called a comic dramatist "the English Terence," or "the
English Plautus," precisely as American critics used to call Mr.
Bryant "the American Wordsworth," or Cooper "the American Scott"; and
as Scots called the Rev. Mr. Thomson "the Scottish Turner."
Somewhere, I believe, exists "the Belgian Shakespeare."

Following this practice, Davies had to call Will either "our English
Terence," or "our English Plautus." Aristophanes would not have been
generally recognised; and Will was no more like one of these ancient
authors than another. Thus Davies was apt to choose either Plautus
or Terence; it was even betting which he selected. But he chanced to
choose Terence; and this is "curious," and suggests suspicions to Mr.
Greenwood--and the Baconians. They are so very full of suspicions!