patois seems to him, as author of Venus and Adonis, almost
inconceivable. Yet, despite Will's bookless rusticity, this poem
with Lucrece, which displays knowledge of a work of Ovid not
translated into English by 1593, was regarded as his own. I must
suppose, therefore, that Will was NOT manifestly so ignorant of Latin
as Mr. Greenwood thinks. "I think it highly probable," says this
critic, "that he attended the Grammar School at Stratford" (where
nothing but Latin was taught) "for four or five years, and that,
later in life, after some years in London, he was probably able to
'bumbast out a line,' and perhaps to pose as 'Poet-Ape that would be
thought our chief.' Nay, I am not at all sure that he would not have
been capable of collaborating with such a man as George Wilkins, and
perhaps of writing quite as well as he, if not even better. But it
does not follow from this that he was the author either of Venus and
Adonis or of Hamlet." {19a}

Nothing follows from all this: we merely see that, in Mr.
Greenwood's private opinion, the actor might write even better than
George Wilkins, but could not write Venus and Adonis. Will,
therefore, though bookless, is not debarred here from the pursuits of
literature, in partnership with Wilkins. We have merely the critic's
opinion that Will could not write Hamlet, even if, like Wordsworth,
"he had the mind," even if the gods had made him more poetical than
Wilkins.

Again, "he had had but little schooling; he had 'small Latin and less
Greek'" (as Ben Jonson truly says), "but he was a good Johannes
Factotum; he could arrange a scene, and, when necessary, 'bumbast out
a blank verse.'" {19b}