knowledge of the literatures of Greece and Rome. To these arguments,
the orthodox Stratfordian is apt to reply, that he finds in the plays
and poems plenty of inaccurate general information on classical
subjects, information in which the whole literature of England then
abounded. He also finds in the plays some knowledge of certain Latin
authors, which cannot be proved to have been translated at the date
when Shakespeare drew on them. How much Latin Shakespeare knew, in
our opinion, will presently be explained.

But, in reply to the Baconians and the Anti-Willians, we must say
that while the author of the plays had some lore which scholars also
possessed, he did not use his knowledge like a scholar. We do not
see how a scholar could make, as the scansion of his blank verse
proves that the author did make, the second syllable of the name of
Posthumus, in Cymbeline, long. He must have read a famous line in
Horace thus,


"Eheu fugaces Posthoome, Posthoome!"


which could scarce 'scape whipping, even at Stratford Free School.
In the same way he makes the penultimate syllable of Andronicus
short, equally impossible.

Mr. Greenwood, we shall see, denies to him Titus Andronicus, but also
appears to credit it to him, as one of the older plays which he
"revised, improved, and dressed," {44a} and THAT is taken to have
been all his "authorship" in several cases. A scholar would have
corrected, not accepted, false quantities. In other cases, as when