Here I may speak from my own memories, for though utterly idle where
set school tasks were concerned, I tried very early to worry the
sense out of Aristophanes--because he was said to contain good
reading.

To this amount of taste and curiosity, nowise unexampled in an
ordinary clever boy, add GENIUS, and I feel no difficulty as to
Will's "learning," such as, at best, it was. "The Stratfordian,"
says Mr. Greenwood, "will ingeminate 'Genius! Genius!'" {55a} I DO
say "Genius," and stand by it. The ordinary clever boy, in the
supposed circumstances, could read and admire his Ovid (though
Shakespeare used cribs also), the man of genius could write Venus and
Adonis.

Had I to maintain the Baconian hypothesis, I would not weigh heavily
on bookless Will's rusticity and patois. Accepting Ben Jonson's
account of his "excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle
expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility . . . ," accepting
the tradition of his lively wit; admitting that he had some Latin and
literature, I would find in him a sufficiently plausible mask for
that immense Unknown with a strange taste for furbishing up older
plays. I would merely deny to Will his GENIUS, and hand THAT over to
Bacon--or Bungay. Believe me, Mr. Greenwood, this is your easiest
way!--perhaps this IS your way?--the plot of the unscrupulous Will,
and of your astute Bungay, might thus more conceivably escape
detection from the pack of envious playwrights.

According to "all tradition," says Mr. Greenwood, Shakespeare was
taken from school at the age of thirteen. Those late long-descended
traditions of Shakespeare's youth are of little value as evidence;