"Aubrey quotes Beeston, a seventeenth-century actor, as his
authority." On p. 209 he dismisses the anecdote (which does not suit
his book) as "a mere myth." "HE knows, HE knows" which traditions
are mythical, and which possess a certain historical value.

My own opinion is that Shakspere did "know Latin pretty well," and
was no SCHOLAR, as his contemporaries reckoned scholarship. He left
school, if tradition speak true, by a year later than the age,
twelve, when Bacon went to Cambridge. Will, a clever kind of lad (on
my theory), left school at an age when some other clever lads became
freshmen. Why not? Gilbert Burnet (of whom you may have heard as
Bishop of Salisbury under William III) took his degree at the age of
fourteen.

Taking Shakspere as an extremely quick, imaginative boy, with nothing
to learn but Latin, and by the readiest road, the colloquial, I
conceive him to have discovered that, in Ovid especially, were to be
found the most wonderful and delightful stories, and poetry which
could not but please his "green unknowing youth." In the years
before he left Stratford, and after he left school (1577-87?), I can
easily suppose that he was not ALWAYS butchering calves, poaching,
and making love; and that, if he could get books in no other way,
this graceless fellow might be detected on a summer evening, knitting
his brows over the stories and jests of the chained Ovid and Plautus
on his old schoolroom desk. Moi qui parle, I am no genius; but
stories, romance, and humour would certainly have dragged me back to
the old desks--if better might not be, and why not Shakspere? Put
yourself in his place, if you have ever been a lad, and if, as a lad,
you liked to steal away into the world of romance, into fairyland.