(Vol. iii., p. 497.)
In reference to the observations of A. E. B., I beg leave to say that,
in speaking of Shakspeare as a man who had _small Latin_, I intended no
irreverence to his genius. I am no worshipper of Shakspeare, or of any
man; but I am willing to do full justice, and to pay all due veneration,
to those powers which, with little aid from education, exalted their
possessor to the heights of dramatic excellence.
As to the extent of Shakspeare's knowledge of Latin, I think that it was
well estimated by Johnson, when he said that "Shakspeare had Latin
enough to grammaticize his English." Had he possessed much more than was
sufficient for this purpose, Ben Jonson would hardly have called his
knowledge of the language _small_; for about the signification of
_small_ there can be no doubt, or about Ben's ability to determine
whether it was small or not. But this consideration has nothing to do
with the appreciation of Shakspeare's intellect: Shakspeare might know
little of Latin and less of Greek, and yet be comparable to Æschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides; as Burns, who may be said to have known no
Latin, is comparable, in many passages, even to Horace. "The great
instrument of the man of genius," says Thomas Moore, "is his own
language," which some knowledge of another language may assist him to
wield, but to the wielding of which the knowledge of another language is
by no means necessary. The great dramatists of Greece were, in all
probability, entirely ignorant of any language but their own; but such
ignorance did not incapacitate them from using their own with effect,
nor is to be regarded as being, in any way, any detraction from their
merits. Shakspeare had but a limited acquaintance with Latin, but such
limited acquaintance caused no debilitation of his mental powers, nor is
to be mentioned at all to his disparagement. I desire, therefore, to be
acquitted, both by A. E. B. and by all your other readers, of
entertaining any disrespect for Shakspeare's high intellectual powers.
As to his usage of the word _triple_, that it is "fairly traced to
Shakspeare's own reading" might not unreasonably be disputed. We may,
however, concede, if A. E. B. wishes, that it was derived from his own
reading, _as no trace of its being borrowed is to be found_. But I am
not sure that if other writers had taken pains to establish this use of
the word in our tongue, its establishment would have been much of a
"convenient acquisition." Had any man who has three sisters, closely
conjoined in bonds of amity, the privilege of calling any one of them a
_triple sister_, I do not consider that he or his language would be
much benefited. Ovid, I fear, employed _triplex_ "improperly," as
Warburton says that Shakspeare employed _triple_, when he spoke of the
Fates spinning _triplici pollice_. I cannot find that any writer has
imitated him. To call the Fates _triplices deæ_ (_Met._ viii. 481.), or
_triplices sorores_ (_Met._ viii. 453.), was justifiable; but to term
any one of them _triplex dea_, or to speak of her as spinning _triplici
fuso_ or _triplici pollice_, was apparently to go beyond what the Latin
language warranted. A. E. B. rightly observes that _triple_ must be
explained as signifying "belonging to three conjoined;" but the use of
it in such a sense is not to be supported either by custom or reason,
whether in reference to the Latin language or to our own.
MR. SINGER, in his observations on "captious," has a very unlucky
remark, which A. E. B. unluckily repeats--"We, no doubt, all know," says
MR. SINGER, "by intuition as it were, what Shakspeare meant." If we all
know Shakspeare's meaning by intuition, how is it that the "true
worshippers of Shakspeare" dispute about his meaning?