_Phrases Linguæ Latinæ._ 8vo., 1579;
the last compiled from the writings of that great Printer, Aldus Manutius.
Some of Shakspere's biographers have maintained that he must have been
acquainted with Plutarch and other classical writers, because he quotes
from their works. Dr. Farmer in his masterly essay on the learning of
Shakspere, has shown that the Poet took all his quotations, even to the
blunders, from the edition of Plutarch, in English, printed and published
by Vautrollier, a year or two before we suppose that Shakspere entered
into his service:
_Plutarch's Lives, from the French of Amyott, by Sir Tho. North.
Licensed._
Folio, 1579.
Moreover, Vautrollier, who was a good scholar, appears to have had a great
liking for Ovid. He printed _Ovid's Metamorphoses_, _Ovid's Epistles_, and
_Ovid's Art of Love_. Now it is a notable fact that although Shakspere,
unlike contemporary writers who abound in classical allusions, scarcely
ever mentions a Latin poet, and still more seldom a Greek poet, yet he
quotes Ovid several times:
As Ovid, be an outcast quite abjured.
_Taming of the Shrew_, i, 1.
_Tit._ Lucius, what book is that she tosseth so?
_Luc._ Grandsire, 'tis Ovid's Metamorphoses.
_Titus_, iv, 1.
I am here with thee and thy goats as the most
capricious poet, honest Ovid was among the Goths.
_As You Like It_, iii, 3.
Ovidius Naso was the man.
_Love's Labour Lost_, iv, 2.
Of _Cicero's Oration_ Vautrollier issued several editions, and had the
privilege 'ad imprimendum solum' granted him; and to this work also, on
at least two occasions, Shakspere refers:
Hath read to thee
Sweet poetry and Tully's Orator.
_Titus_, iv, 1.
Sweet Tully.
_2 Henry VI_, iv, 1.
The fact to be noted with reference to these classical quotations is this:
Shakspere quotes those Latin authors, and those only, of which Vautrollier
had a 'license'; and makes no reference to other and popular writers, such
as Virgil, Pliny, Aurelius, and Terence, editions of whose works
Vautrollier was not allowed to issue, but all of which, and especially the
last, were great favorites in the sixteenth century, as is shown by the
numerous editions which issued from the presses of Vautrollier's
fellow-craftsmen.
Among other publications of Vautrollier was an English translation of
_Ludovico Guicciardini's Description of the Low Countries_, originally
printed in 1567. In this work is one of the earliest accounts of the
invention of printing at Haarlem, which is thus described in the Batavia
of Adrianus Junius, 1575. 'This person [Coster] during his afternoon walk,
in the vicinity of Haarlem, amused himself with cutting letters out of
the _bark_ of the beech tree, and with these, the _characters_ being
inverted as in seals, he printed small sentences.' The idea is cleverly
adapted by Orlando:
these trees shall be my _books_,
And in their _barks_ my thoughts I'll _character_.
_As You Like It_, iii, 2.
Lastly, it would be an interesting task to compare the Mad Folk of
Shakspere, most of whom have the melancholy fit, with
_A Treatise of Melancholie: containing the Causes thereof and Reasons
of the Strange Effects it worketh in our Minds and Bodies._
_London_, 8vo., 1586.
This was printed by Vautrollier, and probably read carefully for press by
the youthful Poet.
The disinclination of Shakspere to see his plays in print has often been
noticed by his biographers, and is generally accounted for by the theory
that reading the plays in print would diminish the desire to hear them at
the theatre. This is a very unsatisfactory reason, and not so plausible as
the supposition that, sickened with reading other people's proofs for a
livelihood, he shrunk from the same task on his own behalf. His
contemporaries do not appear to have shared in the same typographical
aversion. The plays of Ben Jonson and Beaumont and Fletcher were all
printed in the life-time of their authors. Francis Quarles had the
satisfaction and pride of seeing all his works in printed form, and showed
his appreciation and knowledge of Typography by the following quaint
lines, which we quote from the first edition, literatim:
_On a Printing-house._
The _world's_ a _Printing-house_: our _words_, our _thoughts_,
Our _deeds_, are _Characters_ of sev'rall sizes:
Each _Soule_ is a Compos'ter; of whose faults
The Levits are Correctors: Heav'n revises;
_Death_ is the _common Press_; fro whence, being driven,
W' are gathered _Sheet_ by _Sheet_, & bound for _Heaven_.
From _Divine Fancies_, 1632, lib. iv, p. 164.