“Then follow these memorable words, which I have already discussed: 

“’And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek . . . ’” {251b}

In “these memorable words,” every non-Baconian sees Ben’s opinion about his friend’s lack of scholarship.  According to his own excellent Index, Mr. Greenwood has already adverted often to “these memorable words.”

(1) P. 40. " . . . if this testimony is to be explained away as not seriously written, then are we justified in applying the same methods of interpretation to Jonson’s other utterances as published in the Folio of 1623.  But I shall have more to say as to that further on.”

(2) P. 88.  Nothing of importance.

(3) P. 220.  Quotation from Dr. Johnson.  Ben, “who had no imaginable temptation to falsehood,” wrote the memorable words.  But Mr. Greenwood has to imagine a “temptation to falsehood,”—­and he does.

(4) P. 222.  “And we have recognised that Jonson’s ’small Latin and less Greek’ must be explained away” (a quotation from somebody).

(5) P. 225.  Allusion to anecdote of “Latin (latten) spoons.”

(6) Pp. 382, 383.  “Some of us” (some of whom?) “have long looked upon it as axiomatic . . . that Jonson’s ’small Latin and less Greek,’ if meant to be taken seriously, can only be applicable to Shakspere of Stratford and not to Shakespeare,” that is, not to the Unknown author.  Unluckily Ben, in 1623, is addressing the shade of the “sweet Swan of Avon,” meaning Stratford-on-Avon.

(7) The next references in the laudable Index are to pp. 474, 475.  “Then follow these memorable words, which I have already discussed: 

“‘And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,’

words which those who see how singularly inappropriate they are to the author of the plays and poems of Shakespeare have been at such infinite pains to explain away without impeaching the credit of the author, or assuming that he is here indulging in a little Socratic irony.”

I do not want to “explain” Ben’s words “away”:  I want to know how on earth Mr. Greenwood explains them away.  My view is that Ben meant what he said, that Will, whose shade he is addressing, was no scholar (which he assuredly was not).  I diligently search Mr. Greenwood’s scriptures, asking How does he explain Ben’s “memorable words” away?  On p. 106 of The Shakespeare Problem Restated I seem to catch a glimmer of his method.  “Once let the Stratfordians” (every human and non-Baconian person of education) “admit that Jonson when he penned the words ‘small Latin and less Greek’ was really writing ’with his tongue in his cheek.’ . . . "

Once admit that vulgarism concerning a great English poet engaged on a poem of Pindaric flight, and of prophetic vision!  No, we leave the admission to Mr. Greenwood and his allies.