Here it must be noted that Mr. Greenwood’s opinion of Will’s knowledge and attainments is not easily to be ascertained with precision.  He sees, of course, that the pretension of the extreme Baconians—­Will could not even write his name—­is absurd.  If he could not write, he could not pass as the author.  Mr. Greenwood “fears that the arguments” (of a most extreme Baconian) “would drive many wandering sheep back to the Stratfordian fold.” {52b}

He has therefore to find a via media, to present, as the pseudo-author, a Will who possessed neither books nor manuscripts when he made his Testament; a rustic, bookless Will, speaking a patois, who could none the less pass himself off as the author.  So “I think it highly probable,” says Mr. Greenwood, “that he attended the Grammar School at Stratford for four or five years, and that, later in life, after some years in London, he was probably able to ’bumbast out a line,’ and perhaps to pose as ’Poet-Ape who would be thought our chief.’” {53a} Again, “He had had but little schooling; he had ‘small Latin and less Greek’; but he was a good Johannes Factotum, he could arrange a scene, and, when necessary, ’bumbast out a blank verse.’” {53b}

But this is almost to abandon Mr. Greenwood’s case.  Will appears to me to be now perilously near acceptance as Greene’s “Shake-scene,” who was a formidable rival to Greene’s three professional playwrights:  and quite as near to Ben’s Poet-Ape “that would be thought our chief,” who began by re-making old plays; then won “some little wealth and credit on the scene,” who had his “works” printed (for Ben expects them to reach posterity), and whom Ben accused of plagiarism from himself and his contemporaries.  But this Shake-scene, this Poet-Ape, is merely our Will Shakespeare as described by bitterly jealous and envious rivals.  Where are now the “works” of “Poet-Ape” if they are not the works of Shakespeare which Ben so nobly applauded later, if they are not in the blank verse of Greene’s Shake-scene?  “Shakespeare’s plays” we call them.

When was it “necessary” for the “Stratford rustic” to “bumbast out a blank verse”?  Where are the blank verses which he bumbasted out?  For what purposes were they bumbasted?  By 1592 “Shake-scene” was ambitious, and thought his blank verse as good as the best that Greene’s friends, including Marlowe, could write.  He had plenty of time to practise before the date when, as Ben wrote, “he would be thought our chief.”  He would not cease to do that in which he conceived himself to excel; to write for the stage.

When once Mr. Greenwood deems it “highly probable” that Will had four or five years of education at a Latin school, Will has as much of “grounding” in Latin, I think, as would account for all the knowledge of the Roman tongue which he displays.  His amount of teaching at school would carry and tempt even a boy who was merely clever, and loved to read romantic tales and comic plays, into Ovid and Plautus—­ English books being to him not very accessible.