have insinuated themselves into, and been
mix'd with his own writings; so that his not copying at least something
from them, may be an argument of his never having read 'em. Whether his
ignorance of the Antients were a disadvantage to him or no, may admit of a
dispute: For tho' the knowledge of 'em might have made him more correct,
yet it is not improbable but that the regularity and deference for them,
which would have attended that correctness, might have restrain'd some of
that fire, impetuosity, and even beautiful extravagance which we admire in
_Shakespear_: And I believe we are better pleas'd with those thoughts,
altogether new and uncommon, which his own imagination supply'd him so
abundantly with, than if he had given us the most beautiful passages out
of the _Greek_ and _Latin_ poets, and that in the most agreeable manner
that it was possible for a master of the _English_ language to deliver
'em. Some _Latin_ without question he did know, and one may see up and
down in his Plays how far his reading that way went: In _Love's Labour
lost_, the Pedant comes out with a verse of _Mantuan_; and in _Titus
Andronicus_, one of the _Gothick_ princes, upon reading

Integer vitae scelerisque purus
Non eget Mauri jaculis nec arcu--

says, "_Tis a verse in_ Horace, _but he remembers it out of his_ Grammar":
which, I suppose, was the Author's case. Whatever _Latin_ he had, 'tis
certain he understood _French_, as may be observ'd from many words and
sentences scatter'd up and down his Plays in that language; and especially
from one scene in _Henry_ the Fifth written wholly in it. Upon his leaving
school, he seems to have given intirely into that way of living which his
father propos'd to him; and in order to settle in the world after a family
manner, he thought fit to marry while he was yet very young. His wife was
the daughter of one _Hathaway_, said to have been a substantial yeoman in
the neighbourhood of _Stratford_. In this kind of settlement he continu'd
for some time, 'till an extravagance that he was guilty of forc'd him both
out of his country and that way of living which he had taken up; and tho'
it seem'd at first to be a blemish upon his good manners, and a misfortune
to him, yet it afterwards happily prov'd the occasion of exerting one of
the greatest _Genius_'s that ever was known in dramatick Poetry. He had,
by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company;
and amongst them, so