or
Mantuan, but was unable to read Plautus in the original. The plea that
comparative ignorance of the classics may not have been a disadvantage, as
it perhaps prevented the sacrifice of fancy to correctness, prompted a
reply by Gildon in his _Essay on the Stage_, where the argument is based
partly on the belief that Shakespeare had read Ovid and Plautus and had
thereby neither spoiled his fancy nor confined his genius. The question
was probably at this time a common topic of discussion. Dennis's abler
remarks were suggested, as he tells us, by conversation in which he found
himself opposed to the prevalent opinion. He is more pronounced in his
views than Rowe had been. His main argument is that as Shakespeare is
deficient in the "poetical art" he could not but have been ignorant of the
classics, for, had he known them, he could not have failed to profit by
them. Dennis is stirred even to treat the question as one affecting the
national honour. "He who allows," he says, "that Shakespeare had learning
and a familiar acquaintance with the Ancients, ought to be looked upon as
a detractor from his extraordinary merit and from the glory of Great
Britain."

The prominence of the controversy forced Pope to refer to it in his
Preface, but he had apparently little interest in it. Every statement he
makes is carefully guarded: there are translations from Ovid, he says,
among the poems which _pass for_ Shakespeare's; he will not pretend to say
in what language Shakespeare read the Greek authors; Shakespeare _appears_
to have been conversant in Plautus. He is glad of the opportunity to reply
to Dennis's criticism of _Coriolanus_ and _Julius Caesar_, but though he
praises the truthful representation of the Roman spirit and manners, he
discreetly refuses to say how Shakespeare came to know of them. As he had
not thought out the matter for himself, he feared to tread where the
lesser men rushed in. But though he records the evidence brought forward
by those who believed in Shakespeare's knowledge of the Ancients, he does
not fail to convey the impression that he belongs to the other party. And,
indeed, in another passage of the Preface he says with definiteness,
inconsistent with his other statements, that Shakespeare was "without
assistance or advice from the learned, as without the advantage of
education or acquaintance among them, without that knowledge of the best
models, the Ancients, to inspire him with an emulation of them."