ovelist, whose works
were in vogue just before Shakespeare wrote, in an "Epistle to the
Gentlemen Students of the Two Universities," with which, according to
the fashion of the time, he introduced Greene's "Menaphon" (1587)[D] to
the reader, has the following paragraph:--

[Footnote D: Lord Campbell gives the date 1589; but see Mr. Dyce's
indisputable authority. Greene's Works. Vol. I., pp. xxxvii. and ciii.]

"I will turn my back to my first text of studies of delight, and talk
a little in friendship with a few of our trivial translators. It is a
common practice, now-a-days, amongst a sort of shifting companions
that run through every art and thrive by none, to leave the trade of
Noverint, whereto they were born, and busy themselves with the endeavors
of art, that could scarcely Latinize their neck-verse, if they should
have need; yet English Seneca, read by candlelight, yields many good
sentences, as, _Blood is a beggar_, and so forth; and if you intreat
him fair in a frosty morning, he will afford you whole Hamlets,--I
should say, handfuls of tragical speeches. But, oh grief! _Tempus edax
rerum_,--what is that will last always? The sea, exhaled by drops,
will, in continuance, be dry; and Seneca, let blood line by line and
page by page, at length must needs die to our stage."

It has most unaccountably been assumed that this passage refers to
Shakespeare;[E] and it is even so cited by Lord Campbell himself,--to
our surprise, when we remember his professional training and experience
as a sifter of evidence. But, as far as regards its reference to a
leaving of law for literature, it is clearly of general application.
Nash says, "It is a _common practice_, now-a-days, amongst a sort of
shifting companions, etc., to leave the trade of _Noverint_, whereto
_they_ were born, and busy _themselves,"_ etc. By the trade of
_Noverint_ he meant that of an attorney. The term was not uncommonly
applied to members of that profession, because of the phrase, _Noverint
universi per presentes_, (Know all men by these presents,) with which
deeds, bonds, and many other legal instruments then began. And Nash's
testimony accords with what we know of the social and literary history
of the age. There was no regular army in Elizabeth's time; and the
younger sons of gentlemen and well-to-do yeomen, who received from their
fathers little more than an education and a very small allowance, and
who did not become either military or maritime advent