366 A Century of Science 



tery, shows that the two families were in eminently 

 respectable circumstances. The son of the high 

 bailiff would see the best people in the neighbour 

 hood. There was in the town a remarkably good 

 free grammar school, where he might have learned 

 the&quot; small Latin and less Greek&quot; which his friend 

 Ben Jonson assures us he possessed. This expres 

 sion, by the way, is usually misunderstood, because 

 people do not pause to consider it. Coming from 

 Ben Jonson, I should say that &quot; small Latin and 

 less Greek &quot; might fairly describe the amount of 

 those languages ordinarily possessed by a member 

 of the graduating class at Harvard in good stand 

 ing. It can hardly imply less than the ability to 

 read Terence at sight, and perhaps Euripides less 

 fluently. The author of the plays, with his unerr 

 ing accuracy of observation, knows Latin enough 

 at least to use the Latin part of English most 

 skilfully ; at the same time, when he has occasion 

 to use Greek authors, such as Homer or Plutarch, 

 he usually prefers an English translation. At all 

 events, Jonson s remark informs us that the man 

 whom he addresses as &quot; sweet swan of Avon &quot; 

 knew some Latin and some Greek, a conclusion 

 which is so distasteful to one of our Baconizers, 

 Mr. Edwin Reed, that he will not admit it. Rather 

 than do so, he has the assurance to ask us to be- 



