It could not therefore be from ignorance that Johnson failed to propose this recondite sense, but from a conviction that it would not represent the true meaning of Shakspeare. It will be perceived that, in appreciation of "captious," I side with Steevens, Malone, Knight, Collier, and even with J.S.W.; in whom, however, with his irreverent allusion to "_a man_ who had small Latin," I can recognise no true worshipper of Shakspeare. Why should Shakspeare be constantly twitted with this "small Latin," as if the "_school-like gloss_" of a hundred Porsons could add one scintilla to the glory of his name? His was the universal language of nature; and well does Mr. Singer remark that "We all know, by intuition as it were, what Shakspeare meant." It is true that we discuss his mere words in the endeavour to school our understandings to HIS level; but he, hedged by the divinity of immeasurable genius, must, himself, be sacred;--to attempt to measure his attainments by our finite estimation, is indeed sacrilege! In retailing Ben Jonson's unluckily chosen expression, J.S.W. does not seem to be aware that it has been doubted, and ably doubted, by Mr. Knight, in his _History of Opinion_, that Jonson himself used it by any means in the pedagogue sense usually adopted. And it does seem scarcely credible that Jonson would give utterance to a puff so miserably threadbare, so absurd too on the very face of it; for in what possible way could an alleged deficiency of Greek and Latin _in Shakspeare_, affect a comparison, _made by Jonson_, between Shakspeare and the poets of Greece and Rome? As well might it be said that ignorance of the Greek language, in Napoleon Buonaparte, would prevent a parallel between him and Alexander the Great! What if Ben Jonson meant his fifth line to continue the supposition of the first?--"_though_" is a word which has a hypothetical, as well as an admissive meaning; and there is no difficulty in reading his lines in this way: "_If_ I thought my judgment were of yours, and _though_ thy learning were less; still I would not seek to compare thee with modern men, but call forth thundering Eschylus," &c. But I should like to ask J. S. W., as the nearest example from the same play, which does he really think would require the _larger_ Latin,--to discover the trite and only meaning of "captiosus," or to use _triple_ in the sense conferred upon it in Helena's description, to the King, of her father's legacy? We have not at present in the English language any equivalent for that word as Shakspeare used it, and of which he has left us another example in _Antony and Cleopatra_, where the triumvir is called "the triple pillar of the world." We have failed to take advantage of the lesson given us by our great master, and consequently our language is deprived of what would have been a most convenient acquisition.