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, some that made a frequent practice of Deer-stealing, engag'd him with them more than once in robbing a Park that belong'd to Sir _Thomas Lucy_ of _Cherlecot_, near _Stratford_. For this he was prosecuted by that Gentleman, as he thought somewhat too severely; and in order to revenge that ill Usage, he made a Ballad upon him. And tho' this, probably the first Essay of his Poetry, be lost, yet it is said to have been so very bitter, that it redoubled the Prosecution against him to that degree, that he was oblig'd to leave his Business and Family in _Warwickshire_, for some time, and shelter himself in _London_.