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for searching only. CHAPTER XXXV
THE RHETORICAL TRAINING OF SHAKSPERE:
SUSENBROTUS
BESIDES HIS INFORMATION' FROM Ad Herennium, the general text, and from Topics, the supplementary text on inventio, Shakspere at some time acquired in addition the predicaments of logic, which might also be caused to aid invention. Preceding, along with, or following inventio, he should have had elocutio also, which was the tropes and schemes of speech. These are treated in the fourth book of Ad Herennium, where Shakspere may have found his first induc-
tion to them. They are also given fairly full treatment in. Quintilian. But these authors are giving hints upon usage rather than a systematic exposition, definition, and illustration of tropes and schemes. It was a frequent practice, therefore, in Shakspere's day to use the fuller and more systematic presentation of the schemes and tropes in Susenbrotus as a substitute for or a supplement to these other sources. The earlier standard collection used in English grammar schools had been Mosellanus. The preface of Mosellanus makes clear the pedagogic point of view, the authority, the sources, and the use
of these tropes and schemes.
That the pleasures of every kind of Latin expression are especially situate in the figures and tropes, there is no one even of the moderately well informed who does not know, 0 studious reader. For as a picture not plain but which is adorned with diverse colors especially feasts the eyes of the beholders, and a meadow variegated with all kinds of flowers is pleasing to strollers therein, so language not everywhere literal [sui similis], but interspersed with proper figures, varied with proper tropes, captures the ears of the auditors, and merits applause to such an extent that besides the Greeks, who have given volumes to this business, also Cicero and Quin-titian, the most distinguished [authorities] on the art of speaking, have thought it worthy to write most diligently at length of this virtue. Where-fore since the knowledge of so many figures, so many tropes is not less necessary than the remembering difficult, I have thought I would be doing even myself a worthwile service if what appear universally to belong to this matter, out of the most approved writers both Greek and Latin I shall col_ leet in this small table, and compress them into an established definition. Which [table] if you affix in some spot to which you frequently turn, it will come to pass that even when it is no longer observed by the eyes, it will be