could lay his hands on. There is extant a private
account-book containing an inventory of the furniture
and books belonging to Sir William More, of Loseley,
in the last year of the reign of Queen Mary, some
seven years before Shakespeare was born. This list
has nothing to do with Shakespeare, but it serves to
show what books were to be found in the library of
a country gentleman of literary tastes and easy,
though not ample, means. There is a selection of
the Latin classics, including works by Ovid, Horace,
Juvenal, Suetonius, Apuleius, and a volume of ex-
tracts from Terence. Cicero's Offices, and Thucydides,
occur in the English translations of Whittington
and Nicolls. In Italian there are Petrarch, Boc-
caccio, Machiavel, and the Book of the Courtier.
Mediæval literature is represented by the Golden
Legend, Vincentius Lirinensis, Albertus De Secretis,
and Cato's Precepts; the Revival of Learning by
More (the Utopia), Erasmus (the Adages and the
Praise of Folly), and Marcellus Palingenius. There
is a fair number of Chronicles, including Higden,
Fabyan, Harding, and Froissart. The English list
includes works by Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, John
Heywood, Skelton, Alexander Barclay, and a liberal
allowance of books of Songs, Proverbs, Fables, and
Ballads. An English Bible, copies of the New Testa-
ment in Latin, French, and Italian, Elyot's Latin
Dictionary, an Italian Dictionary, some books on
law, physic, and land-surveying, "a book of the
Turk," and "a treatise of the newe India," make
up the list. Last, and never to be forgotten in
estimating the poetic influences of the time, in the
parlour there was a pair of virginals, a lute, and
gittern. This is a richer collection of books than
Shakespeare was likely to find in Stratford, and it

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