There is yet an additional scrap of oral tradition which, reduced to
writing about the time that Fuller was at work, confirms Shakespeare's
reputation for quickness of wit in everyday life, especially in
intercourse with the critical giant Jonson. Dr Donne, the Jacobean
poet and dean of St Paul's, told, apparently on Jonson's authority,
the story that Shakespeare, having consented to act as godfather to
one of Jonson's sons, solemnly promised to give the child a dozen good
"_Latin_ spoons" for the father to "translate." _Latin_ was a play
upon the word "latten," which was the name of a metal resembling
brass. The simple quip was a good-humoured hit at Jonson's pride in
his classical learning. Dr Donne related the anecdote to Sir Nicholas
L'Estrange, a country gentleman of literary tastes, who had no
interest in Shakespeare except from the literary point of view. He
entered it in his commonplace book within thirty years of
Shakespeare's death.
IV
Of the twenty-five actors who are enumerated in a preliminary page of
the great First Folio, as filling in Shakespeare's lifetime chief
roles in his plays, few survived him long. All of them came in
personal contact with him; several of them constantly appeared with
him on the stage from early days.
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