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129 at least are the men who have conferred benefits with their pens.

At the original Crown, wherever it was, Davenant, when he was ten or twelve years old, wrote an alleged "poem" bearing the title, "In Remembrance of Master William Shakspere," which, however, was not published until many years later.

Born in Oxford, Davenant, according to Wood, went to the school of a noted Latinist and Grecian, who taught privately in All Souls Parish, or in the Free School adjoining to Magdalen College. Aubrey says he fears that Davenant was drawn from school before he was wise enough; but Wood thinks that the youth was educated in academic learning at Lincoln College in 1620 or 1621, or thereabouts, and that "he obtained there some smattering in logic; but his geny, which was always opposed to it, led him into the pleasant paths of poetry, so that he wanted much of university learning; yet he made as high and noble flights in the poetical faculty as fancy could advance without it."

Wood presumes that Davenant made but a short stay at college; and some authorities claim that Davenant's whole life at college, as Wood has set it down, rests upon mere presumptive evidence.

In St. Martin's Church Shakspere is said to have stood as godfather to the infant Davenant,