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 Shakespeare's legal acquirements conside 
 
 3 1924 013 163 310 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 31 6331 
 
SHAKESPEARE'S 
 
 LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS 
 
 CONSIDERED. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN LORD CAMPBELL, LL.D., P.E.S.E. 
 
 IN 
 A LETTEE TO J. PAYNE COLLIEK, Esq., F.8.A. 
 
 "Thou art clerTely, thou art clerlcly 1 " 
 
 Merry Wmea of Windsor. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
 
 346 & 848 BROADWAY. 
 M.DCCC.LIX. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 When my old and valued friend, Mr. Payne 
 Collier, received the foUowing Letter, whicli 
 I wrote with a view to assist Mm in Ms 
 Shakespearian lucubrations, he forthwith, in 
 terms which I should like to copy if they 
 were not so complimentary, strongly recom- 
 mended me to print and publish it in my 
 own name, — ^intimating that I might thus 
 have "the glory of placing a stone on the 
 lofty OAIBN of our immortal bard." If he 
 had said a "pehhle," the word would have 
 been more appropriate. But the hope of 
 making any addition, even if infinitesimally 
 small, to this great national monument, is 
 enough to induce me to follow my friend's 
 advice, although I am aware that by the at- 
 tempt I shall be exposed to some peril. In 
 
4 PREFACE. 
 
 pointing out Shakespeare's frequent use of 
 law-plirases, and tlie strict propriety with 
 whicli he always applies them, the Chief 
 Justice may be likened to the Cobblee, 
 who, when shown the masterpiece of a great 
 painter, representing the Pope surrounded by 
 an interesting historical group, could not be 
 prevailed upon to notice any beauty in the 
 painting, except the skilfal structure of a 
 slipper worn by his Holiness. 
 
 Nevertheless I may meet with kinder 
 critics, and some may think it right to coun- 
 tenance any effort to bring about a " fusion 
 of Law and Literature," which, like "Law 
 and Equity," have too long been kept apart 
 in England. 
 
 Steathedbn House, Jan. 1, 1859. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Inteodtotion, . . . . 
 
 TAGB 
 
 . 7 
 
 The Mbret Wiybs of "Windsor, 
 
 39 
 
 Measueb foe Mbasttre, 
 
 . 41 
 
 The Comedy of Eeeoes, 
 
 44 
 
 As Toir Like It, . 
 
 . 47 
 
 MiroH Ado abottt FoTniNO, 
 
 53 
 
 Love's Labottk's Lost, 
 
 . 56 
 
 MiDSUMMEE Night's Debam, 
 
 57 
 
 The Meeohant op Ybnioe, 
 
 . 69 
 
 The Taming of the Sheew, . . . 
 
 63 
 
 All's Well that Ends Well, 
 
 . 67 
 
 The Wintee's Tale, 
 
 71 
 
 King John, 
 
 . 74 
 
 King Henet the Foueth, Paet L, 
 
 78 
 
 King Kknet the Foiteth, Part IL, 
 
 . 82 
 
 King Henet the Sixth, Paet IL, 
 
 91 
 
 Teoilits and Oebssida, 
 
 . 96 
 
 King Leae, .... 
 
 97 
 
 Hamlet, . . . . . 
 
 . 103 
 
 Maobeih, .... 
 
 111 
 
b CONTENTS. 
 
 
 
 I'AQS 
 
 Othello, ..... 
 
 . 112 
 
 Antost aud Oleopatea, 
 
 IIT 
 
 OoEIOLAUtrS, .... 
 
 . 119 
 
 ROMKO AND JtTLIET, 
 
 120 
 
 Poems, ..... 
 
 . 123 
 
 Shajkbspeajje's Will, 
 
 . 128 
 
 Keteospkot, .... 
 
 182 
 
SHAKESPEARE'S 
 
 LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS CONSIDERED. 
 
 To J. Pa/yne OolUer, Esq., 
 
 JRiverside, Maidenhead, Berks. 
 
 Haeteigge, Jedbuegh, N. B. 
 September I5th, 1858. 
 
 Mt dear Me. Payne Colliee, 
 
 Knowing that I take great delight in 
 Shakespeare's plays, and that I have paid 
 some attention to the common law of this 
 realm, and recollecting that both in my ' Lives 
 of the Chaincellors,' and in my ' Lives of the 
 Chief Justices,' I have glanced at the subject 
 of Shakespeare's legal acquirements, you de- 
 mand rather peremptorily my opinion upon 
 the question keenly agitated of late years, 
 whether Shakespeare was a clerk in an at- 
 1* 
 
8 BHAKESPEAEe's legal ACQTJIBEMENIS. 
 
 torney's office at Stratford before he joined 
 the players in London ? 
 
 From your indefatigable researches and 
 your critical acumen, which have thrown so 
 much new Hght upon the career of our un- 
 riyaUed dramatist, I say, with entire sincerity, 
 that there is no one so well qualified as your- 
 self to speak authoritatively in this contro- 
 versy, and I observe that in both the editions 
 of your ' Life of Shakespeare ' you are strongly 
 inclined to the belief that the author of ' Ham- 
 let ' was employed some years in engrossing 
 deeds, serving writs, and making out bills of 
 costs. 
 
 However, as you seem to consider it still 
 an open question, and as I have a little leisure 
 during this long vacation, I cannot refuse to 
 communicate to you my sentiments upon the 
 subject, and I shall be happy if, from my pro- 
 fessional knowledge and experience, I can 
 afford you any information or throw out any 
 hints which may be useful to you hereafter. 
 I myself, at any rate, must derive some bene- 
 fit from the task, as it will for a while drive 
 from my mind the recollection of the wrang- 
 
A CASE FOE A JUEY. 9 
 
 lings of Westminster Hall. In literary pur- 
 suits should I have "wished ever to be en- 
 gaged,— 
 
 " Me si fata meis paterentur ducere vitam 
 Auspiciis, et sponte med componere curas." 
 
 Having read nearly aU that has been writ- 
 ten on Shakespeare's ante-Londinensian life, 
 and carefully examined his writings with a 
 view to obtain internal evidence as to his edu- 
 cation and breeding, I am obliged to say that 
 to the question you propound no positive an- 
 swer can very safely be given. 
 
 Were an issue tried before me as Chief 
 Justice at the Warwick assizes, "whether 
 William Shakespeare, late of Stratford-upon- 
 Avon, gentleman, ever was clerk in an at- 
 torney's office in Stratford-upon-Avon afore- 
 said," I should hold that there is evidence to 
 go to the jury in support of the affirmative, 
 but I should add that the evidence is very far 
 from being conclusive, and I should teU the 
 twelve gentlemen in the box that it is a case 
 entirely for their decision, — without venturing 
 even to hint to them, for their guidance, any 
 
10 shakespeabe's legal acquibements. 
 
 opinion of my own. Should they unanimously 
 agree in a verdict either in the affirmative or 
 negative, I do not think that the court, sitting 
 in banco, could properly set it aside and grant 
 a new trial. But the probability is (particu- 
 larly if the trial were by a special jury of Fel- 
 lows of the Society of Antiquaries) that, after 
 they had been some hours in deliberation, I 
 should receive a message from them — " there 
 is no chance of our agreeing, and therefore 
 we wish to be discharged ; " that having sent 
 for them into court, and read them a lecture 
 on the duty imposed upon them by law of 
 being unanimous, I should be obliged to order 
 them to be locked up for the night ; that 
 having sat up all night without eating or 
 drinking, and "without fire, candle-light ex- 
 cepted," *• they would come into court next 
 
 * These are the words of the oath administered to 
 the bailiff into whose custody the jurymen are deliver- 
 ed. I had lately to determine whether gas-lamps could 
 be considered "candle-light." In favorem vitce, 1 Yen- 
 tured to rule in the affirmative ; and, the night being 
 very cold, to order that the lamps should be liberally 
 supplied with gas, so that, directly administering light 
 according to law, they might, contrary to law, inciden- 
 tally administer heat. 
 
CONSPIEACT OF THE CRITICS. 11 
 
 moming pale and ghastly, still saying "twe 
 cannot agree," and that, according to the 
 rigour of the law, I ou^t to order them to be 
 again locked up as before tiU the close of the 
 assizes, and then sentence them to be put into 
 a cart, to accompany me in my progress 
 towards the next assize town, and to be shot 
 into a ditch on the confines of the county of 
 Warwick. 
 
 Yet in the hope of giTing the gentlemen 
 of the jury a chance of escaping these horrors, 
 to which, according to the existing state of 
 the law, they would be exposed, and desiring, 
 without departing from my impartiality, to 
 assist them in coming to a just conclusion, I 
 should not hesitate to state, with. some ear- 
 nestness, that there has been a great deal of 
 misrepresentation and delusion as to Shake- 
 speare's opportunities when a youth of ac- 
 quiring knowledge, and as to the -knowledge 
 he had acquired. From a love of the incredi- 
 ble, and a wish to make what he afterwards 
 accomplished actually miraculous, a band of 
 critics have conspired to lower the condition 
 of his father, and to represent the son, when 
 
12 shakespeabe's legal acquirements. 
 
 approaching man's estate, as still almost 
 wholly illiterate. We have been told that 
 his father was a butcher in a small provincial 
 town ; that " pleasant Willy " was bred to 
 his father's business ; that the only early in- 
 dication of genius which he betrayed was his 
 habit, while kiUing a calf, eloq^uently to 
 harangue the bystanders ; that he continued 
 in this occupation till he was obhged to fly 
 the country for theft ; that arriving in Lon- 
 don a destitute stranger, he at first supported 
 himself by receiving pence for holding gentle- 
 men's horses at the theatre ; that he then 
 contrived to scrape an acc[uaintance with some 
 of the actors, and being first employed as 
 prompter, although he had hardly learned to 
 read, he was allowed to play some very inferior 
 parts himself ; — and that without any further 
 training he produced ' Kichard III.,' ' Othel- 
 lo,' 'Macbeth,' and 'King Lear.' But, 
 whether Shakespeare ever had any juridical 
 education or not, I think it is established be- 
 yond all doubt that his father was of a re- 
 spectable famUy, had some real property by 
 descent, married a coheiress of an ancient 
 
GENTILITY OF HIS FATHEK. 13 
 
 house, received a grant of armorial bearings 
 from the Heralds with a recognition of his 
 lineage, was for many years an Alderman of 
 Stratford, and, after being intrusted by the 
 Corporation to manage their finances as Cham- 
 berlain, served the office of Chief Magistrate 
 of the town. There are entries in the Cor- 
 poration books supposed to indicate that at 
 one period of his life he was involved in pe- 
 cuniary difficulties ; but this did not detract 
 from his gentility, as is proved by the subse- 
 quent confirmation of his armorial bearings, 
 with a slight alteration in his quarterings, — 
 and he seems still to have lived respectably in 
 Stratford or the neighbourhood.* That he 
 
 * I am aware of your suggestion in your ' Life of 
 Shakespeare,' that the first grant of arms to the father 
 was at a subsequent time, when the son, although he 
 had acquired both popularity and property, was, on 
 account of his profession (then supposed to be unfit for 
 a gentleman), not qualified to bear arms. But the 
 " Confirmation " in 1596 recites that a patent had been 
 before granted by Olarencieux Cooke to John Shake- 
 speare, when chief magistrate of Stratford, and, as a 
 ground for the Confirmation, that this original patent 
 had been sent to the Heralds' OflBce when Sir WUliam 
 Dethick was Garter King-at-Arms. Against this posi- 
 tive evidence we lawyers should consider the negative 
 
14 shakespeaee's legal acquieements. 
 
 was, as has been recently asserted, a glover, 
 or that he ev.er sold wool or butcher's meat, 
 is not proved by anything like satisfactory 
 evidence ; — and, at any rate, according to the 
 usages of society in those times, occasional 
 dealings whereby the owner of land disposed 
 of part of the produce of it by retail were 
 reckoned quite consistent with the position of 
 a squire. At this day, and in our own coun- 
 try, gentlemen not unfrequently seU. their own 
 hay, corn, and cattle, and on the Continent 
 the high nobility are well pleased to sell by 
 the bottle the produce of their vineyards. 
 
 It is said that the worthy Alderman could 
 not write his own name. But the fac-simile 
 of the document formerly relied upon to es- 
 tablish this [an order, dated 29th Sept., 7 
 .Eliz., for John Wheeler to take upon himself 
 the office of Bailiff, signed by nineteen alder- 
 men and burgesses] appears to me to prove 
 
 evidence, that, upon search, an entry of the first grant 
 is not found, to be of no 'avail : and there could be no 
 object in forging the first grant, as an original grant in 
 1596 would have been equally beneficial both to father 
 and son. 
 
GENTILITY OF HIS FATHER. 15 
 
 the contrary, for the name of Jfol)n. Sljackspcr 
 is subscribed in a strong, clear hand, and 
 the marJe, supposed to be his, evidently be- 
 longs to the name of Slioinos JDsrun in the 
 line below,* You teU us, in your latest edi- 
 tion, of the production of two new documents 
 before the. Shakespeare Society, dated respect- 
 ively 3rd and 9th Dec, 11 Eliz., which, it is 
 said, if John Shakespeare could have written, 
 would have been signed by him, — whereas 
 they only bear his mark. But in my own 
 experience I have known many instances of 
 documents bearing a mark as the signature 
 of persons who could write well, and this was 
 probably much more com^ion iu illiterate 
 ages, when documents were generally authen- 
 ticated by a seal. Even if it were demon- 
 strated that John Shakespeare had not been - 
 " so weU. brought up that he could write his 
 name," and that " he had a mark to himself 
 like an. honest, plain-dealing man," — consid- 
 ering that he was born, not very long after 
 
 * See that most elaborate and entertaining book, 
 Knight's ' Life of Shakspere,' 1st ed., p. 16. 
 
16 bhakespeake's legal acquirements. 
 
 the wars of the Rosea, this deficiency would 
 not weigh much in disproving his wealth or 
 his gentility. Even supposing him to have 
 been a genuine marksman, he was only on a 
 par in this respect with many persons of 
 higher rank, and with several of the most 
 influential of his fellow townsmen. Of the 
 nineteen Aldermen and burgesses who signed 
 the order referred to, only seven subscribe 
 their names with a pen, and the High Bailiff 
 and Senior Alderman are among the marks- 
 men. 
 
 Whatever may have been the clownish 
 condition of John Shakespeare, that the 
 " Divine Williams " (as the French call our 
 great dramatist) received an excellent school 
 education can hardly admit of question or 
 doubt. We certainly know that he wrote a 
 beautiful and business-Hke hand, which he 
 probably acquired early. There was a free 
 grammar school at Stratford, founded in the 
 reign of Edward IV., and reformed by a char- 
 ter of Edward VI. This school was supplied 
 by a succession of competent masters to teach 
 Grreek and Latin : and here the sons of all 
 
CULTIVATION OF HIS MESTD. 11 
 
 the members of the corporation were entitled 
 to gratuitous instruction, and mixed with the 
 sons" of the neighbouring gentry. At such 
 grammar schools, generally speaking, only a 
 smattering of Greek was to be acq^uired, but 
 the boys were thoroughly grounded in Latin 
 grammar, and were rendered familiar with 
 the most popular Eoman classics. Shake- 
 speare must have been at this school at least 
 five years. His father's supposed pecuniary 
 difficulties, which are said to have interrupted 
 his education, did not occur tUl William had 
 reached the age of 14 or 15, when, according 
 to the plan of education which was then fol- 
 lowed, the sons of tradesmen were put out as 
 apprentices or clerks, and the sons of the 
 more wealthy went to the university. None 
 of his school compositions are preserved, and 
 we have no authentic account of his progress ; 
 but we know that at these schools boys of 
 industry and genius have become well versed 
 in classical learning. Samuel Johnson said 
 that he acquired little at Oxford beyond what 
 he had brought away with him from Lichfield 
 Grammar School, where he had been taught. 
 
18 shakespbaee's legal acquieements. 
 
 like Shakespeare, as the son of a burgess ; 
 and many from such schools, without further 
 regular tuition, have distinguished themstelves 
 in literature. 
 
 It is said that " the hoy is the father of 
 the man ; " and knowing the man, we may 
 form a notion of the tastes and habits of the 
 boy. Grown to be a man, Shakespeare cer- 
 tainly was most industrious, and showed an 
 insatiable thirst for knowledge. We may 
 therefore fairly infer, that from early infancy 
 he instinctively availed himself of every op- 
 portunity of mental culture, — 
 
 " What time, where lucid Avon stray'd, 
 
 To him the mighty mother did unveil 
 Her awful face : — the dauntless child 
 Stretched forth his little arms, and smiled." 
 
 The grand difi&culty is to discover, or to 
 conjecture with reasonable probability, how 
 Shakespeare was employed from about 1579, 
 when he most likely left school, till about 
 1586, when he is supposed to have gone to 
 London. That during this interval he was 
 merely an operative, earning his bread by 
 
CULTIVATION OF HIS MIND. 19 
 
 manual labour, in stitching gloves, sorting 
 wool, or killing calves, no sensible man can 
 possibly imagine. At twenty-three years of 
 age, although he had not become regularly 
 learned as if he had, taken the degree of 
 M. A. at Oxford or Cambridge, after disput- 
 ing in the schools de omni scibUi et quolihet 
 ente, — there can be no doubt that, like our 
 Scottish Burns, his miad must have been 
 richly cultivated, and that he had laid up a 
 vast stock of valuable knowledge and of poet- 
 ical imagery, gained from books, from social 
 intercourse, and from the survey of nature. 
 Whoever believes that when Shakespeare was 
 first admitted to play a part in the Black- 
 friars Theatre his mind was as unfurnished 
 as that of the stolid ' Clown ' in the ' Win- 
 ter's Tale,' who called forth a wish from his 
 own father that "there were no age between 
 ten and three and twenty," will readily give 
 credit to aU the most extravagant and ap- 
 palling marvels of mesmerism, clairvoyance, 
 table-turning, and spirit-rapping. 
 
 Of Shakespeare's actual occupations dur- 
 iag these imjportant years, when his character 
 
20 bhakespbaee's legal acquirements. 
 
 was formed, there is not a scintilla of contem- 
 porary proof ; and the vague traditionary evi- 
 dence whicL. has been resorted to was picked 
 up many years after his death, when the 
 object was to startle the world with things 
 strange and supernatural respecting him. — 
 That his time was engrossed during this in- 
 terval by labouring as a mechanic, is a suppo- 
 sition which I at once dismiss as absurd. 
 
 Aubrey asserts that from leaving school 
 till he left Warwickshire Shakespeare was a 
 schoolmaster. If this could be believed, it 
 would sufficiently accord with the phenomena 
 of Shakespeare's subsequent career, except the 
 familiar, profound, and accurate knowledge he 
 displayed of juridical principles and practice. 
 Being a schoolmaster in the country for some 
 years (as Samuel Johnson certainly was), his 
 mental cultivation would have certainly ad- 
 vanced, and so he might have been prepared 
 for the arena in which he was to appear on 
 his arrival in the metropolis. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, the pedagogical 
 theory is not only quite unsupported by evi- 
 dence, but it is not consistent with established 
 
OCCUPATIONS AFTER LEAVING BCHOOL. 21 
 
 facts. From the registration of tte baptism 
 of Shakespeare's children, and other well 
 authenticated circumstances, we know that 
 he continued to dwell in Stratford, or the im- 
 mediate neighbourhood, till he became a citi- 
 zen of London : there was no other school in 
 Stratford except the endowed grammar school, 
 where he had been a pupU; of this he certain- 
 ly never was master, for the unbroken succes- 
 sion of masters from the reign of Edward VI. 
 tiU the reign of James I. is on record ; none 
 of the mob who stand out for Shakespeare be- 
 ing c[uite illiterate wiU allow that he was 
 qualified to be usher ; and there is no trace 
 of there having been any usher employed in 
 this school. 
 
 It may likewise be observed that if Shake- 
 speare really had been a schoolmaster, he prob- 
 ably would have had some regard for the 
 "order" to which he belonged. In all his 
 dramas we have three schoolmasters only, and 
 he makes them aU exceedingly ridiculous. 
 First we have Holofemes in ' Love's Labour 's 
 Lost,' who is brought on the stage to be laugh- 
 ed at for his pedantry and his bad verses; then 
 
22 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 
 
 comes the Welslimaii, Sir Hugh Evans, in the 
 ' Merry Wives of Windsor/ who, although in 
 holy orders, has not yet learned to speak the 
 English language ; and last of all, Pinch, in 
 the 'Comedy of Errors,' who unites the bad 
 qualities of a pedagogue and a conjuror. 
 
 By the process of exhaustion, I now 
 arrive at the only other occupation in which 
 it is well possible to imagine that Shakespeare 
 could be engaged during the period we are 
 considering — ^that of an attorney's clerk— first 
 suggested by Chalmers, and since counte- 
 nanced by Malone, yourself and others, whose 
 opinions are entitled to high respect, but im- 
 pugned by nearly an equal number of biogra- 
 phers and critics of almost equal , authority, 
 — ^without any one, on either side, having as 
 yet discussed the question very elaborately. 
 
 It must be admitted that there is no es- 
 tablished fact with which this supposition is 
 not consistent. At Stratford there was, by 
 royal charter, a court of record, with jurisdic- 
 tion over aU. personal actions to the amotmt 
 of 30Z.J equal, at the latter end of the reign 
 of Elizabeth, to more than 1001. in the reign 
 
WAS HE AN attoknet's oleek? 23 
 
 of Victoria. This court^ the records of which 
 are extant, was regulated by the course of 
 practice and pleading which prevailed in the 
 superior courts of law at Westminster, and 
 employed the same barbarous dialect, com- 
 posed of Latin, English, and Norman-French. 
 It sat every fortnight, and there were belong- 
 ing to it, besides the Town-clerk, sis attorneys, 
 some of whom must have practised in the 
 Queen's Bench and ia Chancery, and have 
 had extensive business ia conveyancing. An 
 attorney, steward of the Earl of Warwick, 
 lord of the manor of Stratford, twice a year 
 held a court-leet and view of frankpledge 
 there, to which a jury was summoned, and at 
 which constables were appointed and various 
 presentments were made. 
 
 If Shakespeare had been a clerk to one of 
 these attorneys, all that followed while he re- 
 mained at Stratford, and the knowledge and 
 acq[uirements which he displayed when he 
 came to London, would not only have been 
 within the bounds of possibility, but would 
 seem almost effect from cause— in a natural 
 and probable sequence. 
 
24 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 
 
 From tlie moderate pay allowed Mm by 
 his master lie wonld have been able decently 
 to maintain his wife and children ; vacant 
 hours would have been left to him for the in- 
 dulgence of his literary propensity ; and this 
 temporary attention to law might have quick- 
 ened his fancy, — although a systematic, life- 
 long devotion to it, I fear, may have a very 
 different tendency. Burke eloquently des- 
 cants upon the improvement of the mental 
 faculties by juridical studies ; and Warbur- 
 ton, Chatterton, Pitt the younger, Canning, 
 Disraeli, and Lord Macaulay are a few out of 
 many instances which might be cited of men 
 of brilliant intellectual career who had early 
 become familiar with the elements of jurispru- 
 dence. 
 
 Here would be the solution of Shake- 
 speare's legalism which has so perplexed his 
 biographers and commentators, and which 
 Aubrey's tradition leaves wholly unexplained. 
 We should only have to recollect the maxim 
 that " the vessel long retains the flavour with 
 which it has been once imbued." Great as is 
 the knowledge of law which Shakespeare's 
 
WAS HE AN ATTOENEt's CLEEK ? 25 
 
 writings display, and familiar as he appears 
 to have been with all its forms and proceed- 
 ings, the whole of this would easily be account- 
 ed for if for some years he had occupied a desk 
 in the office of a country attorney in good 
 business, — attending sessions and assizes,-^ 
 keeping leets and law days, — and perhaps be- 
 ing sent up to the metropolis in term time to 
 conduct suits before the Lord Chancellor or 
 the superior courts of common law at West- 
 minster, according to the ancient practice of 
 country attorneys, who would not employ a 
 London agent to divide their fees.* 
 
 * If Shakespeare really was articled to a Stratford 
 attorney, in all probability during the five years of his 
 clerkship he visited London several times on his mas- 
 ter's business, and he may then have been introduced 
 to the green room at Blackfriars by one of his country- 
 men connected with that theatre. 
 
 Even so late as Queen Anne's reign there seems to 
 have been a prodigious influx of all ranks from the 
 provinces into the metropolis in term time. During 
 the preceding century ParUament sometimes did not 
 meet at all for a considerable number of years; and 
 being summoned rarely and capriciously, the " London 
 season" seems to have been regulated, not by the 
 session of Parliament, but by the law terms, — 
 
 - and prints before fern ejids,"— Pqp^. 
 
 3 ■ ■ ■ 
 
26 bhakkspeaee's legal acquirements. 
 
 On the supposition of Shakespeare having 
 been an attorney's clerk' at Stratford we 
 may hkewise see how, when very young, he 
 contracted his taste for theatricals, even if he 
 had never left that locality tUl the unlucky 
 
 While term lasted, Westminster Hall was crowded all 
 the morning, not only by lawyers, but by idlers and 
 politicians, in quest of news. Term having ended, 
 there seems to have been a general dispersion. Even 
 the Judges spent their vacations in the country, having 
 when in town resided in their chambers in the Temple 
 or Inns of Court. The Chiefs were obliged to remain 
 in town a day or two after term for Nisi Prius sittings; 
 but the Puisnes were entirely liberated when proclama- 
 tion was made at the rising of the court on the last day 
 of term, in the form still preserved, that " all manner 
 of persons may take their ease, and give their attend- 
 ance here again on the first day of the ensuing term." 
 An old lady very lately deceased, a daughter of Mr. 
 Justice Blackstone, who was a puisne judge of the 
 Common Pleas and lived near Abingdon, used to relate 
 that the day after term ended, the family coach, with 
 four black long-tailed horses, used regularly to come 
 at an early hour to Serjeants' Inn to conduct them to 
 their country house; and there the Judge and his 
 family remained till they travelled to London in the 
 same style on the session-day of the following term. 
 When a student of law, I had the honour of being pre- 
 sented to the oldest of the judges, Mr. Justice Grose, 
 famous for his beautiful seat in the Isle of Wight, 
 where he leisurely spent a considerable part of th? 
 
STROLLING PLATEES AT STEATFOED. 27 
 
 affair of Sir Thomas Lucy's deer. It appears 
 from the records of the Corporation of Strat- 
 ford, that nearly every year the town was 
 visited by strolling companies of players, call- 
 ing themselves "the Earl of Derby's ser- 
 vants," "the Earl of Leicester's servants," 
 and " Her Majesty's servants." These com- 
 panies are most graphically represented to ns 
 by the strolling players in ' Hamlet ' and in 
 the ' Taming of the Shrew.' The custom at 
 Stratford was for the players on their arrival 
 to wait upon the BaiKff and Aldermen to 
 obtain a licence to perform in the town. The 
 Guildhall was generally allotted to them, and 
 was fitted up as a theatre according to the 
 simple and rude notions of the age. We may 
 easily conceive that Will Shakespeare, son of 
 the chief magistrate who granted the hcence, 
 now a bustling attorney's clerk, would actu- 
 ally assist in these proceedings when his 
 master's ofBce was closed for the day ; and 
 
 year, more mcyorum. To his question to me, " Where 
 do you live ? " I answered, " I have chambers in Lin- 
 cohi's Inn, my Lord." " Ah ! " replied he, " but I 
 mean — when term is over.'''' 
 
28 SHAKESPEAEE's legal ACQtrmEMENTS. 
 
 that he might thus readily become intimate 
 with the manager and the performers, some 
 of whom were said to be his fellow-townsmen. 
 He might well have officiated as prompter, the 
 duty said to have been first assigned to him 
 in the theatre at the Blackfriars. The travel- 
 ling associations of actors at that period con- 
 sisted generally of not more than from five to 
 ten members ; and when a play to be performed 
 in the GuHdhall at Stratford contained more 
 characters than individuals in the list of 
 strollers, it would be no great stretch of 
 imagination to suppose that, instead of muti- 
 lating the piece by suppression, or awkwardly 
 assigning two parts to one performer, " pleas- 
 ant Willy's " assistance was called in ; and 
 our great dramatist may thus have commenced 
 his career as an actor in his native town. 
 
 To prove that he had been bred in an at- 
 torney's office, there is one piece of direct 
 evidence. This is an alleged hbel upon him 
 by a contemporary — published to the world 
 in his lifetime — which, if it do actually refer 
 to him, must be considered as the foundation 
 of a very strong inference of the fact. 
 
HIS SUCCESS AS AN AOTOK. 29 
 
 Leaving Stratford and joining the players 
 in London in 1586 or 1587, tliere can be no 
 doubt that Ms success was very rapid ; for, 
 as early as 1589, he had actually got a share 
 in the Blackfriars Theatre, and he jras a 
 partner in managing it with his townsman 
 Thomas Grreen and his countryman Eichard 
 Burbadge. 1 do not imagine that when he 
 went up to London he carried a tragedy in 
 his pocket to be offered for the stage as 
 Samuel Johnson did ' Ikene.' The more 
 probable conjecture is, that he began as an 
 actor on the London boards, and being em- 
 ployed, from the cleverness he displayed, to 
 correct, alter, and improve dramas written by 
 others, he went on to produce dramas of his 
 own, which were applauded more loudly than 
 any that had before appeared upon the Eng- 
 lish stage. 
 
 " Envy does merit as its shade pursue ; " 
 
 and rivals whom he surpassed not only envied 
 Shakespeare, but grossly hbeUed him. Of 
 this we have an example in ' An Epistle to 
 the Gentlemen Students of the Two Univer- 
 
30 shakespeaee's legal acquieements. 
 
 sities, by Thomas Nash,' prefixed to the first 
 edition of Kohert Greene's 'Menaphon' 
 (which was subsequently called ' Oreene's 
 AecadiAj') — according to the title-page, pub- 
 lished, in 1589. The alleged hbel on Shake- 
 speare is in the words following, viz. : — 
 
 " I will turn back to my first text of studies of de- 
 light, and talk a little in friendship with a few of our 
 trivial translators. It is a common practice now-a- 
 days, amongst a sort of shifting companions that run 
 through every art and thrive by none, to leave the trade 
 of 2foverint, whereto they were bom, and busy them- 
 selves with the endeavours of art, that could scarcely 
 Latinize their neck-verse if they should have need ; yet 
 English Seneca, read by candle-light, yields many good 
 sentences, as Hood is a ieggar, and so forth; and if you 
 intreat him fair, in a frosty morning, he will afford you 
 whole Samlets; I should say handfuls of tragical 
 speeches. But grief! Tempus edax rermn — what is 
 that will last always 1 The sea exhaled by drops wiU 
 in continuance be dry ; and Seneca, let blood, line by 
 line, and page by page, at length must needs die to our 
 stage." 
 
 Now, if the innuendo which would have 
 been introduced into tTie declaration in an ac- 
 tion, "Shakespeare v. Nash," for this libel 
 
ALLEGED LIBEL ON SHAKESPEAEB. 31 
 
 ( — " thereby then and there meaning the said 
 Wniiam Shakespeare" — ) be made out, there 
 can he no doubt as to the remaining innuendo 
 "thereby then and there meaning that the 
 said William Shakespeare had been an at- 
 torney's clerk, or bred an attorney." 
 
 In Elizabeth's reign deeds were in the 
 Latin tongue ; and all deeds poll, and many 
 other law papers, began with the words 
 " ISrOVEEINT uniTersi per presentes "— " Be 
 it known to aU men by these presents that, 
 &c." The very bond which was given in 
 1582, prior to the grant of a licence for 
 Shakespeare's marriage with Ann Hathaway, 
 and which Shakespeare most probably himself 
 drew, commences " NOVEKINT universiper 
 presentes." The business of an attorney 
 seems to have been then known as "the trade 
 of NOVEEINT." Ergo, "the^e shifting 
 companions " are charged with having aban- 
 doned the legal profession, to which, they were 
 bred ; and, although most imperfectly edu- 
 cated, with trying to manufacture tragical 
 speeches from an Englisli translation of Seneca. 
 
 For completing Nash's testimony (vcdeat 
 
32 shakespeaee's legal acqtjikbmbnts. 
 
 quantum) to the fact that Shakespeare had 
 been bred to the law, nothing remains hut to 
 consider whether Shakespeare is here aimed 
 at ? Now, independently of the expressions 
 " whole Hamlets " and " handfuls of tragical 
 speeches," which, had Shakespeare's 'Ham- 
 let ' certainly been written and acted before 
 the publication of Nash's letter, could leave 
 no doubt as to the author's intention, there is 
 strong reason to believe that the intended 
 victim was the young man from Warwick- 
 shire, who had suddenly made such a sensa- 
 tion and such a revolution in the theatrical 
 world. Nash and Eobert Greene, the author 
 of ' Menaphon ' or ' Arcadia,' the work to 
 which Nash's Epistle was appended, were 
 very intimate. In this very epistle Nash 
 calls G-reene " sweet friend." It is well 
 known that this Eobert Greene (who, it must 
 always be remembered, was a totally different 
 person from Thomas Green, the actor and 
 part proprietor of the Blackfriars Theatre) 
 was one of the chief sufferers from Shakespeare 
 being engaged by the Lord Chamberlain's 
 players to alter stock pieces for the Black- 
 
ENMITY OF EOBEKT GKEENE. 33 
 
 friars Theatre, to touch up and improve new. 
 pieces proposed to the managers, and to sup- 
 ply original pieces of his own. Eobert Grreene 
 had been himself employed in this depart- 
 ment, and he felt that his occupation was 
 gone. Therefore, by publishing Nash's Epis- 
 tle in 1589, when Shakespeare, and no one 
 else, had, by the display of superior genius, 
 been the ruin of Greene, the two must have 
 combined to denounce Shakespeiare as having 
 abandoned " the trade of Noverint " in order 
 to " busy himself with the endeavours of art," 
 ancV to furnish tragical speeches from the 
 translation of Seneca. 
 
 In 1592 Greene followed up the attack of 
 1589 in a tract called ' The Groatsworth of 
 Wit.' Here he does not renew the taunt of 
 abandoning " the trade of Noveeint," which 
 with Nash he had before made, but he point- 
 edly upbraids Shakespeare by the nickname 
 of /Shake- scene, as " an upstart crow beautified 
 with our feathers," having just before spoken 
 of himself as " the man to whom actors had 
 been previously beholding." He goes on 
 
 farther to aUude to . Shakespeare as one who 
 2* 
 
34 shakespeaee's legal acquieements. 
 
 " supposes he is as well able to bombast out a 
 blank verse as the best of his predecessors," 
 as "an absolute Johannes Factotum/' and 
 " in his own conceit the only Shake-scene 
 in a country." In 1592 Kobert Q-reene frank- 
 ly complains that Shake-scene had unde- 
 servedly met with such success as to be able 
 to drive him (Greene) and others similarly 
 circumstanced from an employment by which 
 they had mainly subsisted.* This evidence, 
 therefore, seems amply sufficient to prove 
 that there was a conspiracy between the two 
 libellers, Nash and Eobert Grreene, and ^at 
 Shakespeare was the object of it. ^ 
 
 But I do not hesitate to believe that Nash, 
 in 1589, directly alludes to ' Hamlet ' as a 
 play of Shakespeare, and wishes to turn it 
 into ridicule. I am aware that an attempt 
 has been made to show that there had been 
 an edition of ' Menaphon ' before 1589 ; but 
 no copy of any prior edition of it, with Nash's 
 
 * Ton no doubt recollect that Robert Greene ac- 
 tually died of starvation before his 'Groatsworth of 
 Wit,' in which he so bitterly assailed Shakespea/rc as 
 " Shake-scene," was published. 
 
ELABOEAtlON OF HIS PLAYS. 35 
 
 Epistle appended to it, has been produced. 
 I am also aware that ' Hamlet/ in the perfect 
 state in which we now behold it, was not 
 finished till several years after ; but I make 
 no doubt that before the publication of Nash's 
 Epistle Shakespeare's first sketch of his play 
 of ' Hamlet,' taken probably from some older 
 play -with the same title, had been produced 
 upon the Blackfriars stage and received with 
 applause which generated envy. 
 
 From the saying of the players, recorded 
 by Ben Jonson, that Shakespeare never 
 blotted a -line, an erroneous notion has pre- 
 vailed that he carelessly sketched off his 
 dramas, and never retouched them or cared 
 about them after. So far from this (contrary 
 to modern practice), he often materially al- 
 tered, enlarged, and improved them subse- 
 quently to their having been brought out 
 upon the stage and having had a successful 
 run. There is clear proof that he wrote and 
 rewrote ' Hamlet,' ' Eomeo and Juliet,' ' The 
 Merry Wives of Windsor,' and several other 
 of his dramas, with unwearied pains, making 
 
36 shakespeaee's legal aoquieements. 
 
 them at last sometimes nearly twice as long 
 as they were when originally represented. 
 
 With respect to these dates it is remarka- 
 ble that an English translation of Seneca, 
 from which Shakespeare was supposed to have 
 plagiarised so freely, had been published sev- 
 eral years before Nash's Epistle ; — and in the 
 scene with the players on their arrival at 
 Elsinore (if this scene appeared in the first 
 sketch of the tragedy, as it probably did, from 
 being so essential to the plot), Shakespeare's 
 acquaintance with this author was proclaimed 
 by the panegyric of Polonius upon the new 
 company, for whom " Seneca could not be 
 too heavy nor Plautus too light." 
 
 Therefore, my dear Mr. Payne Collier, in 
 support of your opinion that Shakespeare had 
 been bred to the profession of the law in an 
 attorney's office, I thiak you will be justified 
 iu saying that the fact was asserted publicly 
 in Shakespeare's lifetime by two contempo- 
 raries of Shakespeare, who were engaged in 
 the same pursuits with himself, who must 
 have known him well, and who were probably 
 acquainted with the whole of his career. 
 
INTERNAL EVIDENCE. 37 
 
 I must likewise admit that this assertion 
 is strongly corrohorated by internal evidence 
 to be found in Shakespeare's writings. I 
 have once more perused the whole of his 
 dramas, that I might more satisfactorily an- 
 swer your question, and render you some as- 
 sistance in finally coming to a right con- 
 clusion. 
 
 In 'The Two Grentlemen of Verona,' 
 ' Twelfth Night,' ' Julius Cajsar,' ' Cymbe- 
 line,' ' Timon of Athens,' ' The Tempest,' 
 ' King Eichard II.,' ' King Henry V.,' " King 
 Henry VI. Part I.,' ' King Henry VI. Part 
 III.,' 'King Eichard III.,' 'King Henry 
 VIII.,' ' Pericles of Tyre,' and ' Titus An- 
 dronicus' — fourteen of the thirty-seven dramas 
 generally attributed to Shakespeare — I find 
 nothing that fairly bears upon this contro- 
 versy. Of course I had only to look for ex- 
 pressions and allusions that must be supposed 
 to come from one who has been a professional 
 lawyer. Amidst the seducing beauties of 
 sentiment and language through which I had 
 to pick my way, I may have overlooked vari- 
 ous specimens of the article of which I was in 
 
38 Shakespeare's legal acquieements. 
 
 quest, wHch would have been accidentally 
 valuable, althougli intrinsically worthless. 
 
 However, firom each of the remaining 
 twenty-three dramas I have made extiacte 
 which I think are well worth your attention. 
 These extracts I wiU now lay before you, with 
 a few explanatory remarks, — which perhaps 
 you will think demonstrably prove that your 
 correspondent is a lawyer, and nothing but 
 a lawtee. 
 
 I thought of grouping the extracts as they 
 may be supposed to apply to particular heads 
 of law or particular legal phrases,. but I found 
 this impracticable ; and I am driven to ex- 
 amine seriatim the dramas from which the 
 extracts are made. I take them in the order 
 in which they are arranged, as " Comedies," 
 " Histories," and " Tragedies," in the foKo of 
 1623, the earliest authority for the whole col- 
 lection. 
 
THE MEEET WIVES OF-WINDSOE. 39 
 
 ®k iHmg Mivts 4 ®i«dsor. 
 
 In Act II. Sc. 2, where Ford, under tlie 
 name of Master Brook, tries to induce Falstaff 
 to assist him in his intrigue with Mrs. Ford, 
 and states that from all the trouble and money 
 he had bestowed upon her he had had no bene- 
 ficial return, we have the following question 
 and answer : — 
 
 Fal. Of what quality was your love, then ? 
 
 JFord. Like a fair house built upon another man's 
 ground ; so that / heme lost my edifice ly mistaMng the 
 place where I erected it. 
 
 Now this shows in Shakespeare a knowl- 
 edge of the law of real property, not generally 
 possessed. The unlearned would suppose that 
 if, by mistake, a man builds a fine house on 
 the land of another, when he discovers his 
 error he will be permitted to remove ail the 
 materials of the structure, and particularly 
 the marble pillars and carved chimney-pieces 
 with which he has adorned it ; but Shake- 
 
40 shakespeajje's legal acquieements. 
 
 speare knew better. He was aware that, being 
 fixed to the freehold, the absolute property in 
 them belonged to the owner of the soU, and 
 he recollected the maxim, Cujus est solum, 
 ejus est usque ad ccelum. 
 
 Afterwards, in writing the second scene of 
 Act IV., Shakespeare's head was so full of the 
 recondite terms of the law, that he makes a 
 lady thus pour them out, in a confidential 
 tete-d-tete conversation with another lady, 
 while discoursing of the revenge they two 
 should take upon an old gentleman for having 
 made an unsuccessful attempt upon their vir- 
 tue : — 
 
 Mrs. Page. I'll have the cudgel hallowed, and hung 
 o'er the altar : it hath done meritorious service. 
 
 Mrs. Ford. What think you 1 May we, with the 
 warrant of womanhood, and the witness of a good con- 
 science, pursue him with any farther revenge ? 
 
 Mrs. Page. The spirit of wantonness is, sure, scared 
 out of him: if the devil have him not in fee simple, 
 with fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the 
 way of waste, attempt us again. 
 
MEASURE FOE MEASURE. 41 
 
 This Merry Wife of Windsor is supposed 
 to know that the highest estate which the 
 devil could hold in any of his victims was a 
 fee simple, strengthened hj fine and recovery. 
 Shakespeare himself may probably have he- 
 come aware of the law upon the subject, when 
 it was explained to him in answer to questions 
 he put to the attorney, his master, while en- 
 grossing the deeds to be executed upon the 
 purchase of a Warwickshire estate with a 
 doubtful title. 
 
 Jt^asuw lax p^asum 
 
 In Act I. Sc. 2, the old lady who had kept 
 a lodging-Jiouse of a disreputable character in 
 the suburbs of Vienna being thrown iuto de- 
 spair by the proclamation that all such houses 
 in the suburbs must be plucked down, the 
 Clown thus comforts her : — 
 
 Clo. Come ; fear not you : good counsellors lack no 
 
42 shakespeaee's legal acquebements. 
 
 This comparison is not very flattering to 
 the bar, but it seems to show a familiarity 
 with both the professions alluded to. 
 
 In Act ir. Sc. 1, the ignorance of special 
 pleading and of the nature of actions at law 
 betrayed by Elbow, the constable, when slan- 
 dered, is ridiculed by the Lord Escalus in a 
 manner which proves that the composer of the 
 dialogue was himself fully initiated in these 
 mysteries : — 
 
 Elbow. Oh, thou caitiff! Oh, thou varlet! Oh, 
 thou wicked Hannibal ! I respected with her, before I 
 was married to her ? — If ever I was respected with her, 
 or she with me, let not your worship think me the poor 
 duke's officer. — Prove this, thou wicked Hannibal, or 
 I'U have mine action of battery on thee. 
 
 Escal. If he took you a box o' th' ear, you might 
 have your action of slander too. 
 
 The manner in which, in Act iii. Sc. 2, 
 Escalus designates and talks of Angelo, with 
 whom he was joined in commission as Judge, 
 
MEASUEE FOE MEASUEE. 43 
 
 is SO like tlie manner in which one English 
 Judge designates and talks of another, that it 
 countenances the supposition that Shake- 
 speare may often, as an attorney's clerk, have 
 been in the presence of English Judges : — 
 
 Escal. Provost, my trother Angela will not be al- 
 tered ; Claudio must die to-inorrow. * * * Jf my 
 brother wrought \)j my pity, it should not be so with 
 him. * * * I have laboured for the poor gentle- 
 man to the extremest shore of my modesty ; but my 
 hrother justice have I found so severe, that he hath 
 forced me to tell him, he is indeed — Justice.* 
 
 Even where Shakespeare is most solemn 
 and sublime, his sentiments and language 
 seem sometimes to take a tinge from his early 
 pursuits, — as may be oljserved from a beauti- 
 
 * I am glad to observe that our " brethren " in 
 America adhere to the old phraseology of Westminster 
 Hall. A Chief Justice in New England thus concludes 
 a very sound judgment: — "My brother Blannerhasset, 
 who was present at the argument, but is prevented by 
 business at chambers from being here to-day, authori- 
 ses me to say that he has read this judgment, and that 
 he entirely concurs in it." 
 
ii SHAKESPEAEE's LEGAL ACQUIEEMENTS. 
 
 fill passage in this play,— whicli, lest I should 
 be thought guilty of irreverence, I do not ven- 
 ture to comment upon : — 
 
 Angela. Tour brother is a forfeit to the law. 
 
 Isabella. — Alas! alas! 
 
 "Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once ; 
 And He that might the vantage best have took 
 Pound out the remedy : How would you be 
 If He, which is the top of judgment, should 
 But judge you as you are? 0, think on that ; 
 And mercy then will breathe within your lips, 
 Like man new made. 
 
 (Act II. So. 2.) 
 
 ®Iie (fflmdg 4 (Brws. 
 
 The following is part of the dialogue be- 
 tween Antipholus of Syracuse and his man 
 Dromio, in Act ii. Sc. 2 : 
 
 Dro. S. There's no time for a man to recover his 
 
 hair, that grows bald by nature. 
 
 Ant. S. May he not do it hy fine and recovery f 
 Dro. S. Yes, to pay a, fine for a periwig, and recover 
 
 the lost hair of another man. 
 
THE COMEDY OF EEEOES. 45 
 
 These jests cannot be supposed to arise 
 from anything in the laws or customs of Syra- 
 cuse ; hut they show the author to be very 
 familiar with some of the most abstruse pro- 
 ceedings in English jurisprudence. 
 
 In Act IV. Sc. 2, Adriana asks Dromio 
 of Syracuse, " Where is thy master, Dromio ? 
 Is he weU ? " and Dromio replies — 
 
 No, he's in Tartar limbo, worse than hell : 
 A devil in an everlasting garment hath him. 
 One whose hard heart is button'd up with steel ; 
 A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough ; 
 A wolf; nay worse, a fellow all in buff; 
 A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that counter- 
 mands 
 The passages and alleys, creeks, and narrow lands : 
 A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry-foot 
 
 well; 
 One that lefore the judgment carries poor souls to hell. 
 
 Ad/r. Why, man, what is the matter % 
 
 Dro. S. I do not know the matter ; he is ''rested on 
 the case. 
 
 Adr. What, is he arrested 1 tell me at whose suit. 
 
4:6 Shakespeare's legal acquieements. 
 
 Dro. 8. I know not at whose suit he is arrested, 
 well, 
 But he's in a suit of buff which 'rested him, that can I 
 tell, 'f * * 
 Adr. * * * This I wonder at : 
 That he, unknown to me, should be in debt. 
 Tell me, was he arrested on a iond ? 
 
 Bro. S. Not on u, iond, but on a stronger thing : 
 A chain, a chain ! 
 
 Here we have a most circumstantial and 
 graphic account of an English arrest on mesne 
 process ["before judgment"], in an action 
 on the case, for the price of a gold chaia, by a 
 sheriff's officer, or bum-bailiff, in his buff cos- 
 tume, and carrying his prisoner to a sponging- 
 house — a spectacle which might often have 
 been seen by an attorney's clerk. A feUow- 
 student of mine (since an eminent Judge), 
 being sent to an attorney's ofS.ce, as part of 
 his legal education, used to accompany the 
 sheriEf's officer when making captions on 
 mesne process, that he might enjoy the whole 
 feast of a law-suit from the egg to the apples 
 — and he was fond of giving a similar account 
 of this proceeding, — which was then con- 
 stantly occurring, but which, like " Trial by 
 Battle," may now be considered obsolete. 
 
AS TOTJ LIKE IT. 47 
 
 S» Ira %ih |i 
 
 In Act I. Sc. 2, Shakespeare makes tlie 
 lively Kosalind, who, although well versed in 
 poesy and hooks of chivalry, had prohahly 
 never seen a hond or a law-paper of any sort 
 in her life, quite familiar with the commence- 
 ment of all deeds poll, which in Latin was, 
 Noverint universi per preseiites, in English, 
 "Be it known to all men by these pres- 
 ents : "— 
 
 Le Beau. There comes an old man and his three 
 sons, — 
 
 Gel. I could match this beginning with an old tale. 
 
 Le Beau. Three proper young men, of excellent 
 growth and presence ;— r 
 
 Bos. With hills on their necks, — "^e it hnown 
 unto all men ly these presents^'' — 
 
 This is the technical phraseology referred 
 to by Thomas Nash in his 'Epistle to the 
 Gentlemen Students of the two Universities,' 
 in the year 1589, when he is supposed to have 
 
48 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. 
 
 denounced the author of ' Hamlet ' as one of 
 those who had " left the trade of Noverint, 
 whereto they were horn, for handfals of tragi- 
 cal speeches" — that is, an attorney's clerk 
 become a poet, and penning a stanza when 
 he should engross. 
 
 ' As You Like It ' was not brought out 
 until shortly before the year 1600, so that 
 Nash's Noverint could not have been sug- 
 gested by it. Possibly Shakspeare now intro- 
 duced the " Be it known unto all men," &c., 
 in order to show his contempt for Nash's 
 sarcasm. 
 
 In Act. II. Sc. 1, there are illustrations 
 which would present themselves rather to the 
 mind of one initiated in legal proceedings, 
 than of one who had been brought up as an 
 apprentice to a glover, or an assistant to a 
 butcher or awoolstapler : — for instance, when 
 it is said of the poor wounded deer, weeping 
 in the stream — 
 
 ■thou mak'st a testament 
 
 As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more 
 To that which hath too much." 
 
AS TOU LIKE IT. 49 
 
 And again where the careless herd, jumping 
 by him without greeting him, are compared 
 to " fat and greasy citizens," who look 
 
 " Upon that poor and broken tanhrupt there," — 
 
 without pitying his sufferings or attempting 
 to reheve his necessities. 
 
 It may perhaps he said that such language 
 might he used by any man of observation. 
 But in Act HI. Sc. 1, a deep technical knowl- 
 edge of law is displayed, howsoever it m&y 
 have been acquired. 
 
 The usurping Duke, Frederick, wishing 
 all the real property of Ohver to be seized, 
 awards a writ of extent against him, in the 
 language which would be used by the Lord 
 Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer — 
 
 Duke Fred. Make an extent upon his house and lands — 
 
 an extendi facias applying to house and 
 lands, as a fieri facias would apply to goods 
 and chattels, or a capias ad satisfaciendum, 
 to the person. 
 
50 secakespeabe's legal acquieemektb. 
 
 fa 
 
 So in ' King Henry VIII.' we have an 
 equally accurate statement of the omnivorous 
 nature of a writ of Pe^muniee. The Duke 
 of Suffolk, addressing Cardinal Wolsey, 
 says,— 
 
 " Lord Cardinal, the King's further pleasure is, 
 Because all those things you have done of late 
 By your power legatine within this kingdom 
 Fall into the compass of a prmmunire, 
 That therefore such a writ be sued against you, 
 Ta forfeit all your goods, lands, tenements, 
 Chattels, and whatsoever, and to he 
 Out of the Kingh protection." 
 
 In the next scene of ' As You Like It,' 
 Shakspeare shows that he was weU acquainted 
 with lawyers themselves and the vicissitudes 
 of their lives. Eosalind having told " who 
 Time amhles withal, who Time trots withal, 
 who Time gallops withal," being asked, 
 " Who Time stands still withal ? " answers — 
 
 With lawyers in the vacation ; for they sleep letween 
 term and term, and then they perceive not how Time 
 moves. 
 
AS YOU LIKE IT. 51 
 
 Our great poet had probably observed that 
 some lawyers have little enjoyment of the 
 vacation after a very few weeks, and that they 
 again long for the excitement of arguing de- 
 murrers and pocketing fees. 
 
 In the first scene of Act iv. Shakspeare 
 gives us the true legal meaning of the word 
 " attorney," viz. representative or deputy. 
 [Oelui qui vient k tour d'autrui ; Qui alterius 
 vices subit ; Legatus ; Vakeel.] 
 
 £os. Well, in her person I say — I will not have 
 you. 
 
 Orl. Then, in my own person, I die. 
 
 Bos. No, faith, die ly attorney. The poor world is 
 almost six thousand years old, and in all this time 
 there was not any man died in his own person, videlicet, 
 in a love cause.* 
 
 * So in ' Richard III.,' Act iv. So. 4, the crook- 
 backed tyrant, after murdering the infant sons of 
 Edward IV., audaciously proposes to their mother to 
 marry the Princess Elizabeth, their sister, and wishing 
 the queen to intercede with her in his favour, says, — 
 
 Be the attorney of my loye to her. 
 
52 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 
 
 I am sorry to Bay tliat in our time the 
 once most respectable word " attorney " seems 
 to have gained a new meaning, viz. " a dis- 
 reputable legal practitioner ; " so that attor- 
 neys at law consider themselves treated dis- 
 courteously when they are called " Attorneys." 
 They now all wish to be called Solicitors, 
 when doing the proper business of attorneys 
 in the Courts of Common Law. Most sin- 
 cerely honouring this branch of our profession, 
 if it would please them, I ain ready to sup- 
 port a biU " to prohibit the use of the word 
 Attorney, and to enact that on all occasions 
 the word Solicitor shall be used instead 
 thereof." 
 
 Near the end of the same scene Shake- 
 speare again evinces his love for legal phrase- 
 ology and imagery by converting Time into 
 an aged Judge of Assize, sitting on the Crown 
 side : — 
 
 Again in the same play (Act v. Sc. 3) Lord Stanley, 
 meeting Richmond on the field at Bosworfh, says — 
 
 I by attorney bless thee from thy mother. 
 
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 53 
 
 Sos. Well, Time is the old Jitstick that examines 
 all such offenders, and let Time try. 
 
 As in ' Troilus and Cressida ' (Act iv. Sc. 
 5) Shakespeare makes Time an Arbitrator : — 
 
 "And that old common Aebitratoe, Time, 
 Will one day end it." 
 
 Mnth Mo %istti gsMn^. 
 
 It has been generally supposed that Shake- 
 speare, in the characters of Dogberry and 
 Verges, only meant to satirize the ignorance 
 and folly of parish constables — a race with 
 which we of this generation were familiar till 
 the establishment of the metropolitan and 
 rural police ; but I cannot help suspecting 
 that he slily aimed at higher legal function- 
 aries — Chairmen at Quarter-sessions, and even 
 Judges of assize, — ^with whose performances 
 he may probably have become acquainted at 
 Warwick and elsewhere. 
 
 There never has been a law or custom in 
 
64 shakespeaee's legal aoquieements. 
 
 England to " give a charge" to constables; 
 but from time immemorial tliere has been " a 
 cliarge to grand juries" by the presiding 
 judge. This charge, we are bound to believe, 
 is now-a-days always characterised by sim- 
 plicity, pertinence, and correctness, although, 
 according to existing etiquette, in order that 
 it may not be too severely criticised, the bar- 
 risters are not admitted into the Crown Court 
 till the charge is over. But when Justice 
 Shallow gave the charge to the grand jury at 
 sessions in the county of Gloucester, we may 
 conjecture that some of his doctrines and di- 
 rections were not very wise ; and Judges of 
 the superior courts in former times made 
 themselves ridiculous by expatiating, in their 
 charges to grand juries, on vexed questions 
 of manners, religion, politics, and political 
 economy. Dogberry uses the very words of 
 the oath administered by the Judges' mar- 
 shal to the grand jury at the present day : — 
 
 Keep your fellows' counsels and your own. 
 
 (Act III. Sc. 3.) 
 
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 55 
 
 If the different parts of Dogberry's charge 
 are strictly exainined, it mil he found that 
 the author of it had a very respectable ac- 
 quaintance with crown law. The problem 
 was to save the constables from aU trouble, 
 danger, and responsibility, without any regard 
 to the public safety : — 
 
 Dogb. If you meet a thief, you may suspect him, by 
 virtue of your of&ce, to be no true man ; and for such 
 kind of men, the less you meddle or make with them, 
 why, the more is for your honesty. 
 
 2 Watch. If we know him to be a thief, shall we 
 not lay hands on him ? 
 
 Bogl. Truly, by your office you may ; but, I think, 
 they that touch pitch will be defiled. The most peace- 
 able way for you, if you do take a thief, is to let him 
 show himself what he is, and steal out of your company. 
 
 Now there can be no doubt that Lord 
 Coke himself could not more accurately have 
 defined the power of a peace-officer. 
 
 I cannot say as much for the law laid 
 down by Dogberry and Verges in Act iv. 
 Sc. 2, that it was "flat perjury " to caU a 
 prince's brother villain ; or "flat burglary as 
 ever was committed " to receive a thousand 
 
56 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 
 
 ducats "for accusing a lady wrongfully." 
 But tlie dramatist seems himself to have 
 been well acquainted with the terms and dis- 
 tinctions of our criminal code, or he could not 
 have rendered the blunders of the parish of- 
 ficers so absurd and laughable. 
 
 lucfi's lakur's lost. 
 
 In Act L Sc. 1, we have an extract from 
 the Eeport by Don Adriano de Armado of 
 the infraction he had witnessed of the King's 
 proclamation by Costard with Jaquenetta ; 
 and it is drawn up in the true lawyerlike, 
 tautological dialect, — ^which is to be paid for 
 at so much a folio : — 
 
 Then for the place where ; where, I mean, I did en- 
 counter that obscene and most preposterous event that 
 draweth from my Snow-white pen the ebon-coloured 
 ink, which here thou viewest, behoHest, surveyest, and 
 seest. * * * Him j (as my ever-esteemed duty 
 pricks me on) have sent to thee to receive the meed of 
 
MIDSHMMEE NIGHT's DEEJlM. 57 
 
 punishment, by thy sweet Grace's ofBcer, Antony Dtdl, 
 a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation. 
 
 TLe gifted Shakespeare might perhaps 
 have been capable, by intuition, of thus imi- 
 tating the conveyancer's jargon ; but no ordi- 
 nary man could have hit it off so exactly, 
 without having engrossed in an attorney's 
 office. 
 
 ilitommisr 3W^ i«am. 
 
 Egeus makes complaint to Theseus, in 
 Act I. Sc. 1, against his daughter Hermia, 
 because, while he wishes her to marry Deme- 
 trius, she prefers Lysander ; and he seeks to 
 enforce the law of Athens, that a daughter, 
 who refuses to marry according to her father's 
 directions, may be put to death by him : — 
 
 And, my gracious duke, 
 Be it so, she will not here, before your grace, 
 Consent to marry with Demetrius. 
 I beg the ancient privilege of Athens, 
 3* 
 
58 SHAKESPEABE'b LEGAI. ACQraEEStENTS. 
 
 As she is mine, I may dispose of her, 
 Which shall be either to this gentleman. 
 Or to her death, according to our law 
 Immediately provided in that case. 
 
 Commenting on this last line, Steevens 
 observes, " Shakespeare is grievously suspect- 
 ed of having been placed, while a boy, in an 
 attorney's office. The line before us has an 
 undoubted smack of legal commonplace : Po- 
 etry disclaims it." 
 
 The precise formula — " In such case made 
 and provided " — would not have stood in the 
 verse. There is certainly no nearer approach 
 in heroic measure to the technical language 
 of an indictment ; and there seems no motive 
 for the addition made to the preceding Une, 
 except to show a familiarity with legal phrase- 
 ology, which Shakespeare, whether he ever 
 were an attorney's clerk or not, is constantly 
 fond of displaying. 
 
THE MKECHANT OF VENICE. 59 
 
 Uh Min\imi 4 ^miti. 
 
 In Act I. Sc. 3, and Act ii. Sc. 8, Anto- 
 nio's bond to Shylock is prepared and talked 
 about according to all the forms observed in 
 an English attorney's office. The distinction 
 between a " single bill " and a " bond with a 
 condition " is clearly referred to ; and punc- 
 tual payment is expressed in the technical 
 phrase — " Let good Antonio keep his day." 
 
 It appears by Act in. Sc. 3, between Shy- 
 lock, Salarino, Antonio, and a Jailer, that the 
 action on the bond had been commenced, and 
 Antonio had been arrested on mesne process. 
 The trial was to come on before the Doge ; 
 and the question was, whether Shylock was 
 entitled to judgment specifically for his pound 
 of flesh, or must be contented with pecuniary 
 damages. 
 
60 shakespeahe's leg-al acquieements. 
 
 Shylock threatens tlie Jailer ■with an action 
 for " escape " for allowing Antonio to come 
 for a short time beyond the walls of the 
 prison : — 
 
 I do wonder, 
 Thou naughty Jailer, that thou art so fond 
 To come abroad with him at his request. 
 
 Antonio is made to confess that Shylock 
 is entitled to the pound of flesh, according to 
 the plaia meaning of the bond and condition, 
 and the rigid strictness of the common law of 
 England : — 
 
 Salarino. I am sure the Duke 
 
 Will never grant this forfeiture to hold. 
 Antonio. The Duke cannot deny the course of law. 
 
 All this has a strong odour of Westmin- 
 ster HaU. 
 
 The trial comes on in Act iv. So. 1, and it 
 IS duly conducted according to the strict forms 
 of legal procedure. Portia, the Podesta or 
 judge called in to act under the authority of 
 
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 61 
 
 tte Doge, first inquires if there be any plea of 
 non est factum. 
 
 She asks Antonio, " Do you confess the 
 bond ? " and when he answers, " I do," the 
 judge proceeds to consider how the damages 
 are to be assessed. The plaintiff claims the 
 penalty of the bond, according to the words 
 of the condition ; and Bassanio, who acts as 
 counsel for the defendant, attempting on 
 equitable grounds to have him excused by 
 paying twice the sum of money lent, or " ten 
 times o'er," judgment is given : — 
 
 Portia. It must not be. There is no power in Venice 
 Can alter a decree established. 
 Twill be recorded for a precedent, 
 And many an error by the same example 
 Will rush into the state. * * * 
 
 This bond is forfeit, 
 And lawfully by this the Jew may claim 
 A pound of flesh to be by him cut off 
 Nearest the merchant's heart. 
 
 However, oyer of the bond being demand- 
 ed, the judge found that it .gave "no jot of 
 blood ; " and the result was that Shylock, to 
 save his own life, was obliged to consent to 
 
62 shakespbaee's legal acquieements. 
 
 make over all Ms goods to his daughter Jessi- 
 ca and her Christian hushand Lorenzo, and 
 himself to submit to Christian baptism. 
 
 Shakespeare concludes this scene with an 
 ebullition which might be expected from an 
 English lawyer, by making Gratiano ex- 
 claim, — 
 
 In christening thou shalt have two godfathers : 
 Had I been judge, thou shouldst have had ten more, 
 To -bring thee to the gallows, not the font — 
 
 meaning a jury of twelve men, to find him 
 guilty of the capital offence of an attempt to 
 murder; — whereupon he must have been 
 hanged. 
 
 I may further observe that this play, in 
 the last scene of the last act, contains another 
 palpable allusion to English legal procedure. 
 In the court of Queen's Bench, when a com- 
 plaint is made against a person for a " con- 
 tempt," the practice is that before sentence is 
 finally pronounced, he is sent into the Crown 
 Office, and being there " charged upon inter- 
 
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 63 
 
 rogatories," he is made to swear that he wiU 
 " answer all things faithfully." Accordingly, 
 in the moonlight scene in the garden at Bel- 
 mont, after a partial explanation between- 
 Bassanio, Gratiano, Portia, and Nerissa, 
 about their rings, some farther inquiry being 
 deemed necessary, Portia says, — 
 
 Let us go in, 
 And cha/rge its there upon inter' gatories. 
 And we will amwer all things faithfully. 
 
 Gratiano assents, observing, — 
 
 Let it be so : tlie first inter'gatory 
 Tliat my Nerissa shall be sworn on is, 
 Whether till the next night she had rather stay, 
 Or go to bed now, being two hours to day. 
 
 W^^ Mmx^ 4 ^H ^hrm. 
 
 In the '^Induction" Shakespeare betrays 
 an intimate knowledge of the matters which 
 may be prosecuted as offences before the Court 
 Leet, the lowest court of criminal judicature 
 
64: shakespeaee's legal aoquieementb. 
 
 in England. He puts this speech into the 
 mouth of a servant, who is trying to persuade 
 Sly that he is a great lord, and that he had 
 been in a dream for fifteen years, during 
 which time he thought he was a frequenter 
 of alehouses : — 
 
 For though you lay here in this goodly chamber, 
 Yet would yoii say, ye were beaten out of door, 
 And rail upon the hostess of the house, 
 And say you wovld present her at the leet, 
 Because she Irought stone jugs, and no sealed, quarts. 
 
 Now, in the reigns of Elizabeth and James 
 I., there was a very wholesome law, that, for 
 the protection of the public against "false 
 measures," ale should be sold only in sealed 
 vessels of the standard capacity; and the vio- 
 lation of the law was to be presented at the 
 "Court Leet," or "View of Frankpledge," 
 held in every hundred, manor, or lordship, 
 before the steward of the leet. 
 
 Malone, in reference to this passage, cites 
 the well-known treatise of ' Kitchen on Courts,' 
 and also copies a passage from a work with 
 which I am not acquainted — ' Characterismi, 
 or Lenton's Leasures,' 12mo. 1631 — which 
 
THE TAMING OF THE BHEEW. 65 
 
 runs thus : — " He [an informer] transforms 
 Hmselfe into several shapes, to avoid suspicion 
 o{ inneholders, and inwardly j eyes at the sight 
 of a hlacke pot or jugge, knowing that their 
 sale by sealed quarts spoyles his market." 
 
 In Act I. Sc. 2, the proposal of Tranio 
 that the rival lovers of Bianca, while they 
 eagerly in her presence should press their suit, 
 yet, when she is absent, should converse freely 
 as friends, is illustrated in a manner to induce 
 a belief that the author of Tranio's speech had 
 been accustomed to see the contending coun- 
 sel, when the trial is over, or suspended, — on 
 very familiar and friendly terms with each 
 other : — 
 
 Tra. Sir, I shall not be slack : in sign whereof, 
 Please ye, we may contrive this afternoon, 
 And quaff carouses to our mistress' health ; 
 And do as adversaries do in law, 
 Strive mightily, tut eat and d/rink a» friends. 
 
 This clearly alludes not to the parties 
 litigating, who, if they were to eat and drink 
 
66 shakespeaee's legal acquikements. 
 
 together, would generally be disposed to poison 
 eacli other, but to the counsel on opposite 
 sides, with whom, notwithstanding the fiercest 
 contests in court, when they meet in private 
 immediately after, it is " AH hail, fellow, and 
 well met." 
 
 In the first encounter of wits between 
 Katherine and Petruchio, Shakespeare shows 
 that he was acquainted with the law for reg- 
 ulating "trials by battle" between cham- 
 pions, one of which had been fought in TothiU 
 Fields before the judges of the Court of Com- 
 mon Pleas in the reign of Elizabeth. 
 
 Kafh. What is your crest ? a coscomb ? 
 Pet. A combless cock, so Kate will be mj; hen. 
 Kafh. No cock of mine : you crow too like a crmen. 
 
 (Act II. Sc. 1.) 
 
 This aU lawyers know to be the word 
 spoken by a champion who acknowledged that 
 he was beaten, and declared that he would 
 fight no more : — whereupon judgment was 
 immediately given against the side which he 
 
67 
 
 supported, and he bore the infamous name of 
 Graven for the rest of his days. 
 
 We have like evidence ia ' Hamlet ' (Act 
 IV. Sc. 4) of Shakespeare's acquaintance with 
 the legal meaning of this word, where the hero 
 
 Now, whether it be 
 Bestial obliTion, or some cramen scruple 
 Of thinking too precisely on th' event. 
 
 %\X% mtW iM ^nh MzM 
 
 In this play we meet with proof that 
 Shakespeare had an accurate knowledge of 
 the law of England respecting the incidents 
 of military tenure, or tenure in chivalry, by 
 which the greatest part of the land in this 
 kingdom was held till the reign of Charles II. 
 The incidents of that tenure here dwelt upon 
 are "wardship of minors" and "the right 
 of the guardian to dispose of the minor in 
 marriage at his pleasure." The scene lies in 
 
68 shakespeaee's legal acqttikements. 
 
 France, and, strictly speaking, the law of that 
 countrj' ought to prevail in settling such ques- 
 tions : but Dr. Johnson, in his notes on ' All's 
 Well that Ends Well,' justly intimates his 
 opinion that it is of no great use to inquire 
 whether the law upon these subjects was the 
 same in France as in England, ." for Shake- 
 speare gives to aU nations the manners of 
 England." 
 
 According to the plot on which this play 
 is constructed, the French King laboured 
 under a malady which his physicians had 
 declared incurable; and Helena, the daughter 
 of a deceased physician of great eminence, 
 knew of a cure for it. She was in love with 
 Bertram, Count of EousiUon, still a minor, 
 who held large possessions as tenant in capife 
 under the crown, and was in ward to the 
 King. Helena undertook the cure, making 
 this condition ; — 
 
 Sel. Then shalt thou give me with thy kingly hand 
 What husband in thy power I will command. 
 
 Adding, however : — 
 
all's well that ends well. 69 
 
 Exempted be from me the arrogance 
 
 To choose from forth the royal blood of France * * * 
 
 But such a one, thy yassal, whom I know 
 
 Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow. (Act ii. So. 1.) 
 
 She effects the cure, and the King, show- 
 ing her all the noble unmarried youths whom 
 he then held as wards, says to her — 
 
 Pair maid, send forth thiae eye : this youthful parcel 
 Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing * * * 
 
 thy frank election make : 
 
 Thou hast power to choose, and they none to forsake. 
 
 (Act II. Sc. 3.) 
 
 Helena, after excusing herself to several 
 of the others, comes to Bertram, and, covered 
 with blushes, declares her election : — 
 
 Sel. I dare not say I take you ; but I give 
 Me and my service, ever whilst I live. 
 Into your guiding power. — This is the man. 
 
 King. Why then, young Bertram, take her : she's 
 thy wife. 
 
 Bertram at first strenuously refuses, say- 
 ing— 
 
 In such a business give me leave to use 
 The help of mine own eyes. 
 
YO shakespeaee's legal acquieements. 
 
 But tlie King, after much, discussion, thus 
 addresses Mm : — 
 
 It is in us to plant thine honour where 
 
 "We please to have it grow. Check thy contempt. 
 
 Obey our will, which travails in thy good. * * * * 
 
 Take her by the hand, 
 
 And tell her she is thine. * * * 
 
 Bert. I take her hand. (Act ii. Sc. 3.) 
 
 The ceremony of marriage was immedi- 
 ately performed, and no penalty or forfeiture 
 was incurred. But tlie law not extending to 
 a compulsion upon the ward to live with the 
 wife thus forced upon him, Bertram escapes 
 from the church door, and ahandoning his 
 wife, makes off for the wars in Italy, where 
 he unconsciously embraced the deserted Hel- 
 ena. 
 
 For the cure of the King by the physi- 
 cian's daughter, and her being deserted by 
 her husband, Shakespeare is indebted to Boc- 
 caccio ; but the wardship of Bertram, and 
 the obligation of the ward to take the wife 
 provided for him by his guardian, Shakespeare 
 drew from his own knowledge of the common 
 law of England, which, though now obsolete, 
 
THE "WINTEE's tale. 71 
 
 was in fuU force in the reign of EHzabetli, and 
 was to be found in Littleton.* The adven- 
 ture of Parolles's drum and the other comic 
 parts of the drama are quite original, and 
 these he drew from his own inexhaustible 
 fancy. 
 
 §h Mkitf^ Wt 
 
 In this play, Act i. Sc. 2, there is an al- 
 lusion to a piece of English law procedure, 
 which, although it might have been enforced 
 till very recently, could hardly be known to 
 any except lawyers, or those who had them- 
 selves actually been in prison on a criminal 
 charge, — ^that, whether guilty or innocent, the 
 prisoner was liable to pay a fee on his libera- 
 
 * However, according to Littleton, it is doubtful 
 whether Bertram, without being liable to any penalty 
 or forfeiture, might not have refused to marry Helena, 
 — on the ground that she was not of noble descent. 
 The lord could not " disparage " the ward by a misal- 
 liance. — Co. Litt. 80a. 
 
72 shakespbaee's legal acqtjieements. 
 
 tion. Hermione, trying to persuade Polixenes, 
 King of Bohemia, to prolong his stay at the 
 court of Leontes in Sicily, says to him — 
 
 You put me off with limber vows ; but I, 
 
 Though you would seek t' unsphere the stars with oaths, 
 
 Should yet say, " Sir, no going." * * * 
 
 Force me to keep you as a prisoner, 
 
 Not like a guest ; so you shall pay your fees 
 
 When you depart, and save your thanks. 
 
 I remember when the Clerk of Assize and 
 the Clerk of the Peace were entitled to exact 
 their fee from aU acquitted prisoners, and 
 were supposed in strictness to have a lien on 
 their persons for it. I believe there is now no 
 tribunal in England where the practice re- 
 mains, excepting the two Houses of Parlia- 
 ment ; but the Lord Chancellor and the 
 Speaker of the House of Commons still say 
 to prisoners about to be liberated from the 
 custody of the Black Kod or the Serjeant-at- 
 Arms, " You are discharged, paying your 
 fees." 
 
 When the trial of Queen Hennione for 
 high treason comes off in Act in. Sc. 2, al- 
 
THE winter's tale. 73 
 
 though the indictment is not altogether ac- 
 cording to English legal form, and might be 
 held insufficient on a writ of error, we lawyers 
 cannot but wonder at seeing it so near perfec- 
 tion in charging the treason, and alleging the 
 overt act committed by her " contrary to the 
 faith and allegiance of a true subject." 
 
 It is likewise remarkable that Cleomenes 
 and Dion, the messengers who brought back 
 the response from the oracle of Delphi, to be 
 given in evidence, are sworn to the genuine- 
 ness of the document they produce almost in 
 the very words now used by the Lord Chan- 
 cellor when an officer presents at the bar of 
 the House of Lords the copy of a record of a 
 court of justice : — 
 
 You here shall swear * * * 
 
 That you, Cleomenes and Dion, have 
 
 Been both at Delphos ; and from thence have brought 
 
 The seal'd-up oracle, by the hand delivered 
 
 Of great Apollo's priest ; and that since then 
 
 You have not dar'd to break the holy seal, 
 
 ¥or read the secrets in 't. 
 
74 shakespeaee's legal acqweements. 
 
 litt;g Jflhtt. 
 
 In Shakespeare's dramas founded upon 
 English history, more legalisms might have 
 been expected ; but I have met with fewer 
 than in those which are taken from the annals 
 of foreign nations, or which, without depend- 
 ing on locality, " hold the mirror up to na- 
 ture." This paucity of reference to law or 
 to law proceedings may, perhaps, in part be 
 accoimted for by the fact that, in these 
 "Histories," as they are called, our great 
 dramatist is known to have worked upon 
 foundations already laid by other men who 
 had no technical knowledge, and in several 
 instances he appears only to have introduced 
 additions and improvements into stock pieces 
 to revive their popularity. Yet we find in 
 several of the "Histories," Shakespeare's 
 fondness for law terms ; and it is still re- 
 markable, that whenever he indulges this 
 propensity he uniformly lays down good 
 law. 
 
KING JOHN. 75 
 
 Thus in tlie controversy, in tlie opening 
 scene of 'King John,' between Eobert and 
 Philip Faulconbridge, as to which of them 
 was to be considered the true heir of the de- 
 ceased Sir Kobert, the King, in giving judg- 
 ment, lays down the law of legitimacy most 
 perspicuously and soundly, — thus addressing 
 Eobert, the plaintiff : — 
 
 " Sirrah, your brother is legitimate : 
 Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him ; 
 And if she did play false, the fraud was hers, 
 Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands 
 That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother. 
 Who, as you say, took pains to get this son. 
 Had of your father claim'd this son for his 1 
 In sooth, good friend, your father might have kept 
 This calf, bred from his cow, from all the world : 
 In sooth, he might : then, if he were my brother's, 
 My brother might not claim him, nor your father, 
 Being none of his, refuse him. This concludes — 
 My mother's son did get your father's heir ; 
 Tour father's heir must have your father's land." 
 
 This is the true doctrine, "Pater est 
 quern nuptice demonstrant." 
 
 It was likewise properly ruled that the 
 father's will, in favour of his son Kobert, had 
 
70 shakespeaeb's legal acquirements. 
 
 no power to dispossess the liglit heir. Philip 
 might have recovered the land, if he had not 
 preferred the offer made to him by his grand- 
 mother, Elinor, the Queen Dowager, of taking 
 the name of Plantagenet, and being dubbed 
 Sir Richard. 
 
 In Act II. Sc. 1, we encounter a metaphor 
 which is purely legal, yet might come nat- 
 urally from an attorney's clerk, who had often 
 been an attesting witness to the execution of 
 deeds. The Duke of Austria, having entered 
 iuto an engagement to support Arthur against 
 his unnatural uncle, till the young prince 
 should be put in possession of the dominions 
 in France to which he was entitled as the 
 true heir of the Plantagenets, and should be 
 crowned King of England, says, Mssing the 
 boy to render the covenant more binding, 
 
 " Upon thy cheek I lay this zealous kiss, 
 As seal to this indenture of my love.'" 
 
KING JOHN. 77 
 
 In a subsequent part of this play, the trae 
 ancient doctrine of "the supremacy of the 
 crown" is laid down with great spirit and 
 force : and Shakespeare clearly shows that, 
 whatever his opinion might have been on 
 speculative dogmas in controversy between 
 the Eeformers and the Eomanists, he spumed 
 the ultramontane pretensions of the Pope, 
 which some of our Eoman Catholic feUow 
 subjects are now too much disposed to coun- 
 tenance, although they were stoutly resisted 
 before the Eeformation by our ancestors, who 
 were good Catholics. King John declares, 
 Act in. Sc. 1, 
 
 " No Italian priest 
 Shall tithe or toll in our dominions ; 
 But as we under heaven are supreme head, 
 So, under heaven, that great supremacy, 
 Where we do reign, we will alone uphold, 
 Without th' assistance of a mortal hand. 
 So tell the Pope ; all reverence set apart 
 To Mm and his usurp'd authority. 
 King Philip. Brother of England, you blaspheme 
 
 in this. 
 KiTig John. Though you and all the kings of Chris- 
 tendom 
 
78 SHAKESPEAEE^S LEGAL ACQUIEEMBNTS. 
 
 Are led so grossly by this meddling priest, 
 
 Dreading the curse that money may buy out, 
 
 And by the merit of vile gold, dross, diist, 
 
 Purchase corrupted pardon of a man, 
 
 Who in that sale sells pardon from himself, — 
 
 Though you and all the rest, so grossly led. 
 
 This juggling witchcraft with revenue cherish, 
 
 Yet I alone, alone do me oppose 
 
 Against the Pope, and count his friends my foes." 
 
 At the same time, it is clear, from Shake- 
 speare's portraiture of Friar Lawrence and 
 other Boman Catholic ecclesiastics, who do 
 honour to their church, that he was no bigot, 
 and that he regarded with veneration aU who 
 seek to imitate the meek example of the 
 divine founder of the Christian rehgion. 
 
 Pakt I. 
 
 In Act III. Sc. 1, we have the partition 
 of England and Wales between Mortimer, 
 Glendower, and Hotspur, and the business is 
 
KING HENEY THE FOTJETH. 79 
 
 conducted in as clerk-like, attorney-like fasli- 
 ion, as if it liad been tlie partition of a manor 
 between joint tenants, tenants in common, or 
 coparceners. 
 
 Olend. Come, here's the map ; shall we divide our 
 right, 
 According to our three-fold order ta'en? 
 
 Mort. The archdeacon hath divided it 
 Into three limits very equally. 
 England, from Trent and Severn hitherto, 
 By south and east is to my part assign'd : 
 And westward, Wales, beyond the Severn shore : 
 And all the fertile land within that bound, 
 To Owen Glendower : — and, dear Ooz, to you, 
 The remnant northward, lying off from Trent ; 
 And owr indentures tripartite are d/ranxm, 
 WTiich leing sealed interchangeably, 
 (A business that this night may execute,) 
 To-morrow, cousin Percy, you and I, 
 And my good Lord of Worcester, will set forth. 
 
 It may well be imagined, that in compos- 
 ing' ibis speech Sbakespeare was recollecting 
 bow he had eeen a deed of partition tripartite 
 drawn and executed in his master's office at 
 Stratford. 
 
 Afterwards, in the same scene, he repre- 
 
80 SHAKESPEAEe's legal ACQtriKEMENTS. 
 
 gents that the unlearned Hotspur, who had 
 such an antipathy to "metre ballad-mongers" 
 and " mincing poetry," folly understood this 
 conveyancing proceeding, and makes him ask 
 impatiently, 
 
 " Are the indentures drawn ? shall we be gone ?" 
 
 Shakespeare may have been taught that 
 " lively of seisin " was not necessary to a deed 
 of partition, or he would probably have direct- 
 ed this ceremony to complete the title. 
 
 So fond was he of law terms, that after- 
 wards, when Henry IV. is made to lecture the 
 Prince of Wales on his irregularities, and to 
 liken him to Eichard II., who, by such im- 
 proper conduct, lost the crown, he uses the 
 forced and harsh figure, that Eichard 
 
 ^'■Enfeoffed himself to popularity" (Act iii. Sc. 2). 
 
 I copy Malone's note of explanation on this 
 line : — " Gave himself up absolutely to popu- 
 larity. A feoffioaent was the ancient mode of 
 
KING HENET THE FOtTETH. 81 
 
 conveyance, by whicli all lands in England 
 were granted in fee-simple for several ages, 
 till the conveyance of lease and release was 
 invented by Serjeant Moor about tbe year 
 1630. Every deed of feoffment was accom- 
 panied with livery of seisin, tbat is, with the 
 delivery of corporal possession of tbe land or 
 tenement granted in fee." 
 
 To " sue out livery " is another law term 
 used in this play (Act iv. Sc. 3,) — a proceed- 
 ing to be taken by a ward of the crown, on 
 coming of age, to obtain possession of his 
 lands, which the king had held as guardian in 
 chivalry during his minority. Hotspur, in 
 giving a description of Henry the Fourth's 
 beggarly and suppliant condition when he 
 landed at Eavenspurg, tiU assisted by the 
 Percys, says, 
 
 " And when he was not six-and-twenty strong, 
 Sick in the world's regard, wretched and low, 
 A poor umninded outlaw, sneaking home, 
 My father gave him welcome to the shore : 
 4* 
 
82 shakespeaee's legal acquibements. 
 
 And when he heard him swear, and vow to God, 
 He came but to be Duke of Lancaster, 
 To sue his livery, and beg his peace, 
 With tears of innocency and terms of zeal, 
 My father, in kind heart and pity mov'd, 
 Swore him assistance." 
 
 Part II. 
 
 Arguments have teen drawn from tluB 
 drama against Shakespeare's supposed great 
 legal acquirements. It has been objected to 
 the very amusing interview, in Act i. So. 2, 
 between Falstaff and the Lord Chief Justice, 
 that if Shakespeare had been much of a law- 
 yer, he would have known that this great 
 magistrate could not examine offenders in the 
 manner supposed, and could only take notice 
 of offences when they were regularly prosecu- 
 ted before him in the Court of King's Bench, 
 or at the assizes. But although such is the 
 practice in our days, so recently as the be- 
 
KING HENEY THE FOURTH. 83 
 
 ginning of tlie eighteenth century that iQus- 
 trions Judge, Lord Chief Justice Holt, acted 
 as a police magistrate, quelling riots, taking 
 depositions against parties accused, and, 
 where a prim^ facie case was made out 
 against them, committing them for trial. 
 Lord Chief Justice Coke actually assisted in 
 taking the Earl and Countess of Somerset in- 
 to custody when charged with the murder of 
 Sir Thomas Overbury, and examined not less 
 than three hundred witnesses against them, — 
 writing the depositions with his own hand. 
 It was quite in course that those charged with 
 the robbery at Gadshill should be " had up " 
 before Lord Chief Justice Gascoigne, and that 
 he should take notice of any of them who, 
 having disobeyed a summons to appear before 
 him, happened to come casually into his pres- 
 ence. 
 
 His Lordship is here attended by the tip- 
 staff (or orderly), who, down to the present 
 day, follows the Chief Justice, like his shadow, 
 wherever he officially appears. On this occa- 
 sion the Chief Justice meeting Sir John, natu- 
 rally taxes him with having refused to obey 
 
84 shakespeaee's legal acquieements. 
 
 the summons served upon him to attend at 
 his Lordship's chamhers, that he might an- 
 swer the information laid against him ; and 
 Sir John tries to excuse himself by saying 
 that he was then advised by his "counsel 
 learned in the laws/' that, as he was march- 
 ing to Shrewsbury by the king's orders, ho 
 was not bound to come. 
 
 Again, it is objected that a Chief Justice 
 could not be supposed, by any person ac- 
 quainted with his station and functions, to 
 use such vulgar language as that put into the 
 mouth of Sir William Gascoigne when Fal- 
 staff will not hsten to him, and that this rath- 
 er smacks of the butcher's shop in which it is 
 alleged that young Shakespeare employed 
 himself in killing calves. 
 
 Oh. Jvxt. To punish you by the heels would amend 
 the attention of your ears ; and I care not if I do become 
 your physician. 
 
 But to "lay by the heels " was the tech- 
 nical expression for committing to prison, and 
 I could produce from the Eeports various 
 instances of its being so used by distinguished 
 
KING taJNEY THE FOTJETH. 85 
 
 judges from the bencli. I will content my- 
 self with one. A petition being heard in the 
 Court of Chancery, before Lotd Chancellor 
 Jeffreys, agaiiist a great City attorney who 
 had given him many briefs at the bar, 
 an affidavit was read, swearing that when 
 the attorney was threatened with being 
 brought before my Lord Chancellor, he ex- 
 claimed — " My Lord Chancellor ! I made 
 him ! " Lord OJiancellor Jeffreys : — " Then 
 will I lay my maker by the heels." A war- 
 rant of commitment was instantly signed and 
 sealed by the Lord Chancellor, and the poor 
 attorney was sent off to the Fleet. 
 
 I must confess that I am rather mortified 
 by the advantage given to the fat knight over 
 my predecessor in this encounter of their 
 wits. Sir John professes to treat the Chief 
 Justice with profound reverence, interlarding 
 his sentences plentifully with jour Lordship 
 — "Grod give your Lordship good time of 
 day : I am glad to see your Lordship abroad : 
 I heard say your Lordship was sick : I hope 
 your Lordship goes abroad by advice. Your 
 Lordship, though not clean past your youth. 
 
86 shakespeaeb's legal aoquieements. 
 
 hath yet some smack of age in you, some 
 relish of the saltness of time ; and I most 
 humhly beseech your Lordship to have a 
 reverend care of your health." Yet Falstaff's 
 object is to turn the Lord Chief Justice into 
 ridicule, and I am sorry to say that he splen- 
 didly succeeds, — insomuch that after the 
 party accused of felony has vaingloriously 
 asserted that he himself had done great ser- 
 vice to the state, and that his name was 
 terrible to the enemy, the Chief Justice, 
 instead of committing him to Newgate to 
 answer for the robbery at Gadshill, is con- 
 tented with admonishing him to he honest, 
 and dismisses him with a blessing ; — upon 
 which Sir John is emboldened to ask the 
 Chief Justice for the loan of a thousand 
 pounds. To lower the law still farther, my 
 Lord Chief Justice is made to break off the 
 conversation, in which Falstaff's wit is so 
 sparkling, with a very bad pun. 
 
 Ch. Jiut. Not a penny, not a penny: you are too 
 impatient to bear crosses.* 
 
 * So bad is this pun that perhaps it may not be 
 
KING HENKY THE FOUETH. 87 
 
 The same superiority is preserved in the 
 subsequent scene (Act ii. Sc. 1), where Fal- 
 staff being arrested on mesne process for debt 
 at the suit of Dame QuicMy, he gains his 
 discharge, with the consent of the Chief 
 Justice, by saying to his Lordship — " My 
 Lord, this is a poor mad soul ; and she says, 
 up and down the town, that her eldest son is 
 like you : " and by insisting that although 
 he owed the money, he was privileged from 
 arrest for debt," being upon hasty employment 
 in the Hng's affairs." 
 
 In Act V. Sc. 1, Falstaff, having long 
 made Justice Shallow his butt during a visit 
 to him in Gloucestershire, looks forward with 
 great delight to the fun of recapitulatiag at 
 the Boar's Head, East Cheap, Shallow's ab- 
 surdities ; and, meaning to intimate that this 
 would afford him opportunities of amusing 
 
 useless to remind you that the penny and all the royal 
 coins then had impressed upon them the sign of the 
 ero88. 
 
88. shakespeake's legal acquikements. 
 tlie Prince of Wales for a twelvemonth, he 
 
 "I will devise matter enough out of this Shallow to 
 keep Prince Henry in continual laughter the wearing 
 out of six fashions (which is four terms, or two actions), 
 and he shall laugh without intervallums." 
 
 Dr. Johnson thus annotates on the " two 
 actions : — " There is something humorous in 
 making a spendthrift compute time by the 
 operation of an action for debt." The critic 
 supposes, therefore, that in Shakespeare's 
 time final judgment was obtained in an action 
 of debt in the second term after the writ com- 
 menciQg it was sued out ; and as there are 
 four terms in the legal year, — Michaelmas 
 Term, Hilary Term, Easter Term, and Trinity 
 Term — this is a legal circumlocution for a 
 twelvemonth. It would seem that the author 
 who dealt in such phraseology must have 
 been early initiated in the mysteries of terms 
 and actions. 
 
 Shakespeare'has likewise beep blamed for 
 an extravagant perversion of law in the prom- 
 
KING HENEY THE EOtTETH. 89 
 
 ises and threats wMcli Falstaff throws 'out 
 on hearing that Henry IV. was dead, and 
 that Prince Hal reigned in his stead. 
 
 Fal. Master Robert Shallow, choose what offloe 
 thou wilt in fhe land, 'tis thine. — Pistol, I will double 
 charge thee with dignities. * * * Master Shallow, 
 my Lord Shallow, be what thou wilt, I am Fortune's 
 steward. * * * Come, Pistol, utter more to me ; 
 and withal devise something to do thyself good. — Boot, 
 boot, master Shallow : I know the young King is sick 
 for me. Let us take any man's horses ; the 4aws of 
 England are at my commandment. Happy are they 
 which have been my friends, and woe unto my Lord 
 Chief Justice I — Act v. Sc. 4. 
 
 But Falstaff may not unreasonably be 
 supposed to have believed that he could do 
 all this, even if he were strictly kept to the 
 literal meaning of his words. In the natural 
 and usual course of things he was to become 
 (as it was then called) " favourite " (or, as 
 we call it, Prime Minister) to the new Mng, 
 and to have all the power and patronage of 
 the crown in his hands. Then, why might 
 not Ancient Pistol, who had seen service, 
 have been made War Minister ? And if 
 Justice Shallow had been pitchforked into the 
 
90 Shakespeare's legal acqtjibements. 
 
 House of Peers, he miglit have turned out a 
 distinguished Law Lord. — By taMng " any 
 man's horses " was not meant stealing them, 
 but pressing them for the king's service, or 
 appropriating them at a nominal price, which 
 the law would then have justified under the 
 king's prerogative of pre-emption. Sir W. 
 Gascoigne was continued as Lord Chief Jus- 
 tice in the new reign ; hut, according to law 
 and custom, he was removable, and he no 
 doubt expected to be removed, from his office. 
 Therefore, if Lord Eldon could be supposed 
 to have written the play, I do not see how he 
 would be chargeable with having forgotten 
 any of his law while writing it. 
 
 It is remarkable that while Falstaff and 
 his companions, in Act v. Sc. 5, are standing 
 in Palace Yard to see the new king returning 
 from his coronation in Westminster Abbey, 
 Pistol is made to utter an expression used, 
 when the record was in Latin, by special 
 pleaders in introducing a special traverse or 
 negation of a positive material allegation of 
 
KING HENEY THE SIXTH. — PAKT II. 91 
 
 the opposite side, and so framing an issue of 
 fact for tlie determination of the jury ; — absque 
 hoc, " without this that ; " — then repeating 
 the allegation to be negatived. But there is 
 often much difficulty in explaining or account- 
 ing for the phraseology of Ancient Pistol, who 
 appears "to have been at a great feast of 
 languages and stolen the scraps ; "—so that 
 if, when " double charged with dignities," he 
 had been called upon to speak in debate as a 
 leading member of the government, his ap- 
 pointment might have been carped at. 
 
 Paet II. 
 
 In the speeches of Jack Cade and his co- 
 adjutors in this play we find a familiarity 
 with the law and its proceedings which 
 strongly indicates that the author must have 
 had some professional practice or education 
 
92 SHAKKSPEABe's LE&AI ACQtriEEMENTS. 
 
 as a lawyer. The second scene in Act iv. 
 may be taken as an example. 
 
 Dick. The first thing we do, leVs hill all the lawyers. 
 
 Cade. Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lam- 
 entable thing, that the skin of an innocent lamb should 
 be made parchment ? — that parchment, being scribbled 
 o'er, should undo a man? Some' say the bee stings; 
 but I say 'tis the bee's wax, for I did but seal once to a 
 thing, and I was never mine own man since. 
 
 The Clerk of Chatham is then brought in, 
 who could " make obligations and write court 
 hand," and who, instead of " making his mark 
 like an honest plain-dealing man," had been 
 " 80 well brought up that he could write his 
 name." Therefore he was sentenced to be 
 hanged with his pen and ink-horn about hia 
 neck. 
 
 Surely Shakespeare must have been em- 
 ployed to write deeds on parchment in court 
 hand, and to apply the wax to them in the 
 form of seals : one does not understand how 
 he should, on any other theory of his bringing 
 up, have been acquainted with these details. 
 
KING HENET THE SIXTH. PAET 11. 93 
 
 Again, the indictment on wMch Lord Say 
 was arraigned, in Act iv. Sc. 7, seems drawn 
 by no inexperienced hand : — 
 
 " Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth 
 of the realm in erecting a grammar-school : and where- 
 as, before, our forefathers had no other books but the 
 score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be 
 used ; and contrary to the king, his crown and dignity, 
 thou hast built a paper-mill. It will be proved to thy 
 face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of 
 a noun and a verb, and such abominable words as no 
 Christian ear can endure to hea/r.* Thou hast appointed 
 justices of peace, to call poor men before them about 
 matters they were not able to answer. Moreover thou 
 hast put them in prison ; and because they could not 
 read, thou hast hanged them, when indeed only for that 
 cause they have been most' worthy to live." 
 
 How acquired I know not, but it is quite 
 certaia that the drawer of this indictment 
 must have had some acquaintance with ' The 
 Crown Circuit Companion,' and must have 
 had a full and accurate knowledge of that 
 rather obscure and intricate subject — " Felony 
 and Benefit of Clergy." 
 
 * " Inter Christianas non nominand." 
 
94 SHAKESPEAKE's legal ACQtriEEMENTS. 
 
 Cade's proclamation, which follows, deals 
 with still more recondite heads of jurispru- 
 dence. Announcing his policy when he should 
 mount the throne,, he says : — 
 
 " The proudest peer in the realm shall not wear a 
 head on his shoulders unless he pay me tribute : there 
 shall not a maid be married but she shall pay me her 
 maidenhead ere they have it. Men shall hold of me in 
 capite ; and we charge and command that their wives 
 be z&free as heart can wish, or tongue can tell." 
 
 He thus declares a great forthcoming 
 change in the tenure of land and in the lia- 
 bility to taxation : he is to have a poU-tax 
 like that which had raised the reheUion ; hut, 
 instead of coming down to the daughters of 
 blacksmiths who had reached the age of fif- 
 teen, it was to be confined to the nobility. 
 Then he is to legislate on the mercheta 
 muUcrum. According to Blackstone and 
 other high authorities this never had been 
 known in England ; although, till the reign 
 of Malcolm III., it certainly appears to have 
 been established in Scotland ; but Cade inti- 
 mates his determination to adopt it, — with 
 this alteration, that instead of conferring the 
 
KmG HENET THE SIXTH. PAET II. 95 
 
 privilege on every lord of a manor, to be ex- 
 ercised witMn the manor, lie is to assume it 
 exclusively for himself all over the realm, as 
 belonging to his prerogative royal. 
 
 He proceeds to announce his intention to 
 abolish tenure in free soccage, and that all 
 men should hold of him in capite, concluding 
 with a licentious jest, that although his sub- 
 jects should no longer hold in free soccage, 
 " their wives should be- as free as heart can 
 wish, or tongue can tell." Strange to say, 
 this phrase, or one almost identically the 
 same, " as free as tongue can speak or heart 
 can think," is feudal, and was known to the 
 ancient law of England. In the tenth year 
 of King Henry "VII., that very distinguished 
 judge, Lord Hussey, who was Chief Justice 
 of England during four reigns, in a considered 
 judgment delivered the opinion of the whole 
 Court of King's Bench as to the construction 
 to be put upon the words, " as free as tongue 
 can speak or heart can think." See Yeas 
 Book, Eil.Term, 10 Hen. VII., fol. 13, 
 pi. 6. 
 
96 bhakebpeaee's legal acquieements. 
 
 ^voilm m& %®ida. 
 
 In this play tlie author shows his insatia- 
 ble desire to illustrate his descriptions of kiss- 
 ing by his recollection of the forms used in 
 executing deeds. When Pandarus (Act ni. 
 Sc. 2) has brought Troilus and Cressida to- 
 gether in the Orchard to gratify their warm 
 inclinations, he advises Troilus to give Cressi- 
 da " a hiss in fee-farm," which Malone ex- 
 plains to be " a Mbs of a duration that has no 
 bounds, — a fee-farm being a grant of lands in 
 fee, that is for ever, reserving a rent certain." 
 
 The advice of Pandarus to the lovers being 
 taken, he exclaims — 
 
 "What! billing again? Here's — In witness the 
 parties interchcmgeably " 
 
 the exact form of the testatum clause in an 
 indenture — "In witness whereof the parties 
 interchangeably have hereto set their hands 
 and seals." 
 
 To avoid a return to this figure of speech 
 
KING LEAK. 9Y 
 
 I may here mention other instances in which 
 Shakespeare introduces it. In ' Measure for 
 Measure/ Act iv. So. 1 — 
 
 " But my kisses bring again 
 Seals of loTe, but aeaVd in vain : " 
 
 and in his poem of ' Venus and Adonis ' — > 
 
 " Pure lips, sweet sea^s in my soft lips imprinted, 
 What bargains may I make, still to be sealing ? " 
 
 1% %m. 
 
 In Act I. Sc. 4 the Fool makes a lengthy 
 rhyming speech, containing a great many trite 
 but useful moral niaxims, such as— ^ 
 
 Have more than thou showest, 
 Speak less than thou knowest, &c., 
 
 which the testy old King found rather flat 
 and tiresome. 
 
 Lear. This is nothing, fool. 
 
 Fool, Then, 'tis liTce the Ireath of an liv/eed lawyer: 
 you gave me nothing for it, 
 6 
 
98 shakespeaee's legai- acquieements. 
 
 This seems to show that Shakespeare had 
 frequently been present at trials in courts of 
 justice, and now speaks from his own recollec- 
 tion. There is no trace of such a proverbial 
 saying as " like the breath of an unfeed law- 
 yer," — ^whUe all the world knows the proverb, 
 " Whosoever is his own counsel has a fool for 
 his client." 
 
 How unfeed lawyers may have comported 
 themselves in Shakespeare's time I know not ; 
 but I am bound to say, in vindication of " my 
 order," that in miy time there has been no 
 ground for the Fool's sarcasm upon the bar. 
 The two occasions when " the breath of an 
 unfeed lawyer " attracts notice in this genera- 
 tion are when he pleads for a party suing in 
 forma pauperis, or when he defends a person 
 prosecuted by the crown for high treason. It 
 is contrary to etiquette to take a fee in the 
 one case as well as in the other ; and on aU 
 such occasions counsel, from a regard to their 
 own credit, as' well as from conscientious 
 motives, uniformly exert themselves with ex- 
 traordinary zeal, and put forth all their learn- 
 ing and eloquence. 
 
KING LEAK. 99 
 
 I confess that there is some foundation for 
 the saying that "a lawyer's opinion which 
 costs nothing is worth nothing ;" but this can 
 only apply to opinions given off-hand, ia the 
 course of common conversation, — where there 
 is no time for deliberation, where there is a 
 desire to say what will be agreeable, and 
 where no responsibility is incurred. 
 
 In Act II. So. 1, there is a remarkable ex- 
 ample of Shakespeare's use of technical legal 
 phraseology. Edmund, the wicked illegiti- 
 mate son of the Earl of Gloster, having suc- 
 ceeded in deluding his father into the belief 
 that Edgar, the legitimate son, had attempt- 
 ed to commit parricide, and had been pre- 
 vented from accomplishing the crime by 
 Edmund's tender solicitude for the Earl's 
 safety, the Earl is thus made to express a de- 
 termination that he would disinherit Edgar 
 (who was supposed to have fled from justice), 
 and that he would leave all his possessions to 
 Edmund : — 
 
100 shakespeaue's legal acquieements. 
 
 Gh. strong and fasten'd villain ! 
 
 » * * * * 
 
 AH ports I'll bar ; the villain shall not 'scape. 
 
 !F * * * * 
 
 Besides, his pictvire 
 I will send far and near, that all the kingdom 
 May have due note of him ;* and of my land, 
 Loyal and natural boy, I'll work the means 
 To make thee capable. 
 
 In forensic discussions respecting legiti- 
 macy, tlie question is put, whether the in- 
 dividual whose status is to be determined is 
 " capable," i. e. capable of inheriting ; but it 
 is only a lawyer who would express the idea 
 of legitimising a natural son by simply say- 
 ing— 
 
 I'll work the means 
 
 To make him capable. 
 
 Again, in Act in. Sc. 5, we find Edmund 
 trying to incense the Duke of Cornwall against 
 his father for having taken part with Lear 
 
 * One would suppose that photography, by which 
 this mode of catching criminals is now practised, had 
 been invented in the reign of King Lear. 
 
KING LEAK. 101 
 
 when so cruelly treated by Goneril and Be- 
 gan. The two daughters had become the 
 reigning sovereigns, to whom Edmund pro- 
 fessed to owe allegiance. Cornwall having 
 created Edmund Earl of Gloster says to biTn — 
 
 "Seek out where thy father is, that he may be 
 ready for our apprehension." 
 
 On which Edmund observes aside — 
 
 " If I find him comforting the King, it will stuff his 
 suspicion inore fully." 
 
 Upon this Dr. Johnson has the following 
 note : — " He uses the word [comforting] in 
 the juridical sense, for supporting, helping." 
 
 The iudictment against an accessary after 
 the fact, for treason, charges that the acces- 
 sary " comforted " the principal traitor after 
 knowledge of the treason. 
 
 In Act III. Sc. 6, the imaginary trial of 
 the two unnatural daughters is conducted in 
 a manner showing a perfect familiarity with 
 criminal procedure. 
 
102 shakespeaee's legal acquieements. 
 
 Lear places the two Judges on the bench, 
 viz., Mad Tom and the Fool. He properly 
 addresses the former as ""the rohed man of 
 justice," but, although both were "of the 
 commission," I do not quite understand why 
 the latter is caUed his " yokefellow of equity," 
 unless this might be supposed to be a special 
 commission, Hke that which sat on Mary, 
 Queen of Scots, including Lord Chancellor 
 Audley. 
 
 Lear causes GonerH to be arraigned first, 
 and then proceeds as a witness to give evi- 
 dence against her, to prove an overt act of . 
 high treason : 
 
 " I here take my oath before this honourable assem- 
 bly, she kicked the poor king, her father." 
 
 But the trial could not be carried on with 
 perfect regularity on account of Lear's mad- 
 ness, and, without waiting for a verdict, he 
 himself sentences Began to be anatomized : — 
 
 ' Then, let them anatomize Began ; see what breeds 
 about her heart." 
 
HAKLET. 103 
 
 \nmUi. 
 
 In this tragedy various expressions and 
 allusions crop out, showing the substratum 
 of law in the author's mind, — e. g., the de- 
 scription of the disputed territory which was 
 the cause of the war between Norway and 
 Poland : — 
 
 We go to gain a little patch of ground, 
 
 That hath in it no profit but the name. 
 
 To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it. 
 
 Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole 
 
 A ranker rate, should it te sold in fee. (Act iv. Sc. 4.) 
 
 Earlier in the play (Act i. Sc. 1) Marcel- 
 lus inquires what was the cause of the war- 
 like preparations in Denmark — 
 
 And why such daily cast of brazen cannon, 
 And foreign mart for implements of war 1 
 Why such hrvpress of shipwrights, whose sore tash 
 Does not divide the Sunday from the week? 
 
 Such confidence has there been in Shake- 
 speare's accuracy, that this passage has been 
 
104 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 
 
 quoted, both by text writers and by Judges 
 on ,the benchj as an authority upon tbe le- 
 gaKty of the press-gang, and upon the de- 
 bated question whether shvpwrigJits, as well 
 as common seamen, are Hable to be pressed 
 into the service of the royal navy.* 
 
 Hamlet, when mortally wounded in Act v. 
 Sc. 2, represents that Death comes to him in 
 the shape of a sheriff's ofl&cer, as it were to 
 take him into custody under a capias ad 
 satisfaciendum : — 
 
 " Had I but time (as this fell Serjeant, Death, 
 Is strict in his arrest). Oh ! I could tell you," &c. 
 
 The Grave-diggers' scene, however, is the 
 mine which produces the richest legal ore. 
 The discussion as to whether Ophelia was en- 
 titled to Christian burial proves that Shake- 
 speare had read and studied Plowden's Eeport 
 
 * See Barrington on the Ancient Statutes, p. 300. 
 
HAMIiET. 105 
 
 of the celebrated case of Hales v. Petit, tried 
 in the reign of Philip and Mary, and that he 
 intended to ridicule the counsel who argued 
 and the Judges who decided it. 
 
 On the accession of Mary Tudor, Sir 
 James Hales, a puisne Judge of the Common 
 Pleas, was prosecuted for being concerned in 
 the plot which placed the Lady Jane Grey 
 for a few days upon the throne ; but, as he 
 had previously expressed a strong opinion that 
 the succession of the right heir ought not to 
 be disturbed, he was pardoned and released 
 from prison. Nevertheless, so frightened was 
 he by the proceedings taken against him that 
 he went out of his mind, and, after attempt- 
 ing suicide by a penknife, he drowned himself 
 by walking into a river. Upon an inquisition 
 before the Coroner, a verdict oifelo de se was 
 returned. Under this finding his body was 
 to be buried in a cross-road, with a stake 
 thrust through it, and aU his goods were for- 
 feited to the crown. It so happened that at 
 the time of his death he was possessed of a 
 lease for years of a large estate in the county 
 of Kent, granted by the Archbishop of Can- 
 5* 
 
106 SHAKESPEABE's legal ACQmEEMENTB. 
 
 terbury jointly to him and his wife, the Lady 
 Margaret, who survived him. Upon the sup- 
 position that this lease was forfeited, the 
 estate was given by the crown to one Cyriac 
 Petit, who took possession of it, — ^and Dame 
 Margaret Hales, the widow, brought this ac- 
 tion against him to recover it. The only 
 question was whether the forfeiture could be 
 considered as having taken place in the life- 
 time of Sir James Hales : for, if not, the 
 plaintiff certainly took the estate by survivor- 
 ship. 
 
 Her counsel, Serjeants Southcote and 
 Puttrel, powerfully argued that, the offence 
 of suicide being the killing of a man's self, it 
 could not be completed in his lifetime, for as 
 long as he was alive he had not kUled him- 
 self, and, the moment that he died, the estate 
 vested in the plaintiff. "■ The felony of the 
 husband shall not take away her title by sur- 
 vivorship, for in this manner of felony two 
 things are to be considered — ^first, the cause 
 of the death ; secondly, the death ensuing 
 the cause ; and these two make the felony, 
 and without both of them the felony is not 
 
HAMLET. 107 
 
 consummate. And the cause of tlie death is 
 the act done in the party's lifetime, which 
 makes the death to follow. And the act 
 which brought on the death here was the 
 throwing himself voluntarily into the water, 
 for this was the cause of his death. And if a 
 man kills himself by a wound which he gives 
 himself with a knife, or if he hangs himself, 
 as the wound or the hanging, which is the act 
 done in the party's lifetime, is the cause of 
 his death, so is the throwing himself into the 
 water here. Forasmuch as he cannot be at- 
 tainted of his own death, because he is dead 
 before there is any time to attaint him, the 
 finding of his death by the Coroner is by ne- 
 cessity of law eq[uivalent to an attainder in 
 fact coming after his death. He cannot be 
 fdo de se till the death is ftiUy consummate, 
 and the death precedes the felony and the 
 forfeiture." 
 
 Walsh, Serjeant, contra, argued that the 
 felony was to be referred back to the act 
 which caused the death. "2%e act consists 
 of three parts : the first is the imagination, 
 which is a reflection or meditation of the 
 
108 bhakespeaee's legal acquieements. 
 
 mind, whether or not it is convenient for hitn 
 to destroy himsejf, and what way it can be 
 dojae ; the second is the resolution, which is a 
 determination of the mind to destroy himself ; 
 the third is the perfection, which is the exe- 
 cution of what the miud had resolved to do. 
 And of all ihe parts, the doing of the act is 
 the greatest in the judgment of our law, and 
 it is in effect the whole. Then here the act 
 done by Sir James Hales, whieh is evil, and 
 the cause of his death, is the throwing him- 
 self into the water, and the death is but a se- 
 quel thereof" 
 
 Lord 0. J. Dyer and the whole court gave 
 judgment for the defendant, holding that al- 
 though Sir James Hales could hardly be said 
 to have kiUed himself in his lifetime, "the 
 forfeiture shall have relation to the act done 
 by Sir James Hales in his lifetime, which was 
 the cause of his death, viz., the throwing 
 himself into the water." Said they, " Sir 
 James Hales was dead, and how came he to 
 his death ? by drowning ; and who drowned 
 him ? Sir James Hales ; and when did he 
 drown him ? in his lifetime. So that Sir 
 
HAMLET. 109 
 
 James Hales, being alive, caused Sir James 
 Hales to die ; and the act of tlie living man 
 was tlie deatli of tlie dead man. He there- 
 fore committed felony in his lifetime, although 
 there was no possibility of the forfeiture being 
 found in his lifetime, for until his death there 
 was no cause of forfeiture." 
 
 The argument of the gravediggers upon 
 Ophelia's case is almost in the words reported 
 by Plowden : — 
 
 1 Glo. Is she to be buried in Christian burial, that 
 wilfully seeks her own salvation 1 
 
 2 Glo. The crowner hath sate on her, and finds it 
 Christian burial. 
 
 1 Olo. How can that be, unless she drowned herself 
 in her own defence 1 
 
 2 Glo. Why, 'tis found so. 
 
 1 Glo. It must be se offendendo ; it cannot be else. 
 For here lies the poiat : if I drown myself wittingly, it 
 argues an act ; and an act hath three branches ; it is to 
 act, to do, and to perform. Argal she drowned herself 
 wittingly. * * * Here lies the water ; good : here 
 stands the man ; good. If the man go to this water 
 and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes ; mark 
 you that : but if the water come to him and drown 
 him, he drowns not himself. Argal he that is not 
 guilty of his own death shorteps not his own life. 
 
110 bhakespeaee's legal aoqitikemehts. 
 
 2 Ch. But is this law? 
 
 1 Clo. Ay, marry is't, crowner's quest law. 
 
 Hamlet's own speech, on taking in Hs 
 hand what he supposed might be the skull of 
 a lawyer, abounds with lawyer-lilie thoughts 
 and words : — 
 
 " Where be his quiddits now, Jiis quillets, his cases, 
 his tenures, and his tricks ? Why does he suffer this 
 rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a 
 dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of bat- 
 tery? Humph! This fellow might be in's time a 
 great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizan- 
 ces, bis fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries : is 
 this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recov- 
 eries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt ? will his 
 vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and 
 double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair 
 of indentures ? " 
 
 These terms of art are all used seemingly 
 with a full knowledge of their import ; and it 
 would puzzle some practising barristers with 
 whom I am acquainted to go over the whole 
 seriatim, and to define each of them satis- 
 factorily. 
 
MACBETH. Ill 
 
 WiMMk 
 
 In perusing tMs unrivalled tragedy I am 
 so carried awdy by the intense interest which 
 it excites, that I fear I may have passed over 
 legal phrases and allusions which I ought to 
 have noticed ; b.ut the only passage I find 
 with the Juridical mark upon it in ' Macbeth/ 
 is in Act iv. Sc. 1, where, the hero exulting in 
 the assurance from the Weird Sisters that he 
 can receive harm from " none of woman born," 
 he, rather in a lawyer-like manner, resolves to 
 provide an indemnity, if the worst should come 
 to the worst, — ' 
 
 "But yet I'll make assurance double sure, 
 And taJie a hond of fate ; " 
 
 — without much considering what should be 
 the penalty of the bond, or how he was to en- 
 force the remedy, if the condition should be 
 broken. 
 
 He, immediately after, goes on in the 
 same legal jargon to say, — 
 
112 shajpespeaee's legal acquikements. 
 " our high-plac'd Macbeth 
 
 Shall hve tTie lease of nature." 
 
 But, unluckily for Macbeth, the lease con- 
 tained no covenants for title or quiet enjoy- 
 ment : — there were likewise forfeitures to he 
 incurred by the tenant, — with a clause of re- 
 entry, — and consequently he was speedily 
 ousted/'' 
 
 ®M\ti, 
 
 In the very first scene of this play there 
 is a striking instance of Shakespeare's prone- 
 ness to legal phraseology : — where lago, 
 giving an explanation to Eoderigo of the 
 
 * The lease frequently presents itself to Shake- 
 speare's mind, as in ' Kichard III.,' Act iv. Sc. 4 — 
 
 Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour, 
 Canst thou demise to any child of mine ? 
 
 This is as clear a reference to leasing, as if he had said 
 in full, " demise, lease, grant and to farm let." 
 
OTHELLO. 113 
 
 manner in wliich he had. been disappointed in 
 not obtaining the place of Othello's lieutenant, 
 notwithstanding the solicitations in his favour 
 of " three great ones of the city," says — 
 
 " But he, as loving his own pride and purposes, 
 Evades them with a bomhast circumstance 
 Horribly stuff 'd with epithets of war, 
 And, in conclusion, 
 Nonsuits my mediators." 
 
 "Nonsuiting" is known to the learned to 
 be the most disreputable and mortifying mode 
 of being beaten : it indicates that the action 
 is wholly unfoimded on the plaintiff's own 
 showing, or that there is a fatal defect in the 
 manner in which his case has been got up : 
 insomuch that Mr. Ohitty, the great special 
 pleader, used to give this advice to young 
 barristers practising at nisi prius : — " Always 
 avoid your attorney when nonsuited, for till 
 he has a little time for reflection, however 
 much you may abuse the Judge, he will think 
 that the nonsuit was aU your fault." 
 
114 shakespeaee's legal acquieements. 
 
 In the next scene Shakespeare gives us 
 very distinct proof that he was acquainted 
 with Admiralty law, as well as with the pro- 
 cedure of Westminster HaU. Describing the 
 feat of the Moor in carrying off Desdemona 
 against her father's consent, which might 
 either make or mar his fortune, according as 
 the act might be sanctioned or nidlified, lago 
 observes — 
 
 " Faith, he to-night hath boarded a land carack : 
 If it proTO lawful prize, he's made for ever ; " — 
 
 the trope indicating that there would be a 
 suit in the High Court of Admiralty to de- 
 termine the validity of the capture. 
 
 Then foUows, in Act i. Sc. 3, the trial of 
 Othello before the Senate, as if he had been 
 indicted on Stat. 33 Hen. VII. c. 8, for prac- 
 tising " conjuration, witchcraft, enchantment, 
 and sorcery, to provoke to unlawful love." 
 Brabantio, the prosecutor, says — 
 
 " She is abused, stol'n from me, and corrupted 
 By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks; 
 
OTHELLO. 115 
 
 For Nature so preposterously to err * * * 
 Sans witchcraft could not." 
 
 The presiding Judge at first seems alarm- 
 ingly to favour the prosecutor, saying — 
 
 Buke. Whoe'er he be that in this foul proceeding 
 Hath thus beguil'dyour daughter of herself, 
 And you of her, the bloody book of law 
 Tou shall yourself read, in the bitter lettei". 
 After your own sense. 
 
 The Moor, although acting as his own 
 counsel, makes a noble and skilful defence, 
 directly meeting the statutable misdemeanoxir 
 with which he is charged, — and referring 
 pointedly to the very words of the indictment 
 and the Act of Parliament : — 
 
 "I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver 
 Of my whole course of love ; what dribgs, what charms, 
 What conjuration, and what mighty magic 
 (For such proceedings I am charged withal) 
 I won Ms daughter with," 
 
 Having fully opened his case, showing that 
 he had used no forbidden arts, and having ex- 
 plained the course which he had lawfully pur- 
 sued, he says in conclusion : — 
 
116 SHAKESPEAEE's LEGAl ACQUIEEMENTS. 
 
 " This only is the witchcraft I have used : 
 Here comes the lady — let her witness it." 
 
 He then examines the witness, and is 
 honourably acquitted. 
 
 Again, the application to Othello to for- 
 give Cassio is made to assume the shape of a 
 juridical proceeding. Thus Desdemona con- 
 cludes her address to Cassio, assuring him of 
 her zeal as his Solicitor: — 
 
 " I'll intermingle every thing he does 
 With Oassio's suit : Therefore be merry, Cassio ; 
 For thy Solicitor shall rather die 
 Than give thy cause awa/y." — (Act iii. sc. 3.) 
 
 The subsequent part of the same scene 
 shows that Shakespeare was well accLuaiated 
 with all courts, low as well as high ; — ^where 
 
 lago asks- 
 
 Who has a breast so pure 
 But some uncleanly apprehensions 
 Keep leets and Icno-days, and in session sit 
 With meditations lawful ? 
 
ANTONIO AKD CLEOPATRA. 117 
 
 Jlttiflng and d^Iw^alra* 
 
 In ' Julius Caesar ' I could not find a sin- 
 gle instance of a Eoman being made to talk 
 like an English, lawyer ; but in ' Antony and 
 Cleopatra' (Act i. So. 4) Lepidus, in trying 
 to palliate tbe bad qualities and misdeeds of 
 Antony, uses tbe language of a conveyancer's 
 cbambers in Lincoln's Inn : — 
 
 " His faults, in him, seem as the spots of heaverij 
 More flery by night's blackness ; Tiereditary 
 Rather than purchas'dP 
 
 Tbat is to say, they are taken by descent, 
 not \ij purchased 
 
 Lay gents (viz., all except lawyers) under- 
 stand by " purchase" buying for a sum of 
 
 * So in "'the Second Part of Henry IV.,' Act it. 
 Sc. 4, the King, who had usurped the crown, says to the 
 Prince of Wales — 
 
 For what in me was purchas'd 
 Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort. 
 
 i. e. I took \ty pureTiase,^ovi will take by descent. 
 
118 shasespeaee's legal acquteements. 
 
 money, called the price ; but lawyers consider 
 that " purphase " is opposed to descent, — that 
 all things come to the owner either by descent 
 o'c hy purchase, and that whatever does not 
 come through operation of law by descent is 
 purchased, although it may be the free gift 
 of a donor. Thus, if land be devised by will 
 to A. in fee, he takes by purchase, or to B. 
 for life^ remainder to A. and his heirs, B. be- 
 ing a stranger to A., A. takes by purchase; 
 but upon the death of A., his eldest son would 
 take by descent. 
 
 English lawyers sometimes use these terms 
 metaphorically, like Lepidus. Thus a Law 
 Lord who has suffered much from hereditary 
 gout, although very temperate ia his habits, 
 says, " I take it by descent, not by purchase." 
 Again, Lord Chancellor Elddn, a very bad 
 shot, having insisted on going out quite alone 
 to shoot, and boasted of the heavy bag of 
 game which he had brought home. Lord Stow- 
 ell, insinuating that he had filled it with game 
 bought from a poacher, used to say, "My 
 brother takes his game — not by descent, but 
 by — purchase;" — this being a pendant to 
 
COEIOLANUS. 119 
 
 another joke Lord Stowell was fond of — " My 
 brother, the Chancellor, in vacation goes out 
 with his gun to Mil — ^time." 
 
 ■ ^rwlanus. 
 
 In this drama, in which we should not ex- 
 pect to find any allusion to English juridical 
 proceedings, Shakespeare shows that he must 
 have been present before some tiresome, testy, 
 choleric judges at Stratford, Warwick, or 
 Westminster, — whom he evidently intends to 
 depict and to satirise, — ^like my distinguished 
 friend Charles Dickens, in his famous re- 
 port of the trial of Bardel v, PichwicJe, be- 
 fore Mr, Justice Starey, for breach of promise 
 of marriage. Menenius (Act ii. Sc. 1), in re- 
 proaching the two tribunes, Sicinius and Bru- 
 tus, with their own offences, which they for- 
 get while they inveigh against Coriolanus, 
 says — 
 
 " You wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hear- 
 
120 BHAKESPEAEe's legal AOQUIEEMENTS. 
 
 ing a cause between am orange-wife and a posset-seller^ 
 and then re-journ the controversy of three pence to a 
 second day of audience. When you are hearing a mat- 
 ter 1)611116671 party and, party, if you chance to be pinch- 
 ed with the colic, you make faces like mummers, set up 
 the bloody flag against all patience, and in roaring for a 
 ^pot dismiss the controversy pleading more en- 
 tangled by your hearing: all the peace you make in 
 their cause is, calling both the parties knaves." 
 
 Shakespeare here mistakes the duties of 
 the Tribune for those of the Prcetor; — ^but in 
 truth he was recollecting with disgust what 
 he had himself witnessed in his own country. 
 Nowadays all English judges are exemplary 
 for despatch, patience, and good temper ! ! ! 
 
 Ilflmw and Jul«t. 
 
 The first scene of this romantic drama 
 may he studied by a student of the Inns of 
 Court to acquire a knowledge of the law of 
 " assault and battery," and what will amount 
 to a justification. Although Sampson ex- 
 
EOMEO AISD JULIET. 121 
 
 claims, " My naked weapon is out : quarrel, 
 I will back thee," lie adds, " Let us take the 
 law of our sides ; let tliem begin." Then we 
 learn that neither frowning, nor liting the 
 thumb, nor answering to a question, " Do you 
 bite your thumb at us. Sir ? " " I do bite my 
 thumb. Sir," — ^would be enough to support 
 the plea of se defendendo/' 
 
 The scene ends with old Montagu and old 
 Capulet being bound over, m the English 
 fashion, to Jeeep the peace, — in the same man- 
 ner as two Warwickshire clowns, who had 
 been fighting, might have been dealt with at 
 Charlecote before Sir Thomas Lucy. 
 
 The only other scene in this play I have 
 marked to be noticed for the use of law terms 
 
 * To show the ignorance and stupidity of Sir An- 
 drew Aguecheek ('Twelfth Night,' Act iv. Sc. 1) in 
 supposing that son assault demesne (or that the Plaintiif 
 gaye the first blow) is not a good defence to an action 
 of battery, he is made to say, "I'll have an action of 
 battery against him, if there be any law in Illyria: 
 though I struck him first, yet Ws no matter /or that," 
 6 
 
122 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 
 
 is that between Mercutio and Benfolio, in 
 which they keenly dispute which of the two 
 is the more quarrelsome ; — at last Benvolio, — 
 not denying that he had quarrelled with a 
 man for coughing in the street, whereby he 
 wakened BenvoHo's dog that lay asleep in the 
 sun, — or that he had quarrelled with another 
 for tying his new shoes with old riband, — con- 
 tents himself with this tu quoque answer to 
 Mercutio : — 
 
 An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man 
 should buy ihsfee-svmple of my life for an hour and a 
 quarter. (Act in. Sc. 1.) 
 
 Talking of the/ee-simpZe of a man's life, 
 and calculating how many hours' purchase it 
 was worth, is certainly what might not un- 
 naturally be expected from the clerk of a 
 country attorney.* 
 
 * So in 'AU's WeU -that Ends Well' (Act iv. Sc. 
 3) ParoUes, the bragging cowardly soldier, is made to 
 talk like a conveyancer in Lincoln's Inn: — "He will 
 sell \hefee-ai7nple of his sahation * * and cut the 
 entail from all remainders." 
 
POEMS. 123 
 
 With, a view to your inquiry respecting 
 the learning of Shakespeare I have now, my 
 dear Mr. Payne Collier, gone through all his 
 plays, — and I can venture to speak of their 
 contents with some confidence, having been 
 long familiar with them. His Poems are by 
 no means so well known to me ; for, although 
 I have occasionally looked into them, and I 
 am not blind to their beauties, I must confess 
 that I never could discover in them (like some 
 of his enthusiastic admirers) the same proofs 
 of surpassing genius which render bim im- 
 mortal as a dramatist. But a cursory perusal 
 of them does discover the propensity to legal 
 thoughts and words which might be expected 
 in an attorney's clerk who takes to rhyming. 
 
 I shall select a few instances, without un- 
 necessarily adding any comment. 
 
 From Venus and Adonis. 
 
 " But when the hearfs attorney once is mute, 
 The client breaks as desperate in the suit." 
 
124 SHAKESPEAEE's legal ACQiratEMENTS. 
 
 " Which purchase if thou make for fear of slips, 
 Set thy seal-manual on my leax-red, lips." 
 
 " Ser pleadinff hath deserved a greater fee." 
 
 From the Eape of Ltjceeob. 
 " Dim register and notary of shame." 
 
 " For me I force not argument a straw, 
 Since that my case is past the help of law." 
 
 " No rightful plea might plead for justice there." 
 
 " Hath served a dvmb arrest upon his tongue." 
 
 From the Sonnets. 
 
 " When to the sessions of sweet silent thmgM 
 I summon up remembrance of things past." 
 
 " So should that beauty which you Twld in lease." 
 
 " And summer's lease hath all too short a date." 
 
 " And 'gainst thyself a lawful plea commence." 
 
somiETS. 125 
 
 " But be contented ; when that fell arrest 
 Without all iail shall carry me away."* 
 
 " Of faults concealed, wherein I am attamted." 
 
 "Which works on leases of short numbered hours." 
 
 "Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage 
 Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit, 
 To thee I send this written embassage."! 
 
 " And I myself am mortgag''d." 
 
 " Why so large cost, haying bo short a lease f "J 
 
 " So should that beauty, which you hold in lease, 
 Find no determination."^ 
 
 * Death is the sheriff's officer, strict in his arrest, 
 and will take no bail. 
 
 t This is the beginning of a love-letter, in the lan- 
 guage of a vassal doing homage to his liege lord. 
 
 X Taxing an overcharge iu the attorney's bill of 
 costs. 
 
 § The word " detennination " is always used by 
 lawyers instead of " end." 
 
126 bhakespeaee's legal acquieements. 
 
 SOKNET XL VI. 
 
 " Mine Eye and Heart are at a mortal war 
 How to divide the conquest of thy sight ; 
 Mine Eye my Heart thy picture's sight would bar, 
 My Heart mine Eye the freedom of that right. 
 My Heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie 
 (A closet never pierced with crystal eyes), 
 But the Defendant doth that plea deny, 
 And says in him thy fair appearance lies. 
 To 'cide this title is impanneUed 
 A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the Heart ; 
 And by their verdict is determined 
 The clear Eye's moiety, and the dear Heart's part ; 
 As thus : mine Eyes' due is thine outward part, 
 And my Heart's right, thine inward love of heart." 
 
 I need not go further than this sonnet, 
 which is so intensely legal in its language and 
 imagery, that without a considerable knowl- 
 edge of English forensic procedure it cannot 
 be fuUy understood. A loTcr being supposed 
 to have made a conquest of [*. e. to have 
 gained hj purchase] his mistress, his Eye and 
 his Heakt, holding as Joint-tenants, have a 
 contest as to how she is to be partitioned be- 
 
SONNETS. 127 
 
 tween them, — each moiety then to be held in 
 severalty. There are regular Pleadings in 
 the suit, the Heart being represented as 
 Plaintiff and the Eye as Defendant. At 
 last issue is joined on what the one affirms 
 and the other denies. Now a jury [in the 
 nature of an inquest] is to be impaimelled to 
 'cide [decide] and by their verdict to appor- 
 tion between the litigating parties the subject 
 matter to be divided. The jury fortunately 
 are unanimous, and after due deliberation find 
 for the Eye in respect of the lady's outward 
 form, and for the Heaet in respect of her ia- 
 ward love. 
 
 Surely Sonnet xLVi. smeUs as potently of 
 the attorney's office as any of the stanzas 
 penned by Lord Kenyon while an attorney's 
 clerk in Wales. 
 
128 bhakespeaee'b legal AOQTIIBEMENTS. 
 
 Ultategearfi's '^ill 
 
 Among Shakespeare's writings, I think 
 that attention should be paid to his Will^ 
 for, upon a careful perusal, it wiU be found 
 to have been in all probability composed by 
 himself. It seems much too simple, terse, 
 and condensed, to have been the composition 
 of a Stratford attorney, who was to be paid 
 by the number of lines which it contained. 
 But a testator, without professional experi- 
 ence, could hardly have used language so ap- 
 propriate as we find in this will, to express 
 his meaning. 
 
 Shakespeare, the greatest of British dram- 
 atists, appears to have been as anxious as 
 Sir Walter Scott, the greatest of British 
 novelists, to found a family, although he does 
 not require all his descendants to " bear the 
 name and arms of Shakespeare." But, as far 
 as the rules of English law would permit, he 
 seeks to perpetuate in an heir male, descended 
 from one of his daughters (his son having died 
 
HIS WILL. 129 
 
 in infancyj and there being no longer any 
 prospect of issue male of his own), aU the 
 houses and lands he had acquired, — which 
 were quite sufficient for a respectable War- 
 wickshire squire. His favourite daughter, 
 Susanna, married, to Dr. HaU, an eminent 
 physician, was to be the stirps from which 
 this line of male heirs was to spring ; and the 
 testator creates an estate in taU male, — ^with 
 remainders over, which, but for fines and re- 
 coveries, would have kept the whole of his 
 property in one male representative for gen- 
 erations to come. 
 
 The wiU, dated 25th March, 1616, a 
 month before his death, having given legacies 
 to various friends and relations, thus pro- 
 ceeds : 
 
 " Item, I give, will, bequeath, and devise, unto my 
 daughter, Susanna Hall, for better enabling of her to 
 perform this my will and towards performance thereof, 
 all that capital messuage or tenement, with the appur- 
 tenances, in Stratford aforesaid, called the New Place, 
 wherein I now dwell, and two messuages or tenements 
 with the' appurtenances, situate, lying, and being in 
 Henley Street, within the borough of Stratford afore- 
 
130 SHAKESPEAEE'S legal ACQtriEEMENTS. 
 
 said ; and all my barns, stables, orchards, gardens, 
 lands, tenements, and hereditaments whatsoever, sit- 
 uate, lying, and being, or to be had, received, perceived, 
 or taken, within the towns, hamlets, villages, fields, 
 and grounds of Stratford-upon-Avon, Old Stratford, 
 Bishopton, and Welcombe, or in any of them, in the 
 said county of Warwick ; and also all that messuage or 
 tenement, with the appurtenances, wherein one John 
 Bobinson dwelleth, situate, lying, and being in the 
 Blackfriars in London, near the Wardrobe; and all 
 other my lands, tenements, and hereditaments whatso- 
 ever; to have and to hold all and singular the said 
 premises, with their appurtenances, unto the said Su- 
 sanna Hall, for and during the term of her natural 
 life ; and after her decease, to the first son of her body 
 lawfiilly issuing, and to the heirs males of the body of 
 the said first son lawfully issuing ; and for default of 
 such issue, to the said second son of her body lawfully 
 issuing, and to the heirs males of the body of the sec- 
 ond son lawfully issuing ; and fbr default of such heirs, 
 to the third son of the body of the said Susanna law- 
 fully issuing, and to the heirs males of the body of the 
 said third son lawfully issuing ; and for default of such 
 issue, the same so to be and remain to the fourth, fifth, 
 sixth, and seventh sons of her body, lawfully issuing 
 one after another, and to the heirs males of the bodies 
 of the said fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh sons law- 
 fully issuing, in such manner as it is before limited to 
 be and remain to the first, second, and third sons of her 
 body, and to their heirs males ; and for default of such 
 
HIB WILL. 131 
 
 issue, the said premises to be and remain to my said 
 niece Hall, and the heirs males of her body lawfully 
 issuing ; and for default of such issue, to my daughter 
 Judith, and the heirs males of her body lawfully issu- 
 ing ; and for default of such issue, to the right heirs of 
 me the said William Shakespeare for ever." 
 
 In his will, when originally engrossed, 
 there was no notice whatever taken of his 
 wife ; but immediately after these limitations 
 he subsequently interpolated a bequest to her 
 in the following words :— 
 
 " I give unto my wife my second best bed with the 
 furniture." 
 
 The subject of this magnificent gift being 
 only personal property, he shows his technical 
 sMU by omitting the word devise, which he 
 had used in disposing of his reality.* 
 
 * The idolatrous worshippers of Shakespeare, who 
 think it necessary to make his moral qualities as ex- 
 alted as his poetical genius, account for this sorry be- 
 quest, and for no other notice being taken of poor Mrs. 
 Shakespeare in the will, by saying that he knew she 
 was sufSciently provided for by her right to dower out 
 of his landed property, which the law would give her ; 
 and they add that he must fiave teen tenderly attached 
 
132 bhaeespeabe's legal acquieements. 
 
 Having concluded my examination of 
 Shakespeare's juridical phrases and forensic 
 allusions, — on the retrospect I am amazed, 
 
 to her, because (they take upon themselves to say) she 
 was exquisitely beautiful as well as strictly virtuous. 
 But she was left by her husband without house or fur- 
 niture (except the second best bed), or a kind word, or 
 any other token of his love ; and I sadly fear that be- 
 tween William Shakespeare and Ann Hathaway the 
 course of true love never did run smooth. His boyish 
 inexperience was no doubt pleased for a short time 
 with her caresses ; but he probably found that their 
 union was " misgraffed in respect of years," and gave 
 advice from his own experience when he said, — 
 
 " Let still the woman take 
 An elder tlian herself; so wears she to him, 
 So sways she level In her husband^s heart. 
 
 For, boy, however we do pralso oorselves. 
 Our l^cies are more giddy and infirm, 
 More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn, 
 Than women's are. * * 
 Then let thy love be younger than thysoU; 
 Or thy affection cannot hold the bent; 
 For women are like roses ; whose fair flower, 
 Being once displayed, doth fall that very hour." 
 
 To strengthen the suspicion that Shakespeare was 
 likely not to have much respect for his wife, persons 
 animated by the spirit of the late John Wilson Croker 
 (although Shakespeare'* biographers, in the absence 
 of any register of his marriage, had conjectured that it 
 took place in June, 1582), by searching the records of 
 
EETEOSPECT. 133 
 
 not only by their number, but by the accura- 
 cy and propriety with wbicli they are uniform- 
 ly introduced. Tbere is nothing so dangerous 
 as for one not of the craft to tamper with our 
 free-masonry. In the House of Commons I 
 have heard a county member, who meant to 
 intimate that he entirely concurred with the 
 last preceding speaker,vsay, " I join issue with 
 the honourable gentleman who has just sat 
 down ; " the legal sense of which is, " I flatly 
 contradict all his facts and deny his infer- 
 ences." Junius, who was fond of dabbling 
 in law, and who was supposed by some to be 
 a lawyer (although Sir Philip Francis, then a 
 clerk in the War Office, is now ascertained, 
 
 the Ecclesiastical Court at Worcester, have lately made 
 the very awkward discovery that the bond given on 
 grant of the licence for William Shakesrpea/re to marry 
 Ann Hatha/may is dated 26th November, 1582, whUe 
 the entry in the parish register of the baptism of 
 Susanna, their eldest child, is dated 26th May, 1583. 
 As Shakespeare, at the time of this misfortune, was a 
 lad of eighteen years of age, and Miss Hathaway was 
 more than seven years his senior, he could hardly have 
 been the seducer ; and I am afraid that she was " no 
 better than she should be," whatever imaginary per- 
 sonal charms may be imputed to her. 
 
134 SHAKESPEAEE'b legal AOQUmEMEUTS. 
 
 beyond all doubt, to have been tbe man), in 
 his address to the English nation, speaking 
 of the House of Commons, and wishing to say 
 that the beneficial interest in the state be- 
 longs to the people, and not to their represent- 
 atives, says, "They are only trustees; the/ec 
 is in us." Now every attorney's clerk knows 
 that when land is held in trust, the fee (or 
 legal estate) is in the trustee, and that the 
 beneficiary has only an equitable interest. 
 While Novelists and Dramatists are constant- 
 ly making mistakes as to the law of marriage, 
 of wills, and of inheritance, — to Shakespeare's 
 law, lavishly as he propounds it, there can 
 neither be demurrer, nor bill of exceptions, 
 nor writ of error. 
 
 He is no doubt equally accurate in refer- 
 ring to some other professions, but these refer- 
 ences are rare and comparatively slight. 
 Some have contended that he must have been 
 by trade a gardener, from the conversation, in 
 the ' Winter's Tale,' between Perdita, Po- 
 lixenes, and Florizel, about raising carnations 
 and gilliflowers, and the skilful grafting of 
 fruit trees. Others have contended that 
 
HIS EEFEKENCES TO OTHEE PEOFESSIONS. 135 
 
 Shakespeare must have been Ired to the sea, 
 from the nautical language in ■which directions 
 are given for the manoeuvring of the ship in 
 the ' Tempest/ and from the graphic descrip- 
 tion in Henry IV.'s soliloquy of the " high and 
 giddy mast," of the " ruffian hiUows," of the 
 " slippery shrouds," and of " sealing up the 
 ship hoy's eyes." Nay, notwithstanding the 
 admonition to he found in his works, " Throw 
 physic to the dogs," it has been gravely sug- 
 gested that he must have been initiated ia 
 medicine, from the minute inventory of the 
 contents of the apothecary's shop in ' Komeo 
 and Juliet.' But the descriptions thus re- 
 lied upon, however minute, exact, and pictu- 
 resque, will he found to he the result of casual 
 observation, and they prove only nice percep- 
 tion, accurate recollection, and extraordinary 
 power of pictorial language. Take the last 
 instance referred to — Borneo's pliotograph of 
 the apothecary and his shop. 
 
 " Meagre were his looks, 
 Sharp misery had worn liim to the bones : 
 And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, 
 An alligator stuflfed, and other skins 
 
136 bhakespeaee's legal acquieements. 
 
 Of ill- shaped fishes ; and about his shelves 
 A beggarly account of empty boxes. 
 Green earthen pots, bladders and musty seeds, 
 Bemnants of packthread and old cakes of roses, 
 Were thinly scattered to make up a show." 
 
 (Act V. Sc. 1.) 
 
 Any observing customer, who had once enter- 
 ed the shop to buy a dose of rhubarb, might 
 have safely given a similar account of what 
 he saw, although utterly ignorant of Galen 
 and Hippocrates. But let a non-professional 
 man, however acute, presume to talk law, or 
 to draw illustrations from legal science in 
 discussing other subjects, and he will very 
 speedily fall into some laughable absurdity. 
 
 To conclude my summing up of the evi- 
 dence under this head, I say, if Shakespeare 
 is shown to have possessed a knowledge of 
 law, which he might have acquired as clerk 
 in an attorney's office in Stratford, and which 
 he could have acquired in no other way, we 
 are justified in believing the fact that he was 
 a clerk in an attorney's office at Stratford^ 
 without any direct proof of the fact. Logi- 
 cians and jurists allow us to infer a fact of 
 
STATE OF THE EVIDENOE. 137 
 
 which there is no direct proof, from facts ex- 
 pressly proved, if the fact to be inferred may- 
 have existed, if it he consistent with all other 
 facts known to exist, and if facts known to 
 exist can only he accounted for hy inferring 
 the fact to he inferred. 
 
 But, my dear Mr. Payne Collier, you must 
 not from all this suppose that I have really 
 become an absolute convert to your side of 
 the question, ^neas, wMle in the shades 
 below, for a time believed in the reality of all 
 he seemed to see and to hear; but, when dis- 
 missed through the ivory gate, he found that 
 he had been dreaming. I hope that my argu- 
 ments do not " come like shadows, so depart." 
 Still I must warn you that I myself remain 
 rather sceptical. All that I can admit to you 
 is that you may be right, and that while there 
 is weighty evidence for you, there is nothing 
 conclusive against you. 
 
 Eesuming the Judge, however, I must lay 
 down that your opponents are not called upon 
 to prove a negative, and that the onus pro- 
 handi rests upon you. You must likewise re- 
 member that you require us implicitly to be- 
 
138 shakespeaee's legal acquiebments. 
 
 lieve a fact, wLich, were it true, positive and 
 irrefragaMe evidence in Shakespeare's own 
 handwriting might have been forthcoming to 
 estahlish it. Not having been actually ioroU- 
 ed as an attorney, neither the records of the 
 local court at Stratford, nor of the superior 
 courts at Westminster, would present his 
 name, as being concerned in any suits as an 
 attorney ; but it might have been reasonably 
 expected that there would have been deeds or 
 wiUs witnessed by him still extant ; — -and, 
 after a very diligent search, none such can be 
 discovered. Nor can this consideration be 
 disregarded, that between Nash's Epistle in 
 the end of the 16th century, and Chalmers's 
 suggestion more than two hundred years after, 
 there is no hint by his foes or his friends of 
 Shakespeare having consumed pens, paper, 
 ink, and pounce in an attorney's office at 
 Stratford.* 
 
 I am quite serious and sincere in what I 
 
 * " Three years I sat his smoky room in 
 Pens, paper, ink, and pounce consumin'." 
 
 Pleader's Guide. 
 
8TATK OF THE EVtDENUE. 139 
 
 have written about Nash, and Eohert Greene 
 having asserted the fact ; hut I hy no means 
 think that on this ground alone it must neces- 
 sarily be taken for truth. Their statement 
 that he had belonged to the profession of the 
 law may be as false as that he was a plagiarist 
 from Seneca. Nash and Kobert Greene may 
 have invented it, or repeated it on some 
 groundless rumour. Shakespeare may have 
 contradicted and refuted it twenty times ; or, 
 not thinking it discreditable, though untrue, 
 he may have thought it undeserving of any 
 notice. Observing what fictitious statements 
 are introduced into the published " Lives " of 
 hving individuals, in our own time, when 
 truth in such matters can be so much more 
 easily ascertained, and error so much more 
 easily corrected, we should be slow to give 
 faith to an uncorroborated statement made 
 near three centuries ago by persons who were 
 evidently actuated by malice.* 
 
 * In several successive Lives of Lord Chief Justice 
 Campbell it is related that, by going for a few weeks to 
 Ireland as Chancellor, he obtained a pension of 4000Z. a 
 year, which he has ever since received, thereby robbing 
 
140 bhakespeake's legal acquieements. 
 
 What you have mainly to rely upon (and 
 this consideration may prevail in your favour 
 with a large majority of the literary world) is 
 the seemingly utter impossibility of Shake- 
 speare having acquired, on any other theory, 
 the wonderful knowledge of law which he un- 
 doubtedly displays. But we must bear in 
 mind that, although he was a mortal man, 
 and nothing miraculous can be attributed to 
 him, he was intellectually the most gifted of 
 
 the public ; whereas m truth and in fact, he made it a 
 stipulation on his going to Ireland that he should re- 
 ceiye no pension — and pension he never did receire — 
 and, without pension or place, for years after he re- 
 turned from Ireland he regularly served the public in 
 the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and in 
 the judicial business of the House of Lords. This er- 
 roneous statement is to be found in a recent Life of 
 Lord C, which is upon the whole laudatory above due 
 measure, but in which the author laments that there 
 was one fault to be imputed to him which could not be 
 passed over by an impartial biographer, viz., that he 
 had most improperly obtained this Irish pension, which 
 he still continues to receive without any benefit being 
 derived by the public from his services. — Lord C. ought 
 to speak tenderly of Biographers, but I am afraid that 
 they may sometimes be justly compared to the hogs of 
 Westphalia, who without discrimination pick up what 
 falls from one another. 
 
STATE OF THE EVIDENCE. 141 
 
 manMiid, and that he was capable of acquir- 
 ing knowledge where the opportunities he en- 
 joyed would have been insufficient for any 
 other. Supposing that John the father Hved 
 as a gentleman, or respectably carried on 
 trade as one of the . principal inhabitants of 
 the town, and that William the son, from the 
 time of leaving the grammar-school till he 
 went to London, resided with his father, as- 
 sisting him in the management of his houses 
 and land and any ancillary business carried on 
 by him, — the son might have been in the 
 habit of attending trials in the Stratford 
 Court of Pecord, and when of age he might 
 have been summoned to serve as a juryman 
 there or at the Court Leet ; he might have 
 been intimate with some of the attorneys who 
 practised in the town and with their clerks, 
 and while in their company at fairs, wakes, 
 church ales, bowHng-, bell-ringing-, and hurl- 
 ing-matches, he might not only have picked 
 up some of their professional jargon, but gain- 
 ed some insight into the principles of their 
 calling, which are not without interest to the 
 curious. 
 
142 Shakespeare's legal acquieements. 
 
 Moreover, it is to be considered that, al- 
 though Shakespeare in 1589 was unquestion- 
 ably a shareholder in the Blackfriars Theatre, 
 and had trod the boards as an actor, the time 
 when he began to write for the stage is uncer- 
 tain ; and we are not in possession of any piece 
 which we assuredly know to have been written 
 and finished by him before the year 1592. 
 Thus there was a long interval bettsreen his 
 arrival in London and the publication of any 
 of the dramas from which my selections are 
 made. In this interval he was no doubt con- 
 versant with aU sorts and conditions of men. 
 I am sorry to say I cannot discover that ai 
 any period of his life Lord Chancellors or Lord 
 Chief Justices showed the good taste to culti- 
 vate his acquaintance.* But he must have 
 been intimate with the students at the Inns 
 of Court, who were in the habit of playing 
 before Queen Elizabeth at Greenwich, as he 
 
 * Although it is said that Shakespeare was intro- 
 duced to Lord Chancellor EUesmere, Lord Somers is 
 the first legal dignitary I find forming friendships with 
 literary men. 
 
STATE OF THE EVIDENCE. 14:3 
 
 took a part in these court theatricals ; and 
 the author, in all probability, was' present 
 among the lawyers when ' Twelfth Mght ' 
 was brought out at the Eeaders' Feast in the 
 Middle Temple, and when ' Othello ' was 
 acted at Lord Chancellor Ellesmere's before 
 Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 Shakespeare, during his first years in 
 London, when his purse was low, may have 
 dined at the ordinary in Alsatia, thus de- 
 scribed by Dekker, where he may have had a 
 daily surfeit of law, if, with his universal 
 thirst for knowledge, he had any desire to 
 drink deeply at this muddy fountain : 
 
 " There is another ordinary at which your London 
 usurer, your stale bachelor and your thrifty attorney 
 do resort ; the price three-pence ; the rooms as full of 
 company as a gaol ; and indeed divided into several 
 wards, like the beds of an hospital. * * * If they 
 chance to discourse,_it is of nothing but of statutes, 
 ionds, recogniecmces, fines, recoveries, audits, rents, sub- 
 sidies, sureties, enclosures, liveries, indictments, outlaw- 
 ries, feoffments, judgments, commissions, lanhrupts, 
 cmercements, and of such horrible matter."— BeMer's 
 GulVs HornbooTc, 1609. 
 
 In such company a willing listener might 
 
IM shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 
 
 soon make great progress in law ; and it may 
 be urged, tliat I have tmconsciously exagger- 
 ated tlie difficulty to he encountered by Shake- 
 speare in picking up Ms knowledge of that 
 whicli I myself have been so long labouring to 
 understand. Many may tbink tbat Shake- 
 speare resembles his own Prince Hal, when 
 reformed and become Henry V., who, not- 
 withstanding his revels in East Cheap, and 
 with no apparent opportunities of acc[uiring 
 the knowledge he displayed, astonished the 
 world with his universal wisdom : 
 
 " Hear him but reason in divinity, 
 And, all-admiring, with an inward wish. 
 You would desire the king were made a prelate. 
 Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs, 
 You would say, it hath been all-in-all his study. 
 List his discourse of war, and you shall hear 
 A fearful battle render'd you in music. 
 Turn him to any cause of policy, 
 The Gordian knot of it he will unloose 
 Tamiliar as his garter ; that, when he speaks. 
 The air, a chartered libertine, is still, 
 And the mute wonder lurketh in man's ears 
 To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences ; 
 So that the art, and practick part of life, 
 Must be the distress to this theorick." 
 
 Hemry V., Act i. Sc. 1. 
 
CONCLUSION. 145 
 
 We cannot argue with confidence on the 
 principles which would guide us to safe con- 
 clusions respecting ordinary men, when we 
 are reasoning respecting one of whom it was 
 truly said : 
 
 "Each change of many-coloured life he drew, 
 Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new ; 
 Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, 
 And panting Time toiled after him in vain." 
 
 And now, my dear Mr. Payne OoUier, I 
 must conclude. Long ago, I dare say, you 
 were heartily sorry that you ever thought of 
 taking the opinion of counsel on this knotty 
 point ; and at last you may not only exclaim, 
 " I am no wiser than I was," but shaking your 
 head, like old Demipho in ' Terence,' after 
 being present at. a consultation of lawyers on 
 the validity of his son's marriage, you may 
 sigh and say, " Incertior sum mult6 quam 
 dudum." 
 
 However, if my scepticism and my argu- 
 mentation (worthy of Serjeant Eitherside) 
 should stimulate you deliberately to reconsider 
 
 the question, and to communicate your ma- 
 
 7 
 
146 shakespeaee's l^gai acquibements. 
 
 tured judgment to the worldj I shall not have 
 doubted or hallucinated in vain. By another 
 outpouring of your Shakespearian lore you 
 may entirely convince, and at all events you 
 will much gratify, 
 
 Your sincere admirer and friend, 
 (Signed) Campbell. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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