SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS CONSIDERED. BY JOHN LORD CAMPBELL, LL.D., F.R.S.E. A LETTER TO J:.I>ATNE COLLIEE, Esq., F.S.A. "Tliou art cUrhly^ thou art clerhly I " Merry Wi/ces of Wmdsor. NEW YOKK : D. APPLETOK AND COMPANY, 346 «& 848 BKOADWAT. M.DCCC.LIX. £3 copy ^ WW PREEACE. ^^ When my old and valued friend, Mr. Payne Collier, received the following 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 wcxc; not so comj^limentary, 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 OAiEN of our immortal bard." If he had said a '^;pebhle," the word would have been more appropriate. But the hope of maMng 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 PREFACE. pointing out Shakespeare's frequent use of law-phrases, and tlie strict propriety witli •whicli lie always applies them, the Chief Justice may he likened to the Cobbler, 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 skilful 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. Steatheden House, Jan, 1, 1859. CONTENTS IXTEODUCTION, PAGE . 7 The Merey "Wives of "Windsor, 39 Measure for Measure, . 41 The Comedy of Errors, 44 As Yoij Like It, . . 47 Much Ado about IsTothixg, 53 Loye's Labour's Lost, . 56 Midsummer !N"ight's Dream, 57 The Merchant of Venice, . 59 The Taming of the Shrew, 63 All's Well that Ends Well, . 67 The Winter's Tale, 71 King John, . 74 King Henry the Fourth, Part L, 78 King Henry the Fourth, Part IL, . 82 King Henry the Sixth, Part IL, 91 Troilus and Ceessida, . 96 King Lear, .... 97 Hamlet, . • . , . 103 Macbeth, • • • • . Ill 6 CONTENTS. PAGE Othello, ..... . 112 Antony and Cleopatea, iir COKIOLANUS, .... . 119 EoMEO AND Juliet, 120 Poems, ..... . 123 Shakespeare's Wttt,, . 128 Keteospeot, , . . • 132 SHAEESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIRE]\IENTS CONSIDERED. To J. Payne Collier^ JEsq.^ Riverside^ Maidenhead^ JBerks. Hartrigge, Jedburgh, K B. September 15th, 1858. My dear Mr. Payne Collier^ Knowing that I take great deligM 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 Chancellors/ 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* SHAKESPEAKE's legal ACQTJIEEMEN18, torney's office at Stratford before he joined the players in London ? From your indefatigable researches and yonr critical acumen, which have thrown so much new light upon the career of our un- rivalled 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 Shakesj)eare ' 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. V lings of Westminster Hall. In literary pur- suits sliould I have wished ever to be en- gaged,— " Me si fata meis paterentur ducere vitam Auspiciis, et sponte mea componere curas." Having read nearly all 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 tell the twelve gentlemen in the box that it is a case entirely for their decision, — without venturing even to hiat to them, for their guidance, any 10 shakespeaee's legal acquiresients. oj)iiiion of my own. Sliould tliey 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 cliance of our agreeing, and therefore zue tvish to he discharged ; " that having sent for th-em 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 bailijQt' into Avhose custody the jurymen are dehver- ed. I had lately to determine whether gas-lamps could be considered "candle-light." Infavoremmtm^l-yeu.- 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. CONSPIEACY OF THE CRITICS. 11 morning pale and ghastly, still saying ^^ ive cannot agree," and that, according to the rigour of the law, I ought to order them to be again locked up as before till 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 giving 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 Shakespeare'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 habitj while killing a calf, eloquently to harangue the bystanders ; that he continued in this occupation till he was obliged 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 acquaintance 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 farther 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 family, had some real property by descent, married a coheiress of an ancient GENTILITY "OF HIS FATHEE. 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- 23oration books sujDposed to indicate that at one period of his life he was involved in pe- cuniaiy difficulties ; but this did not detract from his gentility, as is proved by the subse- quent confirmation of his armorial bearings, with a sHght 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 Clarencieux 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' Ofiice when Sir William Dethick was Garter King-at-Arms. Against this posi- tive evidence we lawyers should consider the negative 14 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. was, as has been recently asserted, a glover, or that he ever 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 sell 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 3o\)n Sljaekspcr is subscribed in a strong, clear band, and tbe marh, supposed to be bis, evidently be- longs to tbe name of (EI]omas iDnr un in tbe line below. '•'•" You tell us, in your latest edi- tion, of tbe production of two new documents before tbe Sbakespeare Society, dated respect- ively 3rd and 9tb Dec, 11 Eliz., wbicb, it is said, if John Shakespeare could bave written, would bave been signed by bim, — wbereas tbey only bear bis mark. But in my own experience I bave known many instances of documents bearing a mark as tbe signature of persons wbo could write well, and tbis was probably mucb more common in illiterate ages, wben documents were generally authen- ticated by a seal. Even if it were demon- strated that John Shakespeare had not been " so well 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 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. tlie wars of the Koses, this deficiency would not weigh much in dis23roving 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 ShakesjDeare, 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-like hand, which he probably acquired early. There was a free grammar school at Stratford, founded in the reign of Edward lY., and reformed by a char- ter of Edward YI. This school was supplied by a succession of competent masters to teach Greek and Latin : and here the sons of all CULTIYATION OF HIS MDsD. 17 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 acquired, but the boys were thoroughly grounded in Latin grammar, and were rendered familiar with the most popular Koman classics. Shake- speare must have been at this school at least RYe years. His father's supposed pecuniary difficulties, which are said to have interrupted his education, did not occur till WiUiam 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 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. like Shakespeare^ as the son of a burgess ; and many from such schools, without further regular tuition, have distinguished themselves in literature. • It is said that " the boy 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 imveil Her awM face : — the dauntless child Stretched forth his little arms, and smiled." The grand difficulty is to discover, or to conjecture with reasonable probabihty, 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 stitcMng gloves, sorting wool, or killing calves, no sensible man can possibly imagine. At twenty-three years of age, altbongb be bad not become regularly learned as if be bad taken tbe degree of M. A. at Oxford or Cambridge, after disput- ing in tbe scbools de omni scihili et quolihet enfe, — tbere can be no doubt that, like our Scottish Burns, his mind 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 all the most extravagant and ap- palling marvels of mesmerism, clairvoyance, table-turning, and spirit-rapping. Of Shakespeare's actual occupations dur- ing these important years, when his character 20 shakespeaee's legal acqijieements. was formed, there is not a scintilla of contem- porary proof; and the vague traditionary evi- dence which 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 aj)pear 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 LEAVINQ SCHOOL. 21 facts. From tlie registration of the baptism of Shakespeare's cMldren^ 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 pupil; of this he certain- ly never was master, for the unbroken succes- sion of masters from the reign of Edward YI. tiU the reign of James I. is on record ; none of the mob who stand out for Shakespeare be- ing quite 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 all exceedingly ridiculous. First we have Holofernes 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 acquieements. comes tiie Welsliman, 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 all personal actions to the amount of 30Lj equal, at the latter end of the reign of Elizabeth, to more than 100?, in the reign WAS HE AN ATTOENEy's CLEEK ? 23 of Yictoria. This court, tlie records of wliich are extant, was regulated by tlie course of practice and pleading wliicH 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, six attorneys, some of whom must have practised in the Queen's Bench and in Chancery, and have had extensive business in 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 acquirements 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 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. From the moderate pay allowed him by his master he would 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 25 writings display, and familiar as lie appeals 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 metropoHs 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 a2:ent 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 Parliament 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 Term ends."— Po^^. 2 26 Shakespeare's legal acqijieements. On tlie supposition of Shakespeare having been an attorney's clerk at Stratford we may likewise see how^ when very young, he contracted his taste for theatricals, even if he had never left that locality till 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 the STEOLLmG PLATERS AT STKATFOED. 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 us 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 Bailiff 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 oflSce was closed for the day ; and year, mo7'e majorum. To his question to me, " Where do you live?" I answered, " I have chambers in Lin- coln's Inn, my Lord." "Ah!" replied he, "but I mean — when term is overy 28 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. 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 ^Ye to ten members ; and when a play to be performed in the Gruildhall at Stratford contained more characters than individuals in the hst 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 libel 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 ACTOE. 29 Leaving Stratford and joining tlie players in London in 1586 or 1587, there can be no doubt tbat bis success Tras very rapid ; for, as early as 1589, be bad actually got a sbare in tbe Blackfriars Tbeatre, and be was a partner in managing it witb bis townsman Tbomas Green and bis countryman Kicbard Burbadge. I do not imagine tbat wben be went up to London be carried a tragedy in bis pocket to be offered for tbe stage as Samuel Jobnson did ' Ikene/ Tbe more probable conjecture is, tbat be began as an actor on tbe London boards, and being em- ployed, from tbe cleverness be displayed, to correct, alter, and improve dramas written by otbers, be went on to produce dramas of bis own, wbicb were applauded more loudly tban any tbat bad before appeared upon tbe Eng- lish stage. '•' Envy does merit as its shade pursue ; " and rivals wbom be surpassed not only en^ded Shakespeare, but grossly libelled him. Of this we have an example in ' An Epistle to tbe Gentlemen Students of the Two Univer- 30 shakespeake's legal acquikements. sities, by Thomas Nash/ prefixed to the first edition of Kohert Greene's 'Menaphon' (which was subsequently called ' Greene's Arcadia/) — 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 JSFoverint, whereto they were born, and busy them- selves with the endeavours of art, that could scarcely Latinize their neck-verse if they should have need ; yai English Seneca, read by candle-light, yields many good sentences, as Uood is a Icggar^ and so forth ; and if you intreat him fair, in a frosty morning, he will afford you whole Eamlets ; I should say handfuls of tragical speeches. But grief! Tempiis edax rerum — what is that will last always ? The sea exhaled by drops will 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 the declaration in an ac- tion, '^Shakespeare v. Nash," for this libel ALLEGED LIBEL ON SHAEIESPEAEE. 31 ( — ^^ thereby then and there meaning the said William Shakespeare" — ) he 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 EHzabeth's reign deeds were in the Latin tongue ; and all deeds poll, and many other law papers, began with the words " NOYEKINT universi per presentes "—" Be it known to all 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 " JSTOVEKINT universi per prese7ites." The business of an attorney seems to have been then known as " the trade of ITOYEKINT/' Ergo, "these shiftmg 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 English translation of Seneca. For completing Nash's testimony (valeat 32 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. quantum) to tlie fact that Shakespeare liad been bred to tlie law^ nothing remains but 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 Bobert 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 Greene " sweet friend." It is well known that this Kobert Greene (who, it must always be remembered, was a totally different person from Thomas Green, the actor and j)art 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 ROBERT GREENE. 33 friars Theatre, to touch up and improve new pieces proposed to the managers, and to sup- ply original pieces of his own. Kobert Greene 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 Shakespeare as having abandoned "the trade of Noverinf in order to " busy himself with the endeavours of art," and 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 Noverint," which with Nash he had before made, but he point- edly upbraids Shakespeare by the nickname of Slialze- 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 allude to Shakespeare as one who 2* 34 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. " supposes lie is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of bis predecessors/' as "an absolute Johannes Factotum," and " in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country." In 1592 Kobert Greene 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, ISTash and Kobert Greene, and that Shakespeare was the object of it. But I do not hesitate to believe that !N"ash, 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 * You no doubt recollect that Robert Greene ac- tually died of starvation before his 'Groatsworth of Wit,' in which he so bitterly assailed Shalcespeare as " Shake-scene " was published. ELABOKATION OF HIS PLAYS. 35 Epistle appended to it, has been produced. I am also aware tliat ^ 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 ofi^ 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 Shakespeare's legal acqtjieements. tliem 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 jDlagiarised so freely, had been published sev- eral years before Nash's Epistle ; — and in the scene with the plaj^ers 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 think you will be justified in 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 corroborated 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 Gentlemen of Verona/ 'Twelfth Night/ 'Juhus Ceesar/ ' Cymbe- line/ ' Timon of Athens/ ' The Tempest/ ' King Kichard 11./ ' King Henry Y./ ' King Heniy YI. Part I./ ' King Henry YI. Part III./ 'King Kichard III./ 'King Henry YIII/ ' 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 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. quest, which, would have been accidentally valuable, although intrinsically worthless. However, from each of the remaining twenty-three dramas I have made exti-acts which I think are well worth your attention. These extracts I will now lay before you, with a few explanatory remarks, — which perhaps you will think demonstrably prove that your correspondent is a laivyer, and nothing but A LAWYEE. 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 foho of 1623, the earliest authority for the whole col- lection. THE MEREY WIVES OP WINDSOR. 39 \u P^rrg Wim^ nf MuiteDr. In Act II. Sc. 2, where Ford; under the 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 ujDon her he had had no bene- ficial return, we have the following question and answer : — Fal. Of what quality was your love, then 1 Ford. Like a fair house built upon another man's ground; so that I have lost my edifice ly mistaJcing the place ichere 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 wiU be permitted to remove all the materials of the structure, and particularly the marble piUars and carved chimney-pieces with which he has adorned it ; but Shake- 40 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. speare knew better. He was aware that, being fixed to the freeholdj tlie absolute property in tbem belonged to the owner of the soil, and he recollected the maxim, Cujus est solum, ejus est usque ad coelum. 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-a-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 ? 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, soared out of him : if the devil have him not in fee simple, loith fine and recovery^ he will never, I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again. MEASURE FOK 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 be- come aware of the law u]3on 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. Pasur^ for |%iisuit. In Act I. Sc. 2, the old lady who had kept a lodging-liouse of a disreputable character in the suburbs of Vienna being thrown into de- spair by the proclamation that all such houses in the suburbs must be plucked down, the Clown thus comforts her :— r Clo. Come ; fear not you : good counsellors lack no clients. 42 Shakespeare's LEaAL acquirements. This comparison is not very flattering to tlie bar, but it seems to show a familiarity with both the professions alluded to. In Act II. 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'll 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, MEASTTEE FOR MEASURE. 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 Irotlier Angela will not be al- tered ; Claudio must die to-morrow. * * * If onij 'brother wrought by 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 hrotlier 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 observed from a beauti- * I am glad to observe that our " brethren " in America adhere to the old phraseology of TTestminster Hall. A Chief Justice in New England thus concludes a very sound judgment: — "My brother Blamierhasset, 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." 4:4: ful passage in this play, — ^wbich, lest I should be tliouglit guilty of irreverence, I do not ven- ture to comment upon : — Angela . Your brother is a forfeit to the law. Iscibella. Alas ! alas ! Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once ; And He that might the vantage best have took Found 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.) ®to ({mxt&i xrf ^rr^rs. The following is part of the dialogue be- tween Antix)holus 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 oxcoveryf Dro. S. Yes, to pay fifine for a periwig, and recover the lost hair of another man. THE COMEDY OF EREORS. 45 These jests cannot be supposed to arise from anything in the laws or customs of Syra- cuse ; but 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 well ? " and Dromio rephes — 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 j 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. Adr. 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 ? tell me at whose suit. 46 shakespeaee's legal acquikements. 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. * * * Adr. * * * This I wonder at : That he, unknown to me, should be in debt. Tell me, was he arrested on a Ijond f Dro. 8. Not on a lonc\ but on a stronger thing : A chain, a cJucin ! Here we have a most circumstantial and graphic account of an English arrest on mesne process ["before judgment"], in an action on the case J for the price of a gold chain, 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 fellow- student of mine (since an eminent Judge), being sent to an attorney's office, as part of his legal education, used to accompany the sheriff'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 YOU LIKE IT. 47 31^ |M lik |i In Act I. Sc. 2, Shakespeare makes the lively KosaKnd, who, although well versed in poesy and books of chivalry, had prohably never seen a bond 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 presentes, in English, "Be it known to all men by these pres- ents : "— Le Beau. There comes an old man and his three sons, — Cel. I could match this beginning with an old tale. Le Beau. Three proper young men, of excellent growth and presence j — Bos. With bills on their necks, — ^'- Be it Icnoicn unto all men ly these presents^'' — This is the technical phraseology referred to by Thomas Nash in his ^Ej)istle to the Gentlemen Students of the two Universities,' in the year 1589, when he is supposed to have 48 shakespeahe's legal acquirements. denounced tlie author of ^ Hamlet ' as one of those who had " left the trade of Noverinf, whereto they were born, for handfuls of tragi- cal S23eeches'' — 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,'' &o., 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 YOU LIKE IT. 49 And again wliere the careless herd, jumping by him without greeting him, are compared to '^ fat and greasy citizens,'^ who look " Upon that poor and broken larikrupt there," — without pitying his sufferings or attempting to relieve his necessities. It may perhaps be said that such language might be used by any man of observation. But in Act III. Sc. 1, a deep technical knowl- edge of law is displayed, howsoever it may have been acquired. The usurping Duke, Frederick, wishing all the real property of Oliver 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 — Dulce Fred. Make an extent upon Ms liome 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 shakespeaee's legal acqtjikements. So in ^ King Henry YIII/ we have an equally accurate statement of the omnivorous nature of a writ of Pe^munire. 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 prwrnunirCj That therefore such a writ be sued against you, Ta forfeit all your goods, lands, tenements, Chattels, and whatsoever, and to de Out of the Eing''s x>rotection»'' In the next scene of ^ As You Like It/ Shakspeare shows that he was well acquainted with lawyers themselves and the vicissitudes of their lives. Eosalind having told "who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal," "being asked, " Who Time stands still withal ? " answers — With la^vyers in the vacation ; for they sleep "between 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, [Celui qui vient a tour d'autrui ; Qui alterius vices subit ; Legatus ; Yakeel.] Bos. Well, in her person I say — I will not have you. Orl. Then, in my own person, I die. Ros. 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, mdelicet^ in a love cause.* * So in ' Eichard III.,' Act iv. Sc. 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 love to her. 52 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. I am sorry to say that in our time tlie 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 am ready to sup- port a bill " 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 Bosworth, says — I by attorney bless thee from thy mother. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHINQ. 53 Eos. TVell, Time is the old Justice that examines all such offenders, and let Time try. As in ^ Troilus and Cressida ' (Act iv. Sc. 5) Shakespeare makes Time an Arhitrator : — "And that old common Aebitratoe, Time, Will one day end it." M\ %h %hmi '§n\\\\\\^. 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 estabhshment of the metropolitan and rural police ; but I cannot helj) 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: Shakespeare's legal acquirements. England to ^^ give a charge" to constables; but from time immemorial there has been " a charge to grand juries" by tbe 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. So. 3.) MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHINa. 55 If the different parts of Dogberry's charge are strictly examined^ it will be found that the author of it had a very respectable ac- quaintance with crown law. The problem was to save the constables from all trouble, danger, and responsibility, without any regard to the public safety : — Bogb. If you meet a thief, you may suspect him, by virtue of your office, 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 ? Dogh. Truly, by your office you may j 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 call a prince's brother villain ; or ^'flat hurglary as ever was committed " to receive a thousand 66 shakespeake's legal acquieements. ducats "for accusing a lady wrongfully/' But the 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. 3m'n m^m'^ 3^^t In Act I. Sc. 1, we have an extract from the Keport 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 lawyerhke, 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, beholdest, surveyest, and seest. * * * Him I (as my ever-esteemed duty pricks me on) have sent to thee to receive the meed of MIDSUMMEK NIGHt's DEEAJSI. 57 punishment, by tliy sweet Grace's officer, Antony Dull, a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation. The 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. PiiteummiJr ^§x^\A!^ ^xmw. 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 shakespeahe's legal acquieements. 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 promded 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 line, 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 MEECHANT OF VENICE. 59 In Act I. Sc. 3, and Act ii. Sc. 8, Anto- nio's bond to Sliylock 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 jounc- tual payment is expressed in the technical phrase — " Let good Antonio Tceep Ms day.'' It appears by Act iii. 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 fiesh, or must be contented with pecuniary damages. 60 SHAKESPEAEE S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS. Shylocb 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 plain 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. . Anionio. The Duke cannot deny the course of law. All this has a strong odour of Westmin- ster Hall. The trial comes on in Act iv. Sc. 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 MEKCHANT OF VENICE. 61 the 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 fbr the defendant, attempting on equitable grounds to have him excused by papng 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 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. make over all his goods to his daughter Jessi- ca and her Christian husband 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 cliristening thou shalt have tioo godfatliers: 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- tem;pt," the practice is that before sentence is finally pronounced, he is sent into the Crown Office, and being there " cliarged upon inter- THE TAMINa OF THE SHEEW. 63 rogatories,^' he is made to swear that he will " 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 ns go in, And charge hb tJiere U2wn inter'' gatories. And ice will aiuicer all things faWif idly . Gratiano assents, observing, — Let it be so : the first inter'gatory That 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. Wi\t SfitmittK 4 M ^fom* 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 acquirements. in England. He puts this speecli into tlie moutli of a servant, who is trying to persuade Sly tliat 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 you say, ye were beaten out of door, And rail upon the hostess of the house, And say you would present Tier at tlie leet, Because slie trouglit 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 SHEEW. 65 runs tlms : — " He [an informer] transforms himselfe into several shapes, to avoid suspicion o£ inneJiolders, and inwardly joyes at the sight of a blacke 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 wliereof, Please ye, we may contrive this afternoon, And quaff carouses to our mistress' health ; And do as adversaries do in laic, Strive mightily^ hut eat and dririk as friends. This clearly alludes not to the parties litigating, who, if they were to eat and drink 66 shakespeaee's legal acquieements. together, would generally he disposed to poison each 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 " All 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 Tothill Fields before the judges of the Court of Com- mon Pleas in the reign of Elizabeth. Kath. What is your crest ? a coxcomb ? Pet. A combless cock, so Kate will be my hen. Katli. No cock of mine : you crow too like a crmen, (Act II. Sc. 1.) This all 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 lie bore the infamous name of Craven for tlie rest of liis days. We have like evidence in ' Hamlet ' (Act IV. Sc. 4) of Shakespeare's acquaintance with the legal meaning of this word^ where the hero says — Now, whether it be Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on th' event. %\V^ MtW \M ^iKls MtW. 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 acquirements. France, and, strictly speaking, tlie law of tliat country ouglit to prevail in settling such ques- tions : but Dr. Johnson, in his notes on ^ All's Well that Ends Well,' justly intiraates 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 all 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 Eousillon, still a minor, who held large possessions as tenant in cajpite under the crown, and was in ward to the King. Helena undertook the cure, making this condition : — Mel Then shalt thou give me with thy kingly hand What husband in thy power I will command. Adding, however : — 69 Exempted be from me the arrogance To choose from forth the royal blood of France * * * But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow. (Act ir. Sc. 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 — Fair maid, send forth thine 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 : — Hel. I dare not say I take you j 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- In such a business give me leave to use The help of mine own eyes. 70 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. But the King, after mucli discussion, thus addresses liim : — 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 the 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 abandoning 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, 71 was in full force in tlie reign of Elizabeth, 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. mt Wiinuf^ mt 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 mesalr liance.-^Qo, Litt. 80a. 72 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. tion. Hermione, trying to persuade Polixenes, King of Boliemia, to prolong his stay at tlie court of Leontes in Sicily, says to Hni — You put me off with limber vows ; but T, Though you would seek t' unsphere the stars with oaths, Shouldyet say, "Sir, no going." * * * Force me to keep you as a prisoner^ Not like a guest ; so you sliallpay 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 all acquitted lorisoners, 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 Eod or the Serjeant-at- Arms, " You are discharged, paying your feesr When the trial of Queen Hermione for high treason comes off in Act iii. Sc. 2, al- THE winter's tale. 73 thougli the indictment is not altogether ac- cording to English legal form, and might be held insnfficient on a writ of error, we lawyers cannot bnt 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, Nor read the secrets in 't. 74 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. linij <|oIin* 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 he accounted 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 aj)pears 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 ^Kma John/ between Kobert and Philip Faulconhridge, as to which of them was to be considered the true heir of the de- cealSed Sir Eobert, the King, in giving judg- ment, lays down the law of legitimacy most perspicuously and soundly, — thus addressing Eobert, the plaintiff : — " Sirrahj 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 ? 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 Robert, had 76 Shakespeare's legal acqtjieements. no power to dis^DOSsess the right 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 dulTbed Sir Eichard. 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 into an engagement to support Arthur against his unnatural uncle, till the young prince should be put in j)ossession 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, kissing the boy to render the covenant more bindiug, " 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 true ancient doctrine of ^^the supremacy of tlie 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 Keformers and the Eomanists, he spurned the ultramontane pretensions of the Pope, which some of our Eoman Catholic fellow subjects are now too much disposed to coun- tenance, although they were stoutly resisted before the Keformation by our ancestors, who were good Cathohcs. King John declares, Act III. 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 him and his usurp'd authority. King Philip. Brother of England, you blaspheme in this. King John. Though you and all the kings of Chris- tendom 78 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. Are led so grossly by this meddling priest, Dreading tlie curse that money may buy out, And by the merit of vile gold, dross, dust, 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 tlie same time, it is clear^ from Shake- speare's portraiture of Friar Lawrence and other Koman Catholic ecclesiastics^ who do honour to their church, that he was no bigot, and that he regarded with veneration all who seek to imitate the meek example of the divine founder of the Christian religion. Part I. In Act III. Sc. 1, we have the partition of England and Wales between Mortimer, Glendower, and Hotspur, and the business is EING HENKY THE FOURTH. 79 conducted in as clerk-like, attorney-like fash- ion, as if it had been the partition of a manor between joint tenants, tenants in common, or coparceners. Glend. 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 Coz, to you, The remnant northward, lying off from Trent ; And our indentures tri;partit6 are draicn, Which 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 he imagined, that in compos- ing this speech Shakespeare was recollecting how he had seen 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 acqtjieements. sents that tlie unlearned Hotspur, wlio had such an antipathy to "metre ballad-mongers" and " mincing poetry/' fully understood this conveyancing proceeding, and makes him ask impatiently, " Are the indentures drawn ? shall we be gone 1" Shakespeare may have been taught that " livery 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 Kichard '''Enfeoffed himself io popularity" (Act iii. Sc. 2). I copy Malone's note of explanation on this line : — " Gave himself up absolutely to popu- larity. A feoffment was the ancient mode of KING HENRY THE FOUETH. 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, that is, with the delivery of corporal possession of the 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, till 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 unminded outlaw, sneaking home, My father gave him welcome to the shore : 4^ 82 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. And when he heard him swear, and vow to God, He came but to be Duke of Lancaster, To sue Ms livery J and beg his peace, With tears of innocency and terms of zeal, "Mj father, in kind heart and pity mov'd, Swore him assistance." Part II. Arguments liave been drawn from this drama against Shakespeare's supposed great legal acquirements. It has been objected to the very amusing interview, in Act i. Sc. 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 the eigliteenth century that illus- trioiis Judge, Lord Chief Justice Holt, acted as a XDolice magistrate, quelling riots, taking depositions against parties accused, and, where a prima 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 ^adow, 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 acquirements. tlie summons served iiiDon liim to attend at his Lordship's chambers, 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, he was not bound to come. Again, it is objected that a Chief Justice could not be suj)posed, 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 listen 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. Cli, Just. 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- HENEY THE FOUETH. 85 judges from the bencli. I will content my- self with one. A petition being heard in the Court of Chancer}^, before Lord Chancellor Jeffreys^ against 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 Chancellor Jeffreys : — " Then will I lay my maker hy 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 — " God 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 shakespeaee's legal acquieements. hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time ; and I most humbly 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 spleai- 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 ITewgate to answer for the robbery at Gadshill, is con- tented with admonishing him to he lionest, 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 further, my Lord Chief Justice is made to break oif the conversation, in which Falstaff's wit is so sparkling, with a very bad pun. CTi. Just. Not a penny, not a penny: you are too impatient to bear crosses.^ * So bad is this pun that perhaps it may not be Kma HENRY THE FOURTH. 87 The same superiority is preserved in tlie subseq[uent scene (Act ii. Sc. 1), where Fal- staff being arrested on mesne process for debt at the suit of Dame Quickly, he gains his discharge, with the consent of the Chief Justice, by sapng 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 Mno-'s affairs." In Act V. Sc. 1, Falstaff, having long made Justice Shallow his butt daring a visit to him in Gloucestershire, looks forward with great delight to the fun of recapitulating 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 2:>e7iny and all the royal corns then had impressed upon them the sign of the cross. 88 SHAKESPEAEE's legal ACQriEEMENTS. the Prince of Wales for a twelvemonth , he says — "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 inter Valiums." Dr. Johnson thns annotates on the " tioo 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- mencing 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 been blamed for an extravagant perversion of law in the prom- KING- HENRY THE FOrETH. 89 ises and threats wHch Falstaff throws out on hearing that Henry IV. was dead, and that Prince Hal reigned in his stead. Fal. Master Robert Shallow, clioose what office thou wilt in the 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 laws of England are at my commandment. Happy are they which have been my friends, and icoe unto my Lord Chief Justice /—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 3Iinister) to the new king, and to have all the power and patronage of the crown in his hands. Then, why might not Ancient Pistol, who had seen ser^dce, have been made TFar Minister ? And if Justice Shallow had been pitchforked into the 90 shakespeake's legal acquirements. House of Peers, he miglit have turned out a distinguished Laiu Lord. — By taking " any man's horses " was not meant stealing tliem^ but jpressing 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 ; but, according to law and custom, he was removable, and he no doubt expected to be removed, from Ms 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 HENKY THE SIXTH. — PdRT II. 91 the opposite side, and so framing an issue of fact for tlie determination of tlie jury ; — absque hocy " 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. Pakt II. In the speeehes 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 4* 92 siiakespeaee's legal acquirements. as a lawyer. The second scene in Act iv. may be taken as an example. Dick. The first thing we do, leVs Mil all the laioyers. 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 conld " make obligations and write conrt hand," and who, instead of " making his mark like an honest plain-dealing man," had been " so well brought up that he could write his name." Therefore he was sentenced to be hanged with his pen and ink-horn about his neck. Surely Shakespeare must have been em- ployed to write deeds on parcliment in court hand, and to apply the ivax to them in the form of seeds : one does not understand how he should, on any other theory of his bringing up, have been acquainted with these details. KING HENEY 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- aSj before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used ; and contrary to the Mng, his croicn 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 aljominaJjle words as no Cliristian ear can endure to hear^ Thou hast appointed justices of peace, to call poor men before them about matters they were not able to answer. jMoreover 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 certain 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 Christianos 7ion nominand,^^ 94 SHAKESPEAEE''8 LEGAL ACQUIKEMENTS. Cade's proclamation, whicli follows, deals with still more recondite heads of jurispru- dence. Announcing his ]3olicy 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 cajnte; and we charge and command that their wives be as, free as heart can loisJi, or tongue can telV^ He thus declares a great forthcoming change in the tenure of land and in the lia- bility to taxation : he is to have a poll-tax like that wliich had raised the rebellion ; but, 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 mulierum. 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 KING- HENRY THE SIXTH. — PART II. 95 privilege on every lord of a manor, to be ex- ercised within the manor, he 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 YII., 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 Year Book, Eil. Term, 10 Hen. VIL, fol. 13, pl. 6. , , Shakespeare's legal acquireivients. (^m\m m\& ^xmi&n. Tn this play tlie autlior sliows his insatia- ble desire to illustrate liis descriptions of kiss- ing by his recollection of the forms used in executing deeds. When Pandarus (Act iii. So. 2) has brought Troilus and Cressida to- gether in the Orchard to gratify their warm inclinations, he advises Troilus to give Cressi- da " a Jciss in fee-farm," which Malone ex- plains to be "a kiss 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 imrties in tercliangeably " 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 LEAE. 97 I may here mention otlier instances in which Shakespeare introduces it. In ' Measure for Measure/ Act iv. Sc. 1 — ''But my kisses bring again Seals of love, but seaVd in vain : " and in his poem of ^ Yenus and Adonis ' — "Pure lips, siceet seals in my soft lips impriated, What bargains may I make, still to be sealing? " iin0 Saw In Act I. Sc. 4 the Fool makes a lengthy rhyming speech, containing a great many trite but usefal moral maxims, 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 lil)e the dreath of an wfeed lawyer: you gave me nothing for it. 5 98 shakespeaee's legal acquikements. 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/' — while 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 my 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 m 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 all 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 LEAE. 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, in 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. Sc. 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 Grioster, having suc- ceeded in deluding his father into the behef 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 Shakespeare's legal acquieements. Glo. Strong and fasten'd villain ! ***** All ports I'll bar ; the villain shall not 'scape. Besides, his picture 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 malce thee ca;pable. 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 iii. 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 LEAE. 101 when so cruelly treated by Goneril and Ee- 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 him — " Seek out where thy father is, that he may be ready for our apprehension." On which Edmimd observes aside — " If I find him comforting the King, it will stuff his suspicion more fully." Upon this Dr. Johnson has the following note : — " He uses the word [comforting] in the juridical sense, for supporting, helping." The indictment 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 acquirei^ients. Lear places the two Judges on tlie bencli, viz., Mad Tom and the Fool. He properly addresses the former as " the robed man of justice," but, although both were "of the commission," I do not quite understand why the latter is called his " yokefellow of equity," unless this might be supposed to be a special commission, like that which sat on Mary, Queen of Scots, including Lord Chancellor Audley. Lear causes Goneril 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 oatli 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 Regan ; see what breeds about her heart." HA]MLET. 103 ixmUt In tMs tragedy various expressions and allusions crop out, showing tlie substratum of law in tlie author's mind, — e. g., the de- scription of the disjDuted 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, slioulcl it le 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 ? Why such impress of shijncrights, ichose sore fasJc Does not divide the Sunday from the weeTc? Such confidence has there been in Shake- speare's accuracy, that this passage has been 104 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. quoted, botli by text writers and by Judges on the bench, as an authority upon the le- gality of the press-gang, and upon the de- bated question whether sliiioivriglitSj as well as common seamen, are liable 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 sheriffs officer, 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 G-rave-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. HAMLET. 105 of the celebrated case of Hales v. Petit^ tried in tlie 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. ^N'evertheless, 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 oi felo de se was returned. Under this finding his body was to be buried in a cross-road, with a stake thrust through it, and all 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- 106 shakespeaee's legal acquieements. terbuiy jointly to him and Ms 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 killed 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 the death is the act done in the party's lifetimCj 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 fully consummate, and the death precedes the felony and tl^ forfeiture." Walsh, Serjeant, contra^ argued that the felony was to be referred back to the act which caused the death. "TOe act consists of three parts : the first is the imagination, which is a reflection or meditation of the 108 shakespeake's legal acquirements. mind, whether or not it is convenient for him to destroy himself, and what way it can be done ; 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 mind had resolved to do. And of all the 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, which 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 C. J. Dyer and the whole court gave judgment for the defendant, holding that al- though Sir James Hales could hardly be said to have killed 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 hi^ 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 tlie act of the living man was the death of the 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 Clo. Is she to be buried in Christian burial, that wilfully seeks her OTvn salvation ? 2 Glo. The crowner hath sate on her, and finds it Christian burial. 1 Clo. How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence ? 2 Glo. Why, 'tis found so. 1 Clo. It must be 86 offendendo ; it cannot be else. For here lies the point : 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 j 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 shortens not his own life. 110 shakespeaee's legal acquieements. 2 Clo. But is this law? 1 Clo. Ay, marry is't, crowner's quest law. Hamlet's own speech, on taking in liis hand what he supposed might be the skull of a lawyer, abounds with lawyer-like thoughts and words : — " Where be his quiddits now, bis quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks ? Why does he sufifer 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, his 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 du^t ? 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 mnMh In perusing this unrivalled tragedy I am so carried away 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 ; hut 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/' hCj 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 talce a lond 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 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. our high-i:)lac'd Macbeth Shall live tlie lease of nature." But, unluckily for Macbeth, the lease con- tained no covenants for title or quiet enjoy- ment : — there were likewise forfeitures to be incurred by the tenant, — with a clause of re- entry^ — and consequently ke was speedily ousted/^ mMu, 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 Koderigo 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 de7nise 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 which 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 bombast 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 unfounded 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. Chitty, 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 all your fault." 114: Shakespeare's legal acqtjieements. 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 Hall. 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 he sanctioned or nullified; lago observes — " Faith, he to-night hath boarded a land carack : If it prove 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 follows, 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 j 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 — Duke. Whoe'er he be that in this foul proceeding Hath thus beguil'd your daughter of herself, And you of her, the bloody book of law You shall yourself read, in the bitter letter, After your own sense. The Moor, although acting as his own counsel, makes a noble and skilful defence, directly meeting the statutable misdemeanour 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 tal6 deliver Of my whole course of love ; loTiat drugs, ^cliat charms^ W7iat conjuration, and what migJity magic (For such proceedings I am charged withal) I won his daughter with." Having fuUy 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 tlaen exammes the witness, and is liononraWy acquitted. Again, tlie application to Othello to for- give Cassio-is made to assume tlie sliape 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 Cassio's suit : Therefore be merry, Cassio ; For thy Solicitor shall rather die TJiaii give thy cause aicay.^^ — (Act iii. sc. 3.) The subsequent part of the same scene shows that Shakespeare was well acquainted with all courts, low as well as high ; — ^where lasco asks — "&" Who has a breast so pure But some uncleanly apprehensions Keep leets and law-days^ and in session sit With meditations lawful ? Ain-ONIO AND CLEOPATRA. 117 In ^ Julius Coesar ' I could not find a sin- gle instance of a Koman being made to talk like an Englisli lawyer ; but in ' Antony and Cleopatra' (Act i. Sc. 4) Lepidus^ in trying to palliate tbe bad qualities and misdeeds of Antony, uses the language of a conveyancer's chambers in Lincoln's Inn : — " His faults, in him, seem as the spots of heaven, More fiery by night's blackness ; licreditary Rather than 'jiiurchaidP That is to say, they are taken by descent^ not hj jpurcJiase.-^ Lay gents (viz., all except lawyers) under- stand by " purchase" buying for a sum of * So in • the Second Part of Henry IV.,' Act iv. Sc. 4, the King, who had usurped the crown, says to the Prince of Wales — For what in me was imrcMs'd Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort. i» e. I took hj purchase^ you will take by descent. 118 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. money, called the price j but lawyers consider tliat " purchase '' is opposed to descent, — that all things come to the owner either by descent or by 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 'bj 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 in his habits, says, " I take it by descent, not hj purchase," Again, Lord Chancellor Eldon, 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 anotlier joke Lord Stowell was fond of — " My brother, the Chancellor, in vacation goes out with his gun to kill — time/' %rirfmiu^* 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. Pickioick, 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 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. ing a cause between an 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 'between yyarty and party ^ if you chance to be pinch- ed with the coliCj 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 Frcetor; — ^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 ! ! ! 'gmm m& Jultd The first scene of this romantic drama may he studied by a student of the Inns of Court to SLcquiie a knowledge of the law of " assault and "battery/' and what will amount to a justification. Although Sampson ex- ROMEO AND JULIET. 121 claims, " My naked weapon is out : quarrel, I will back thee," lie acids, " Let ns take the law of our sides ; let them begin/' Then we learn that neither froiuning, nor hiting tlie tJiumh, 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, in the English fashion, to heep 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 Plaintiff gave 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: tliougTi I struck liimfirst^ yet ifs no matter for that," 6 122 Shakespeare's legal acquieements. is that between Mercutio and Benvolio, 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 Benvolio'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 x\ie fee-simple of my life for an hour and a quarter. (Act iii. Sc. 1.) Talking of \kQ fee-simple 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 'All's "Well that Ends Well' (Act iv. Sc. 3) Parolles, the bragging cowardly soldier, is made to talk like a conveyancer in Lincoln's Inn: — "He will sell the fee-smple of Ms salvation * * and cut tlie entail from all remainders.''^ POEMS. 123 Qtm^. 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 him 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 shaU select a few instances, without un- necessarily adding any comment. From Venus and Adonis. " But when the Jiearfs attorney once is mute, The clieiit breaks as desperate m the swii." 124 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. " Which purchase if thou make for fear of slips. Set thy seal-7nanual on my icax-red lips,^^ " Her pleading hath deserved a greater fee.''^ From the Eape of Lucrece. '•' Dim register and notary of shame." " For me I force not argument a straw. Since that my case is past the help of laio^ " No rightful plea might plead for justice there." Hath served a duml arrest upon his tongue." From tlie Sonnets. ' When to the sessions ofstceet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past." " So should that beauty which you hold in " And summer's lease hath all too short a date." " And 'gainst thyself a lawful plea commence." SONNETS. 125 " But be contented ; when that fell arrest Without all dail shall cany me away."* Of faults concealed, wherein I am attainted? 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 mortgaged.'''' " Why so large cost, having so sliort a lease f "J " So should that beauty, which you Tiold 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 hege lord. % Taxing an overcharge in the attorney's bill of costs. § The word "determination" is always used by lawyers instead of " end." 126 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. Sonnet XLYI. " 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 impannelled 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 j 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 fully understood. A lover being supposed to have made a conquest of [i. e. to have gained hj purchase] his mistress, his Eye and his Heart, holding as joint-tenants, have a contest as to how she is to be partitioned be- SONNETS. • 127 tween them^ — eacli moiety then to be held in severalty. There are regular Pleadings in the suit^ the Heaet 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 juiy [in the nature of an inquest] is to be impannelled to 'cide [decide] and by their verdict to appor- tion between the litigating parties the subject matter to be divided. The jury fortunately ar-e unanimous, and after due deliberation find for the Eye in respect of the lady's outward form, and for the Heart in respect of her in- ward love. Surely Sonnet xlyi. smells as potently of the attorney's office as any of the stanzas penned by Lord Kenyon while an attorney's clerk in Wales. 128 shakespeaee's legal acquikements. ^luik.^puitit'.^ '^lll Among Shakespeare's writings, I think that attention should be paid to his Will for, nj)on a careful perusal, it will he 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 ]3ermit, he seeks to perpetuate in an heir male, descended from one of his daughters (his son having died HIS WILL. 129 in infancy, and there being no longer any prospect of issue male of his own), all the houses and lands he had acquired, — which were quite sufficient for a respectable "War- wickshire squire. His favourite daughter, Susanna, married to Dr. Hall, an eminent physician, was to be the stirjps from which this Hue of male heirs was to spring ; and the testator creates an estate in tail 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 will, 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 Shakespeare's legal acquieements. 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 Kobinson 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 lawfully 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 for 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 HIS 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 heu'S of me the said William Shakespeare for ever." In liis willj 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 sMll 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 sufficiently provided for by her right to dower out of his landed property, which the law would give her ; and they add that he must lime leen tenderly attached 132 shakespeake's legal acquirements. 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 than herself; so wears she to him, So sways she level in her husband's heart. For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, Our fancies are more giddy and infirm, More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn, Than women's are. * * Then let thy love be younger than thyself, 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»3 biographers, in the absence of any register of his marriage, had conjectured that it took place in June, 1582), by searching the records of RETROSPECT. 133 not only by their number, but by the accura- cy and propriety with wbicli they are uniform- ly introduced. There 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, say, '^ 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 Shalcespeare to marry Ann Hathaway is dated 26th November, 1582, while 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 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. beyond all doubt, to have been the man), in bis 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 gillifloivers, and the skilful grafting of fruit trees. Others have contended that HIS EEFEEENCES 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 graj)hic descrip- tion in Henry lY/s soliloquy of the " high and giddy mast/' of the " ruffian billows/' of the " slippery shrotrds/' and of " seahng up the ship boy's eyes." Nay, notwithstanding the admonition to be found in his works, " Throw physic to the dogs/' it has been gravely sug- gested that he must have been initiated in medicine, from the minute inventory of the contents of the apothecary's shop in ^ Eomeo and Juliet.' But the descriptions thus re- lied upon, however minute, exact, and pictu- resque, will be found to be 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 — Komeo's photograph of the apothecary and his shop. " Meagre were his looks. Sharp misery had worn him to the bones : And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, An alligator stuffed, and other skins 13(3 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. Of ill-shaped fishes ; and about his shelves A beggarly account of empty boxes. Green earthen pots, bladders and musty seeds, Remnants of packthread and old cakes of roses. Were thinly scattered to make up a show." (Act V. Sc. 1.) Any observing customer, wlio'liad once enter- ed the sliop to buy a dose of rbubarb, 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 Bumming 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 EVIDENCE. 137 whicli 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 by 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, while 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 mast 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 shaxespeaee's legal acquieements. lieve a fact, wliich, were it true, positive and irrefragable evidence in Shakespeare's own handwriting might have been forthcoming to establish it. Not having been actually inroll- 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 wills 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. STATE OF THE EVIDENCE. 139 have written about Nash and Eobert Greene having asserted the fact ; hnt I by 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 living 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 40007. a year, which he has ever since received, thereby robbing 140 shakespeake's legal acquirements. What you liave 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 knowdedge 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 in truth and in fact, he made it a stipulation on his going to Ii;eland that he should re- ceive no pension — and pension he never did receive — 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 the}^ 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 mankind, 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 princi23al inhabitants of the town, and that AVilham 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 Kecord, 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 comj)any at fairs, wakes, church ales, bowling-, 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 shakespeaee's legal acquirements. Moreover, it is to be considered that, al- thoTigL. 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 between 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 all sorts and conditions of men. I am sorry to say I cannot discover that at 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 Ellesmere, Lord Somers is the first legal dignitary I find forming friendships with literary men. STATE OF THE EVIDENCE. 143 took a part in tliese court theatricals ; and the author^ in all probability^ was- present among the lawyers when ' Twelfth Night ' was brought out at the Eeaders' Feast in the Middle Temple, and when ^ Othello ' was acted at Lord Chancellor EUesmere'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 seyeral wards, like the beds of an hospital. * * * If they chance to discourse, it is of nothing but of statutes, do7ids, recognizances, fines, reco^evies, audits, rents, sub- sidies, sureties, enclosures, liveries, indictments, outlaio- Ties, feoffments, judgments, commissions, Tjanlcru^pts, amercements, and of such horrible matter." — DeMer^s GuWs EornlooTc, 1609. In such company a willing listener might 144: Shakespeare's legal acquirements. soon make great progress in law ; and it may- be urged, that I have unconsciously exagger- ated the difficulty to be encountered by Shake- speare in picking up his knowledge of that which I myself have been so long labouring to understand. Many may tliink that 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 acquiring the knowledge he displayed, astonished the world with his universal wisdom : " Hear him but reason in divinity, Andj 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 Familiar 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 mistress to this theorick." Eenry 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 baid : "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 Collier, 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 vahdity of his son's marriage, you may sigh and say, " Incertior sum multo 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 Shakespeare's legal acquirements. tured judgment to the world, I shall not have doubted or hallucinated in vain. By another outpouring of your Shakespearian lore you may entirely convince, and at aU events you will much gratify, Your sincere admirer and friend, (Signed) Campbell. THE END. NEW PUBLICATIONS AND NEW EDITIONS PUBLISHED BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 346 and 348 Broadway. 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