THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
SHAKESPEARE'S
LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS
CONSIDERED.
BY
JOHN LOKD CAMPBELL, LL.D., F.B.S.E.
IN
A LETTER TO J. PAYNE COLLIER, ESQ., F.S.A.
" Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly ! "
Merry Wives of Windsor.
NEW YORK :
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
346 & 348 BROADWAY.
M.DCCC.LIX.
JE? .
GIFT
PREFACE.
WHEN my old and valued friend, Mr. Payne
Collier, received the following Letter, which.
I wrote with a view to assist him in his
Shakespearian lucubrations, he forthwith, in
terms which I should like to copy if they
were not so complimentary, strongly recom-
mended me to print and publish it in my
own name, — intimating that I might thus
have "the glory of placing a stone on the
lofty OAIRN of our immortal bard." If he
had said a "pelible" the word would have
been more appropriate. But the hope of
making any addition, even if infinitesimally
small, to this great national monument, is
enough to induce me to follow my friend's
advice, although I am aware that by the at-
tempt I shall be exposed to some peril. In
4c PEEFACE.
pointing out Shakespeare's frequent use of
law-phrases, and the strict propriety with
which he always applies them, the CHIEF
JUSTICE may be 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.
INTRODUCTION, . . . . .7
THE MEREY WIVES OF WINDSOR, . . 39
MEASUEE FOE MEASURE, . . . .41
THE COMEDY OF EEEOES, ... 44
As You LIKE IT, « . . .47
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, . . . 53
LOVE'S LABOUE'S LOST, . . . .56
MIDSUMMEE NIGHT'S DBEAM, ... 57
THE MEE CHANT OF VENICE, . . .59
THE TAMING OF THE SHEEW, ... 63
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, . . .67
THE WINTEE'S TALE, .... 71
KING JOHN, . . . 74
KING HENEY THE FOUBTH, PART I., . 73
KING HENEY THE FOUETH, PAET II., . . 82
KING HENEY THE SIXTH, PAET II., . . 91
TEOILUS AND CEESSIDA, . . . .96
KINGLEAE, ..... 97
HAMLET, . . . . . ^ 103
MACBETH, .... HI
6 CONTENTS.
PAGE
OTHELLO, ...... 112
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, . . . 117
CORIOLANUS, . . . . .119
ROMEO AND JULIET, . . . .120
POEMS, ...... 123
SHAKESPEARE'S WILL, . . . .128
RETROSPECT, . . . . .132
SHAKESPEARE'S
LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS CONSIDERED.
To J. Payne Collier, Esq.,
Riverside, Maidenhead, Berks.
HARTRIGGE, JEDBURGH, N. B.
September 15th, 1858.
MY DEAR MB. PAYNE COLLIER,
Knowing that I take great delight in
Shakespeare's plays, and that I have paid
some attention to the common law of this
realm, and recollecting that both in my ( Lives
of the Chancellors/ and in my c Lives of the
Chief Justices/ I have glanced at the subject
of Shakespeare's legal acquirements, you de-
mand rather peremptorily my opinion upon
the question keenly agitated of late years,
whether Shakespeare was a clerk in an at-
1*
8 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL
torney's office at Stratford before lie joined
the players irv London ?
From your indefatigable researches and
your critical ticunien, 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 Shakespeare ' you are strongly
inclined to the belief that the author of c Ham-
let 9 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 FOR A JUKY. !)
lings of Westminster Hall. In literary pur-
suits should I have wished ever to be en-
gaged,—
" Me si fata meis paterentur ducere vitam
Auspiciis, et sponte 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 hint to them, for their guidance, any
10 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
opinion of my own. Should they unanimously
agree in a verdict either in the affirmative or
negative, I do not think that the court, sitting
in bancOj could properly set it aside and grant
a new trial. But the probability is (particu-
larly if the trial were by a special jury of Fel-
lows of the Society of Antiquaries) that, after
they had been some hours in deliberation, I
should receive a message from them — " there
is no chance of our agreeing, and therefore
we wish to be discharged ; " that having sent
for them into court, and read them a lecture
on the duty imposed upon them by law of
being unanimous, I should be obliged to order
them to be locked up for the night ; that
having sat up all night without eating or
drinking, and " without fire, candle-light ex-
cepted," * they would come into court next
* These are the words of the oath administered to
the bailiff into whose custody the jurymen are deliver-
ed. I had lately to determine whether gas-lamps could
be considered "candle-light." In favor em vitce, I ven-
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.
CONSPIRACY OF THE CKITICS. 11
morning pale and ghastly, still saying "we
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 inan's estate, as still almost
wholly illiterate. We have been told that
his father was a butcher in a small provincial
town ; that " pleasant Willy " was bred to
his father's business ; that the only early in-
dication of genius which he betrayed was his
habit, while 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 further
training he produced ' Eichard 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 FATHER. 13
house, received a grant of armorial bearings
from the Heralds with a recognition of his
*
lineage, was for many years an Alderman- of
Stratford, and, after being intrusted by the
Corporation to manage their finances as Cham-
berlain, served the office of Chief Magistrate
of the town. There are entries in the Cor-
poration books supposed to indicate that at
one period of his life he was involved in pe-
cuniary difficulties ; but this did not detract
from his gentility, as is proved by the subse-
quent confirmation of his armorial bearings,
with a slight alteration in his quartering®, —
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,5 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
<c 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' Office when Sir William
Dethick was Garter King-at-Arms. Against this posi-
tive evidence we lawyers should consider the negative
14 SHAKESPEARE'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 Soljtt
is subscribed in a strong, clear hand, and
the mark, supposed to be his, evidently be-
longs to the name of @Cl)0ma0 JBnnm in the
line below.* You tell us, in your latest edi-
tion, of the production of two new documents
before the Shakespeare Society, dated respect-
ively 3rd and 9th Dec., 11 Bliz., which, it is
said, if John Shakespeare could have written,
would have been signed by him, — whereas
they only bear his mark. But in my own
experience I have known many instances of
documents bearing a mark as the signature
of persons who could write well, and this was
probably much more common in illiterate
ages, when 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,
Knighfs 'Life of Shakspere,' 1st ed., p. 16.
16 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
the wars of the Koses, this deficiency would
not weigh much in disproving his wealth or
his gentility. Even supposing him to have
been a genuine marksman, he was only on a
par in this respect with many persons of
higher rank, and with several of the most
influential of his fellow townsmen. Of the
nineteen Aldermen and - burgesses who signed
the order referred to, only seven subscribe
their names with a pen, and the High Bailiff
and Senior Alderman are among the marks-
men.
Whatever may have been the clownish
condition of John Shakespeare, that the
" Divine Williams " (as the French call our
great dramatist) received an excellent school
education can hardly admit of question or
doubt. We certainly know that he wrote a
beautiful and business-like hand, which he
probably acquired early. There was a free
grammar school at Stratford, founded in the
reign of Edward IV., and reformed by a char-
ter of Edward VI. This school was supplied
by a succession of competent masters to teach
Greek and Latin : and here the sons of all
CULTIVATION OF HIS MIND. 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 poptflar Eoman classics. Shake-
speare must have been at this school at least
five years. His father's supposed pecuniary
difficulties, which are said to have interrupted
his education, did not occur till William had
reached the age of 14 or 15, when, according
to the plan of education which was then fol-
lowed, the sons of tradesmen were put out as
apprentices or clerks, and the sons of the
more wealthy went to the university. None
of his school compositions are preserved, and
we have no authentic account of his progress ;
but we know that at these schools boys of
industry and genius have become well versed
in classical learning. Samuel Johnson said
that he acquired little at Oxford beyond what
he had brought away with him from Lichfield
Grammar School, where he had been taught,
18 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 unveil
Her awful face : — the dauntless child
Stretched forth his little arms, and smiled."
The grand difficulty is to discover, or to
conjecture with reasonable probability, how
Shakespeare was employed from about 1579,
when he most likely left school, till about
1586, when he is supposed to have gone to
London, That during this interval he was
merely an operative, earning his bread by
CULTIVATION OF HIS, MIND. 19
manual labour, in stitching gloves, sorting
wool, or killing calves, no sensible man can
possibly imagine. At twenty-three years of
age, although he had not become regularly
learned as if he had taken the degree of
M. A. at Oxford or Cambridge, after disput-
ing in the schools de omni scibili et quolibet
ente, — there 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 e 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 SHAKESPEABE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
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 appear on
his arrival in the metropolis.
Unfortunately,' however, the pedagogical
theory is not only quite unsupported by evi-
dence, but it is not consistent with established
OCCUPATIONS AFTER LEAVING SCHOOL. 21
facts. From the registration of the baptism
of Shakespeare's children, and other well
authenticated circumstances, we know that
he continued to dwell in Stratford, or the im-
mediate neighbourhood, till he became a citi-
zen of London : there was no other school in
Stratford except the endowed grammar school,
where he had been a pupil; of this he certain-
ly never was master, for the unbroken succes-
sion of masters from the reign of Edward VI.
till the reign of James I. is on record ; none
of the mob who stand out for Shakespeare be-
ing quite illiterate will 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 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
comes the Welshman, Sir Hugh Evans, in the
c 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 30?., equal, at the latter end of the reign
of Elizabeth, to more than 100Z. in the reign
WAS HE AN ATTORNEY'S CLERK? 23
of Victoria. This court, the records of which
are extant, was regulated by the course of
practice and pleading which prevailed in the
superior courts of law at Westminster, and
employed the same barbarous dialect, com-
posed of Latin, English, and Norman-French.
It sat every fortnight, and there were belong-
ing to it, besides the Town-clerk, 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 — ip. a natural
and probable sequence.
24: SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
From the moderate pay allowed him by
Ms master lie 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, Ohatterton, Pitt the younger, Canning,
Disraeli, and Lord Macaulay are a few out of
many instances which might be cited of men
of brilliant intellectual career who had early
become familiar with the elements of jurispru-
dence.
Here would be the solution of Shake-
speare's legalism which has so perplexed his
biographers and commentators, and which
Aubrey's tradition leaves wholly unexplained.
We should only have to recollect the maxim
that " the vessel long retains the flavour with
which it has been once imbued." Great as is
the knowledge of law which Shakespeare's
WAS HE AN ATTORNEY'S CLERK? 25
writings display, and familiar as he appears
to have been with all its forms and proceed-
ings, the whole of this would easily be account-
ed for if for some years he had occupied a desk
in the office of a country attorney in good
business, — attending sessions and assizes, —
keeping leets and law days, — and perhaps be-
ing sent up to the metropolis in term time to
conduct suits before the Lord Chancellor or
the superior courts of common law at West-
minster, according to the ancient practice of
country attorneys, who would not employ a
London agent to divide their fees.*
* If Shakespeare really was articled to a Stratford
attorney, in all probability during the five years of his
clerkship he visited London several times on his mas-
ter's business, and he may then have been introduced
to the green room at Blackfriars by one of his country-
men connected with that theatre.
Even so late as Queen Anne's reign there seems to
have been a prodigious influx of all ranks from the
provinces into the metropolis in term time. During
the preceding century 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."— -
26 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
On the 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
STROLLING PLATEES AT STKATFOKD. 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 c 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 licence,
now a bustling attorney's clerk, would actu-
ally assist in these proceedings when his
master's office was closed for the day ; and
year, more 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 over"
28 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
*
that lie might thus readily become intimate
with the manager and the performers, some
of whom were said to be his fellow-townsmen.
He might well have officiated as prompter, the
duty said to have been first assigned to him
in the theatre at the Blackfriars. The travel-
ling associations of actors at that period con-
sisted generally of not more than from five to
ten members ; and when a play to be performed
in the Guildhall at Stratford contained more
characters than individuals in the list of
strollers, it would be no great stretch of
imagination to suppose that, instead of muti-
lating the piece by suppression, or awkwardly
assigning two parts to one performer, " pleas-
ant Willy's " assistance was called in ; and
our great dramatist may thus have commenced
his career as an actor in his native town.
To prove that he had been bred in an at-
torney's office, there is one piece of direct
evidence. This is an alleged 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 ACTOK. 29
Leaving Stratford and joining the players
in London in 1586 or 1587, there can be no
doubt that his success was very rapid ; for,
as early as 1589, he had actually got a share
in the • Blackfriars Theatre, and he was a
partner in managing it with his townsman
Thomas Green and his countryman Eichard
Burbadge. I do not imagine that when he
went up to London he carried a tragedy in
his pocket to be offered for the stage as
Samuel Johnson did ' IKENE/ The more
probable conjecture is, that he began as an
actor on the London boards, and being em-
ployed, from the cleverness he displayed, to
correct, alter, and improve dramas written by
others, he went on to produce dramas of his
own, which were applauded more loudly than
any that had before appeared upon the Eng-
lish stage.
" Envy does merit as its shade pursue ; "
and rivals whom he surpassed not only envied
Shakespeare, but grossly libelled him. Of
this we have an example in c An Epistle to
the Gentlemen Students of the Two Univer-
80 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
sities, by Thomas Nash/ prefixed to the first
edition of Kobert Greene's ''MENAPHON'
(which was subsequently called ' Greene's
ARCADIA/) — according to the title-page, pub-
lished in 1589. The alleged libel 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 Nbverint, whereto they were born, and busy them-
selves with the endeavours of art, that could scarcely
Latinize their neck-vei'le if they should have need ; yet
English Seneca, read by candle-light, yields many good
sentences, as Hood is a beggar, and so forth; and if you
intreat him fair, in a frosty morning, he will afford you
whole Hamlets; I should say handfuls of tragical
speeches. But 0 grief! Tempus 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
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 SHAKESPEAKE. 31
( — " thereby then and there meaning the said
William Shakespeare" — ) be made out, there
can be no doubt as to the remaining innuendo
"thereby then and there meaning that the
said William Shakespeare had been an at-
torney's clerk, or bred an attorney."
In Elizabeth's reign deeds were in the
Latin tongue ; and all deeds poll, and many
other law papers, began with the words
" NOVEBINT 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 " NOVEBINT universi per
presentes." The business of an attorney
seems to have been then known as " the trade
of NOVEBINT." Ergo, "these shifting
companions " are charged with having aban-
doned the legal profession, to which they were
bred ; and, although most imperfectly edu-
cated, with trying to manufacture tragical
speeches from an English translation of Seneca.
For completing Nash's testimony (valeat
32 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
quantum) to the fact that Shakespeare had
been bred to the 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 Robert Greene, the author
of c 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 Eobert Greene (who, it must
always be remembered, was a totally different
person from Thomas Green, the actor and
part proprietor of the Blackfriars Theatre)
was one of the chief sufferers from Shakespeare
being engaged by the Lord Chamberlain's
players to alter stock pieces for the Black-
ENMITY OF EGBERT 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 Noverint " 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 c 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 Shake- scene, as " an upstart crow beautified
with our feathers," having just before spoken
of himself as " the man to whom actors had
been previously beholding." He goes on
farther to allude to Shakespeare as one who
2*
34: SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
" supposes he is as well able to bombast out a
blank verse as the best of his predecessors/'
as "an absolute Johannes Factotum/' and
" in his own conceit the only SHAKE-SCENE
in a country/' In 1592 Kobert 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, Nash and Kobert Greene, and that
Shakespeare was the object of it.
But I do not hesitate to believe that Nash,
in 1589, directly alludes to ' HAMLET ' as a
play of Shakespeare, and wishes to turn it
into ridicule. I am aware that an attempt
has been made to show that there had been
an edition of f 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,3 in which he so bitterly assailed Shakespeare as
<c Shake-scene," was published.
ELABORATION OF HIS PLAYS. 35
Epistle appended to it, has been produced.
I am also aware that ' Hamlet/ in the perfect
state in which we now behold it, was not
finished till several years after ; but I make
no doubt that before the publication of Wash's
Epistle Shakespeare's first sketch of his play
of c Hamlet/ taken probably from some older
play with the same title, had been produced
upon the Blackfriars stage and received with
applause which generated envy.
From the saying -of the players, recorded
by BEN JONSON, that Shakespeare never
blotted a line, an erroneous notion has pre-
vailed that he carelessly sketched off his
dramas, and never retouched them or cared
about them after. So far from this (contrary
to modern practice), he often materially al-
tered, enlarged, and improved them subse-
quently to their having been brought out
upon the stage and having had a successful
run. There is clear proof that he wrote and
rewrote ' Hamlet/ ' Komeo and Juliet/ ' The
Merry Wives of Windsor/ and several other
of his dramas, with unwearied pains, making
36 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
them at last sometimes nearly twice as long
as they were when originally represented.
With respect to these dates it is remarka-
ble that an English translation of Seneca,
from which Shakespeare was supposed to have
plagiarised so freely, had been published sev-
eral years before Nash's Epistle ; — and in the
scene with the players on their arrival at
Elsinore (if this scene appeared in the first
sketch of the tragedy, as it probably did, from
being so essential to the plot), Shakespeare's
acquaintance with this author was proclaimed
by the panegyric of Polonius upon the new
company, for whom " SENECA could not be
too heavy nor Plautus too light/'
Therefore, my dear Mr. Payne Collier, in
support of your opinion that Shakespeare had
been bred to the profession of the law in an
attorney's office, I 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/ 'Julius Csesar/ ' Cymbe-
line/ ' Timon of Athens/ ' The Tempest/
'King Eichard II./ ' King Henry V./ < King
Henry VI. Part I./ ' King Henry VI. Part
III./ 'King Eichard III./ 'King Henry
VIIL/ ' Pericles of Tyre/ and ' Titus An-
dronicus '—fourteen of the thirty-seven dramas
generally attributed to Shakespeare — I find
nothing that fairly bears upon this contro-
versy. Of course I had only to look for ex-
pressions and allusions that must be supposed
to come from one who has been a professional
lawyer. Amidst the seducing beauties of
sentiment and language through which I had
to pick my way; I may have overlooked vari-
ous specimens of the article of which I was in
38 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
quest, which would have been accidentally
valuable, although intrinsically worthless.
However, from each of the remaining
twenty-three dramas I have made extracts
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 folio of
1623, the earliest authority for the whole col-
lection.
THE MEKKY WIVES OF WINDSOK. 39
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 upon her he had had no bene-
ficial return, we have the following question
and answer : —
Fal. Of what quality was your love, then ?
Ford. Like a fair house built upon another man's
ground ; so that / have lost my edifice "by mistaking the
place where I erected it.
Now this shows in Shakespeare a knowl-
edge of the law of real property, not generally
possessed. The unlearned would suppose that
if, by mistake, a man builds a fine house on
the land of another, when he discovers his
error he will be permitted to remove all the
materials of the structure, and particularly
the marble pillars and carved chimney-pieces
with which he has adorned it ; but Shake -
40 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
speare knew better. He was aware that, being
fixed to the freehold, the absolute property in
them belonged to the owner of the soil, and
he recollected the maxim, Gujus 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-&-t£te 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, scared
out of him : if the devil have him not in fee simple,
with fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the
way of waste, attempt us again.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 41
Tins 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 by fine and recovery.
Shakespeare himself may probably have be-
come aware of the law upon the subject, when
it was explained to him in answer to questions
he put to the attorney, his master, while en-
grossing the deeds to be executed upon the
purchase of a Warwickshire estate with a
doubtful title.
|0r
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 aU such houses
in the suburbs must be plucked down, the
Clown thus comforts her : —
Clo. Come ; fear not you : good counsellors lack no
clients.
4:2 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
This comparison is not very flattering to
the 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 in. Sc. 2,
Escalus designates and talks of Angelo, with
whom he was joined in commission as Judge,
MEASUKE FOR MEASUKE. 43
is so like the 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 j my "brother Angela will not be al-
tered 5 Claudio must die to-morrow. *' * * If my
'brother wrought by my pity, it should not be so with
him. * * * I have laboured for the poor gentle-
man to the extreme st shore of my modesty ; but my
brother 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 Westminster
Hall. A Chief Justice in New England thus concludes
a very sound judgment: — "My brother Blannerhasset,
who was present at the argument, but is prevented by
business at chambers from being here to-day, authori-
ses me to say that he has read this judgment, and that
he entirely concurs in it."
4:4: SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
ful passage in this play, — which, lest I should
be thought guilty of irreverence, I do not ven-
ture to comment upon : —
Angela. Your brother is a forfeit to the law.
Isabella. Alas ! alas !
Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once 5
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 n. Sc. 2.)
The following is part of the dialogue be-
tween Antipholus of Syracuse and his man
Dromio, in Act 11. Sc. 2 :
Dro. S. There's no time for a man to recover his
hair, that grows bald by nature.
Ant. 8. May he not do it by fine and recovery ?
Dro. S. Yes, to pay &Jine for a periwig, and recover
the lost hair of another man.
THE COMEDY OF EKROJRS. f 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. 23 Adriana asks Dromio
of Syracuse, " Where is thy master, Dromio ?
Is he well ? " and Dromio replies —
No, he's in Tartar limbo, worse than hell :
A devil in an everlasting garment hath him.
One whose hard heart is button'd up with steel ;
A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough ;
A wolf ; nay worse, a fellow all in buff;
A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that counter-
mands
The passages and alleys, creeks, and narrow lands :
A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry-foot
well;
One that before the judgment carries poor souls to hell.
Adr. Why, man, what is the matter ?
Dro. 8. I do not know the matter ; he is Crested on
the case.
Adr. What, is he arrested ? tell me at whose suit.
4:6 v SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
Dro. S. 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 ~bond f
Dro. S. Not on a bond, but on a stronger thing :
A chain, a chain f
Here we have a most circumstantial and
graphic account of an English arrest on mesne
process ["before judgment"], in .an action
on the case, for the price of a gold 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
f mt
In Act i. Sc. 2, Shakespeare makes the
lively Kosalind, who, although, well versed in
poesy and books of chivalry, had probably
never seen a bond or a law-pa,per 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:"— l
Le Beau. There comes an old man and his three
sons, —
Gel. I could match this beginning with an old tale.
Le Beau. Three proper young men, of excellent
growth and presence ; —
Eos. "With bills on their necks, — "Be it known
unto all men ~by these+presents" —
This is the technical phraseology referred
to by Thomas Nash in his ' Epistle to the
Gentlemen Students of the two Universities/
in the year 1589, when he is supposed to have
48 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
denounced the author of ' Hamlet ' as one of
those who had " left the trade of Noverint,
whereto they were born, for handfuls of tragi-
cal speeches" — that is, an attorney's clerk
become a poet, and penning a stanza^ when
he should engross.
6 As You Like It ' was not brought out
until shortly before the year 1600, so that
Nash's Noverint could not have been sug-
gested by it. Possibly Shakspeare now intro-
duced the "Be it known unto all men/' &c.,
in order to show his contempt for Nash's
sarcasm.
In Act. ii. Sc. 1, there are illustrations
which would present themselves rather to the
mind of one initiated in legal proceedings,
than of one who had been brought up as an
apprentice to a glover, or an assistant to a
butcher or awoolstapler : — For instance, when
it is said of the poor wounded deer, weeping
in the stream —
• thou mak'st a testament
As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more
To that which hath too much."
AS YOU LIKE IT. 49
And again where the careless herd, jumping
by him without greeting him, are compared
to a 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 115. 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 —
Duke Fred. Make an extent upon his house and lands —
an extendi facias applying to house and
lands, as a fieri facias would apply to goods
and chattels, or a capias ad satisfaciendum
to the person.
3
50 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
So in ' King Henry VIII / 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 prcemunire,
That therefore such a writ be sued against you,
To forfeit all your goods, lands, tenements,
Chattels, and whatsoever, and to "be
Out of the King's protection"
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 lawyers 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 ; Vakeel.]
Eos. Well, in her person I say — I will not have
you.
Orl. Then, in my own person, I die.
Ros. No, faith, die ~by attorney. The poor world is
almost six thousand years old, and in all this time
there was not any man died in his own person, videlicet,
in a love cause.*
* So in c Eichard III.,3 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 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
I am sorry to say that in our time the
once most respectable word " attorney " seem s
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 Bos worth, says —
I by attorney bless thee from thy mother.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 53
Eos. Well, Time is the old JUSTICE that examines
all such offenders, and let Time try.
As in f Troilus and Oressida ' (Act iv. Sc.
5) Shakespeare makes Time an Arbitrator : —
"And that old common AEBITRATOE, Time,
Will one day end it."
It has been generally supposed that Shake-
speare, in the characters of Dogberry and
Verges, only meant to satirize the ignorance
and folly of parish constables — a race with
which we of this generation were familiar till
the establishment of the metropolitan and
rural police ; but I cannot help suspecting
that he slily aimed at higher legal function-
aries— Chairmen at Quarter-sessions, and even
Judges of assize, — with whose performances
he may probably have become acquainted at
Warwick and elsewhere.
There never has been a law or custom in
54: SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
England to "give a cJiarge" to constables;
but from time immemorial there has been " a
cJiarge to grand juries" by the presiding
judge. This charge, we are bound to believe,
is now-a-days always characterised by sim-
plicity, pertinence, and correctness, although,
according to existing etiquette, in order that
it may not be too severely criticised, the bar-
risters are not admitted into the Crown Court
till the charge is over. But when Justice
Shallow gave the charge to the grand jury at
sessions in the county of Gloucester, we may
conjecture that some of his doctrines and di-
rections were not very wise ; and Judges of
the superior courts in former times made
themselves ridiculous by expatiating, in their
charges to grand juries, on vexed questions
of manners, religion, politics, and political
economy. Dogberry uses the very words of
the oath administered by the Judges' mar-
shal to the grand jury at the present day : —
Keep your fellows' counsels and your own.
(Act in. Sc. 3.)
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 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 : —
Dogl). 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 ?
Dogl. Truly, by your office you may ; but, I think,
they that touch pitch will be defiled. The most peace-
able way for you, if you do take a thief, is to let him
show himself what he is, and steal out of your company.
Now there can be no doubt that Lord
Coke himself could not more accurately have
denned 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 burglary as
ever was committed " to receive a thousand
56 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
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.
's labour's
In Act i. Sc. 1, we have an extract from
the Eeport by Don Adriano de Armado of
the infraction he had witnessed of the King's
proclamation by Costard with Jaquenetta ;
and it is drawn up in the true lawyerlike,
tautological dialect5 — 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 vie west, beholdest, surveyest, and
seest. * * * Him I (as my ever-esteemed duty
pricks me on) have sent to thee to receive the meed of
57
punishment, by thy 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.
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,
58 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
As she is mine, I may dispose of her.
Which shall be either to this gentleman,
Or to her death, according to our law
Immediately provided in that case.
Commenting on this last line, Steevens
observes, " Shakespeare is grievously suspect-
ed of having been placed, while a boy, in an
attorney's office. The line before us has an
undoubted smack of legal commonplace : Po-
etry disclaims it."
The precise formula — " In such case made
and provided " — would not have stood in the
verse. There is certainly no nearer approach
in heroic measure to the technical language
of an indictment ; and there seems no motive
for the addition made to the preceding 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 MEKCHANT OF VENICE. 59
Iftmftant flf f mite.
In Act i. Sc. 3, and Act n. Sc. 8, Anto-
nio's bond to Shylock is prepared and talked
about according to all the forms observed in
an English attorney's office. The distinction
between a " single bill " and a " bond with a
condition " is clearly referred to ; and punc-
tual payment is expressed in the technical
phrase — " Let good Antonio keep his day."
It appears by Act in. Sc. 3, between Shy-
lock, Salarino, Antonio, and a Jailer, that the
action on the bond had been commenced, and
Antonio had been arrested on mesne process.
The trial was to come on before the Doge ;
and the question was, whether Shylock was
entitled to judgment specifically for his pound
of flesh, or must be contented with pecuniary
damages.
60 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
Shylock threatens the Jailer with an action
for ec 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.
Antonio. 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. So. 1, and it
is duly conducted according to the strict forms
of legal procedure. Portia, the PODESTA or
judge called in to act under the authority of
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 61
the Doge, first inquires if there be any plea of
non estfactum.
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
paying twice the sum of money lent, or " ten
times o'er," judgment is given : —
Portia. It must not be. There is no power in Venice
Can alter a decree established.
Twill be recorded for a precedent,
And many an error by the same example
Will rush into the state. * * *
This bond is forfeit,
And lawfully by this the Jew may claim
A pound of flesh to be by him cut off
Nearest the merchant's heart.
However, oyer of the bond being demand-
ed, the judge found that it gave " no jot of
blood ; " and the result was that Shylock, to
save his own life, was obliged to consent to
62 SHAKESPEARE'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 christening thou shalt have two godfathers :
Had I been judge, thou shouldst have had ten more,
To bring thee to the gallows, not the font-*
meaning a jury of twelve men, to find him
guilty of the capital offence of an attempt to
murder; — whereupon he must have been
hanged.
I may further observe that this play, in
the last scene of the last act, contains another
palpable allusion to English legal procedure.
In the court of Queen's Bench, when a com-
plaint is made against a person for a " con-
tempt" the practice is that before sentence is
finally pronounced, he is sent into the Crown
Office, and being there " charged upon inter-
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 63
rogatories," he is made to swear that he 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 us go in.
And charge us there upon inter1 gatories.
And we will answer all things faithfully.
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.
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 ACQTJIBEMENTS.
in England. He puts this speech into the
mouth of a servant, who is trying to persuade
Sly that he is a great lord, and that he had
been in a dream for fifteen years, during
which time he thought he was a frequenter
of alehouses : —
For though you lay here in this goodly chamber,
Yet would you say, ye were beaten out of door,
And rail upon the hostess of the house,
And say you would present Tier at the leet,
Because she brought 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 SHREW. 65
runs thus : — " He [an informer] transforms
himselfe into several shapes, to avoid suspicion
of inneliolderSj 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 Trsfcnio
that the rival lovers of Bianca, while they
eagerly in her presence should press their suit,
yet; when she is absent, should converse freely
as friends, is illustrated in a manner to induce
a belief that the author of Tranio's speech had
been accustomed to see the contending coun-
sel, when the trial is over, or suspended, — on
very familiar and friendly terms with each
other : —
Tra. Sir, I shall not be slack : in sign whereof,
Please ye, we may contrive this afternoon,
And quaff carouses to our mistress' health ;
And do as adversaries do in law,
Strive mightily, "but eat and drink as friends.
* This clearly alludes not to the parties
litigating, who, if they were to eat and drink
66 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
together, would generally be 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 Petmchio, 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.
Katli. What is your crest ? a coxcomb ?
Pet. A combless cock, so Kate will be my hen.
Kath. No cock of mine : you crow too like a tfrcwen.
(Act ii. Sc. 1.)
This all lawyers know to be the word
spoken by a chaaapion who acknowledged that
he was beaten, and declared that he would
fight no more : — whereupon judgment was
immediately given against the side which he
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 67
supported, and lie bore the infamous name of
Craven for the rest of his 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.
tttai
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 cliivalry, 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 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
France, and, strictly speaking, the law of that
country ought to prevail in settling such ques-
tions : but Dr. Johnson, in his notes on ' All's
Well that Ends Well/ justly intimates his
opinion that it is of no great use to inquire
whether the law upon these subjects was the
same in France as in England, " for Shake-
speare gives to 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 capite
under the crown, and was in ward to the
King. Helena undertook the cure, making
this condition : —
Eel. 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 n. 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 n. 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 ; but I give
Me and my service, ever whilst I live,
Into your guiding power. — This is the man.
King. Why then, young Bertram, take her : she's
thy wife.
Bertram at first strenuously refuses, say-
ing—
In such a business give me leave to use
The help of mine own eyes.
70 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
But the King, after much, discussion, thus
addresses him : —
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 n. 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,
THE WINTER'S TALE. 71
was in full force in the 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.
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 JJ the ward by a mesalr
liance.—Co. Litt. 80a.
72 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
tion. Hermione, trying to persuade Polixenes,
King of Bohemia, to prolong his stay at the
court of Leontes in Sicily, says to him —
You put me off with limber vows ; but I,
Though you would seek t' unsphere the stars with oaths,
Should yet say, " Sir, no going." * * *
Force me to keep you as a prisoner,
Not like a guest ; so you shall pay your fees
When you depart, and save your thanks.
I remember when the Clerk of Assize and
the Clerk of the Peace were entitled to exact
their fee from all acquitted prisoners, and
were supposed in strictness to have a lien on
their persons for it. I believe there is now no
tribunal in England where the practice re-
mains, excepting the two Houses of Parlia-
ment ; but the Lord Chancellor and .the
Speaker of the House of Commons still say
to prisoners about to be liberated from the
custody of the Black Kod or the Serjeant-at-
Arms, " You are discharged, paying your
fees.3'
When the trial of Queen Hermione for
high treason comes off in Act m. Sc. 2, al-
THE WINTER'S TALE. 73
though, the indictment is not altogether ac-
cording to English legal form, and might be
held insufficient on a writ of error, we lawyers
cannot but wonder at seeing it so near perfec-
tion in charging the treason, and alleging the
overt act committed by her " contrary to the
faith and allegiance of a true subject."
It is likewise remarkable that Cleomenes
and Dion, the messengers who brought back
the response from the oracle of Delphi, to be
given in evidence, are sworn to the genuine-
ness of the document they produce almost in
the very words now used by the Lord Chan-
cellor when an officer presents at the bar of
the House of Lords the copy of a record of a
court of justice : —
You here shall swear * * *
That you, Cleomenes and Dion, have
Been both at Delphos j 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,
Kor read the secrets in 't.
SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
htjg Jatai.
In Shakespeare's dramas founded upon
English history, more legalisms might have
been expected ; but I have met with fewer
than in those which are taken from the annals
of foreign nations, or which, without depend-
ing on locality, " hold the mirror up to na-
ture." This paucity of reference to law or
to law proceedings may, perhaps, in part be
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 appears only to have introduced
additions and improvements into stock pieces
to revive their popularity. Yet we find in
several of the "Histories," Shakespeare's
fondness for law terms ; and it is still re-
markable, that whenever he indulges this
propensity he uniformly lays down good
law.
KING JOHN. 75
Thus in the controversy, in the opening
scene of 'KiNG JOHN/ between Robert and
Philip Faulconbridge, as to which of them
was to be considered the true heir of the de-
ceased Sir Kobert, the King, in giving judg-
ment, lays down the law of legitimacy most
perspicuously and soundly, — thus addressing
Kobert, the plaintiff : —
" Sirrah, your brother is legitimate :
Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him ;
And if she did play false, the fraud was hers,
Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands
That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother,
"Who, as you say, took pains to get this son,
Had of your father claim'd this son for his ?
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 ;
Your father's heir must have your father's land."
This is the true doctrine, "Pater est
quern nuptiw demonstrant."
It was likewise properly ruled that the
father's will, in favour of his son Robert, had
7C SHAKESPEAEE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
no power to dispossess 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 feeing dubbed
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 possession of the dominions
in France to which he was entitled as the
true heir of the Plantagenets, and should be
crowned King of England, says, kissing the
boy to render the covenant more binding,
" Upon thy check 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 the
crown" is laid down with great spirit and
force : and Shakespeare clearly shows that,
whatever his opinion might have been on
speculative dogmas in controversy between
the Keformers and the Bomanists, he spurned
the ultramontane pretensions of the Pope,
which some of our Koman Catholic fellow
subjects are now too much disposed to coun-
tenance, although they were stoutly resisted
before the Reformation by our ancestors, who
were good Catholics. King John declares,
Act in. Sc. 1,
" No Italian priest
Shall tithe or toll in our dominions ;
But as we under heaven are supreme head,
So, under heaven, that great supremacy.
Where we do reign, we will alone uphold,
Without th' assistance of a mortal hand.
So tell the Pope ; all reverence set apart
To 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 the 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 the same time, it is clear, from Shake-
speare's portraiture of Friar Lawrence and
other Eoman 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 in. Sc. 1, we have the partition
of England and Wales between Mortimer,
Glendower, and Hotspur, and the business is
KING HENRY THE FOUKTH. 79
conducted in as clerk-like, attorn ey-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 tripartite are drawn,
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 be 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 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
sents that the unlearned Hotspur, who 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 f shall we be gone ?"
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 to popularity" (Act in. 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 IIENKY THE FOURTH. 81
conveyance, by which 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 the 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,
u 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 SHAKESPEARE'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 ', and beg his^peace,
With tears of innocency and terms of zeal,
My father, in kind heart and pity mov'd,
Swore him assistance."
tfa
PART II.
Arguments have 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 IIENKY THE FOURTH. 83
ginning of the eighteenth century that illus-
trious Judge, Lord Chief Justice Holt, acted
as a police 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 G-adshill 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-
staif (or orderly), who, down to the present
day, follows the Chief Justice, like his shadow,
wherever he officially appears. On this occa-
sion the Chief Justice meeting Sir John, natu-
rally taxes him with having refused to obey
84: SIIAKESPEAJRE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
the summons served upon him 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 supposed, by any person ac-
quainted with his station and functions, to
use such vulgar language as that put into the
mouth of Sir William Gascoigne when Fal-
staff will not 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.
CTi. 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 Keports various
instances of its being so used by distinguished
KINO HENRY THE FOURTH. 85
judges from the bench. I will content my-
self with one. A petition being heard in the
Court of Chancery, before Lord Chancellor
Jeffreys, against a great City attorney who
had given him many briefs at the bar,
an affidavit was read, shearing 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 by the heels.'9 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 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
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 FalstafFs
object is to turn the Lord Chief Justice into
ridicule, and I am sorry to say that he splen-
didly succeeds, — insomuch that after the
party accused of felony has vaingloriously
asserted that he himself had done great ser-
vice to the state, and that his name was
terrible to the enemy, the Chief Justice,
instead of committing him to Newgate to
answer for the robbery at Gadshill, is con-
tented with admonishing him to be honest,
and dismisses him with a blessing ; — upon
which Sir John is emboldened to ask the
Chief Justice for the loan of a thousand
pounds. To lower the law still further, my
Lord Chief Justice is made to break off the
conversation, in which FalstafPs wit is so
sparkling, with a very bad pun.
Ch. 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
KIKG HENRY THE FOURTH. 87
The same superiority is preserved in the
subsequent scene (Act n. Sc. 1), where Fal-
staff being arrested on mesrxe process for debt
at the suit of Dame Quickly, he gains his
discharge, with the consent of the Chief
Justice, by saying to his Lordship — " My
Lord, this is a poor mad soul ; and she says,
up and down the town, that her eldest son is
like you : " and by insisting that although
he owed the money, he was privileged from
arrest for debt/' being upon hasty employment
in the king's affairs."
In Act v. Sc. 1, Falstaff, having long
made Justice Shallow his butt during a visit
to him in Gloucestershire, looks forward with
great delight to the fun of 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 penny and all the royal
coins then had impressed upon them the sign of the
erase.
88 SUAKESPEAKE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
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 intervallums."
Dr. Johnson thus annotates on the " two
actions : — " There is something humorous in
making a spendthrift compute time by the
operation of an action for debt." The critic
supposes, therefore, that in Shakespeare's
time final judgment was obtained in an action
of debt in the second term after the writ com-
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 FOUETH. 89
ises and threats which. Falstaff throws out
on hearing that Henry IV. was dead, and
that Prince Hal reigned in his stead.
Fal. Master Robert Shallow, choose 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 woe 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 Minister) to the new king,
and to have all the power and patronage of
the crown in his hands. Then, why plight
not Ancient Pistol, who had seen service,
have been made War Minister ? And if
Justice Shallow had been pitchforked into the
90 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
House of Peers, lie might have turned out a
distinguished Law Lord. — By taking " any
man's horses " was not meant stealing them,
but pressing them for the king's service, or
appropriating them at a nominal price, which
the law would then have justified under the
king's prerogative of pre-emption. Sir W.
G-ascoigne was continued as Lord Chief Jus-
tice in the new reign ; but, according to law
and custom, he was removable, a-nd he no
doubt expected to be removed, from his office.
Therefore, if Lord Eldon could be supposed
to have written the play, I do not see how he
would be chargeable with having forgotten
any of his law while writing it.
It is remarkable that while Falstaff and
his companions, in Act v. Sc. 5, are standing
in Palace Yard to see the new king returning
from his coronation in Westminster Abbey,
Pistol is made to utter an expression used,
when the record was in Latin, by special
pleaders in introducing a special traverse or
negation of a positive material allegation of
KING HENRY THE SIXTH. — PART II. 91
the opposite side, and so framing an issue of
fact for the determination of the jury ; — absque
hoc, " without this that ; " — then repeating
the allegation to be negatived. But there is
often much difficulty in explaining or account-
ing for the phraseology of Ancient Pistol, who
appears "to have been at a great feast of
languages and stolen the scraps ; " — so that
if, when " double charged with dignities/' he
had been called upon to speak in debate as a
leading member of the government, his ap-
pointment might have been carped at.
enrg ik
PABT II.
In the speeches of Jack Cade and his co-
adjutors in this play we find a familiarity
with the law and its proceedings which
strongly indicates that the author must have
had some professional practice or education
4*
92 SHAKESPEARE'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 kill all the lawyers.
Cade. Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lam-
entable thing, that the skin of an innocent lamb should
be made parchment ? — that parchment, being scribbled
o'er, should undo a man ? Some say the bee stings ;
but I say 'tis the bee's wax, for I did but seal once to a
thing, and I was never mine own man since.
The Clerk of Chatham is then brought in,
who could " make obligations and write court
hand/' and who, instead of " making his mark
like an honest plain-dealing man/' had , been
" 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 parchment in court
hand, and to apply the wax to them in the
form of seals : one does not understand how
he should, on any other theory of his bringing
up, have been acquainted with these details.
KING HENRY THE SIXTH. PAET 11. 93
Again, the indictment on which. Lord Say
was arraigned, in Act iv. Sc. 7, seems drawn
by no inexperienced hand : —
" Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth
of the realm in erecting a grammar-school : and where-
as, before, our forefathers had no other books but the
score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be
used ; and contrary to the Hug, Ms crown and dignity,
thou hast built a paper-mill. It will be proved to thy
face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of
a noun and a verb, and such abominable words as no
CJiristian 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. Moreover thou
hast put them in prison ; and because they could not
read, thou hast hanged them, when indeed only for that
cause they have been most worthy to live."
How acquired I know not, but it is quite
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 non nominand."
94: SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
Cade's proclamation, which follows, deals
with still more recondite heads of jurispru-
dence. Announcing his policy when he should
mount the throne, he says : —
" The proudest peer in the realm shall not wear a
head on his shoulders unless he pay me tribute : there
shall not a maid be married but she shall pay me her
maidenhead ere they have it. Men shall hold of me in
capite; and we charge and command that their wives
be &sfree as heart can wish, or tongue can tell."
He thus declares a great forthcoming
change in the tenure of land and in the lia-
bility to taxation: he is to have a poll-tax
like that which 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 VII., that very distinguished
judge, Lord Hussey, who was Chief Justice
of England during four reigns, in a considered
judgment delivered the opinion of the whole
Court of King's Bench as to the construction
to be put upon the words, " as free as tongue
can speak or heart can think." See YEAR
BOOK, Hil Term, 10 Hen. VII., fol. 13,
pi. 6.
96 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
®raifa8 and djjmssuk
In this play the author shows his insatia-
ble desire to illustrate his descriptions of kiss-
ing by his recollection of the forms used in
executing deeds. When Pandarus (Act in.
Sc. 2) has brought Troilus and Cressida to-
gether in the Orchard to gratify their warm
inclinations, he advises Troilus to give Cressi-
da " a kiss 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
parties interchangeably "
the exact form of the testatum clause in an
indenture — "In witness whereof the parties
interchangeably have hereto set their hands
and seals."
To avoid a return to this figure of speech
KING LEAK. 97
I may here mention other instances in which
Shakespeare introduces it. In ' Measure for
Measure/ Act iv. Sc. 1 —
" But my kisses bring again
Seals of love, but sealed in vain : "
and in his poem of ' Venus and Adonis ' —
" Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted,
"What bargains may I make, still to be sealing ? "
In Act i. Sc. 4 the Fool makes a lengthy
rhyming speech, containing a great many trite
but useful moral maxims, suqh as— -
Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowestj &c.,
which the testy old King found rather flat
and tiresome.
Lear. This is nothing, fool.
Fool. Then, 'tis like the Ireafh of an iwfeed lawyer:
you gave me nothing for it.
5
98 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
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 tirne there has been no
ground for the Fool's sarcasm upon the bar.
The two occasions when " the breath of an
unfeed lawyer " attracts notice in this genera-
tion are when he pleads for a party suing in
forma pauperis, or when he defends a person
prosecuted by the crown for high treason. It
is contrary to etiquette to take a fee in the
one case as well as in the other ; and on 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 LEAR. 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 Grloster, having suc-
ceeded in deluding his father into the belief
that Edgar, the legitimate son, had attempt-
ed to commit parricide, and had been pre-
vented from accomplishing the crime by
Edmund's tender solicitude for the Earl's
safety, the Earl is thus made to express a de-
termination that he would disinherit Edgar
(who was supposed to have fled from justice),
and that he would leave all his possessions to
Edmund : —
100 SHAKESPEAKE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
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 5* and of my land,
Loyal and natural boy, I'll work the means
To make thee capable.
In forensic discussions respecting legiti-
macy, the question is put, whether the in-
dividual whose status is to be determined is
" capable/' i. e. capable of inheriting ; but it
is only a lawyer who would express the idea
of legitimising a natural son by simply say-
ing—
I'll work the means
To make him capable.
Again, in Act in. Sc. 5, we find Edmund
trying to incense the Duke of Cornwall against
his father for having taken part with Lear
* One would suppose that photography, by which
this mode of catching criminals is now practised, had
been invented in the reign of King Lear.
KING LEAK. 101
when so cruelly treated by Goneril a#d Be-
gan. The two ddngptfc&fc 'had become the
reigning sovereigns, tc w^ir/^d^md /pro-
fessed to owe allegiance. Cornwall having
created Edmund Earl of Gloster says to him —
"Seek out where thy father is3 that he may be
ready for our apprehension."
On which Edmund observes aside —
" If I find him comforting the King, it will stuff his
suspicion 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 in. Sc. 6, the imaginary trial of
the two unnatural daughters is conducted in
a manner showing a perfect familiarity with
criminal procedure.
102 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
Lear places the two Judges on the bench,
viz., Mad 'Tons, and * the -Fool. He properly
addresses, the former as " the robed man of
justice/' but, although both were aof 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 Groneril to be arraigned first,
and then proceeds as a witness to give evi-
dence against her, to prove an overt act of
high treason :
" I here take my oath before this honourable assem-
bly, she kicked the poor king, her father."
But the trial could not be carried on with
perfect regularity on account of Lear's mad-
ness, and, without waiting for a verdict, he
himself sentences Regan to be anatomized : —
c Then, let them anatomize Regan ; see what breeds
about her heart."
HAMLET. 103
In this tragedy various expressions and
allusions crop out, showing the substratum
of law in the author's mind, — e. </., the de-
scription of the disputed territory which was
the cause of the war between Norway and
• Poland : —
"We go to gain a little patch of ground,
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it,
Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
A ranker rate, should it 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 ?
Wfiy such impress of shipwrights^ whose sore task
Does not divide the /Sunday from the weeTcf
Such confidence has there been in Shake-
speare's accuracy, that this passage has been
104: SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
quoted, both 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 shipwrights, 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 sheriff's 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 Grave-diggers' scene, however, is the
mine which produces the richest legal ore.
The discussion as to whether Ophelia was en-
titled to Christian burial proves that Shake-
speare had read and studied Plowden's Eeport
* See Barrington on the Ancient Statutes, p. 300.
HAMLET. 105
of the celebrated case of Hales v. Petit, tried
in the reign of Philip and Mary, and that he
intended to ridicule the counsel who argued
and the Judges who decided it.
On the accession of Mary Tudor, Sir
James Hales, a puisne Judge of the Common
Pleas, was prosecuted for being concerned in
the plot which placed the Lady Jane Grey
for a few days upon the throne ; but, as he
had previously expressed a strong opinion that
the succession of the right heir ought not to
be disturbed, he was pardoned and released
from prison. Nevertheless, so frightened was
he by the proceedings taken against him that
he went out of his mind, and, after attempt-
ing suicide by a penknife, he drowned himself
by walking into a river. Upon an inquisition
before the Coroner, a verdict offelo 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-
5*
106 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
terbury jointly to him and his wife, the Lady
Margaret, who survived him. Upon the sup-
position that this lease was forfeited, the
estate was given by the crown to one Oyriac
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 lifetime, which
makes the death to follow. And the act
which brought on the death here was the
throwing himself voluntarily into the water,
for this was the cause of his death. And if a
man kills himself by a wound which he gives
himself with a knife, or if he hangs himself,
as the wound or the hanging, which is the act
done in the party's lifetime, is the cause of
his death, so is the throwing himself into the
water here. Forasmuch as he cannot be at-
tainted of his own death, because he is dead
before there is any time to attaint him, the
finding of his death by the Coroner is by ne-
cessity of law equivalent to an attainder in
fact coming after his death. He cannot be
felo de se till the death is fully consummate,
and the death precedes the felony and the
forfeiture."
WALSH, Serjeant, contra, argued that the
felony was to be referred back to the act
which caused the death. "The act consists
of three parts : the first is the imagination,
which is a reflection or meditation of the
108 SHAKESPEARE'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 i3ie 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 0. J. Dyer and the whole court gave
judgment for the defendant, holding that al-
though Sir James Hales could hardly be said
to have 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
his death ? by drowning ; and who drowned
him ? Sir James Hales ; and when did he
drown him ? in his lifetime. So that Sir
HAMLET. 109
James Hales, being alive, caused Sir James
Hales to die ; and the act of 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 own salvation ?
2 Clo. 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 do. Why, 'tis found so.
1 Clo. It must be se 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 ; 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 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
.2 Clo. But is this law?
1 Clo. Ay, marry is't, crowner's quest law.
Hamlet's own speech, on taking in his
hand what he supposed might be the skull of
a lawyer, abounds with lawyer-like thoughts
and words : —
" Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases,
his tenures, and his tricks ? Why does he suffer this
rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a
dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of bat-
tery? Humph! This fellow might be in's time a
great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizan-
ces, 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 dirt ? will his
vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and
double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair
of indentures ?"
These terms of art are all used seemingly
with a full knowledge of their import ; and it
would puzzle some practising barristers with
whom I am acquainted to go over the whole
seriatim, and to define each of them satis-
factorily.
MACBETH. Ill
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 ; but the only passage I find
with the juridical mark upon it in f Macbeth/
is in Act iv. Sc. 1, where, the hero exulting in
the assurance from the Weird Sisters that he
can receive harm from " none of woman born/'
he, rather in a lawyer-like manner, resolves to
provide an indemnity, if the worst should come
to the worst, —
"But yet I'll make assurance double sure,
And take a loud 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-plac'd Macbeth
Shall live the lease of nature."
But, unluckily for Macbeth, the lease con-
tained no covenants for title or quiet enjoy-
ment : — there were likewise forfeitures to Ibe
incurred by the tenant, — with a clause of re-
entry,— a&d consequently he was speedily
ousted.*
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 c Richard III./ Act iv. Sc. 4 —
Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour.
Canst thou demise to any child of mine ?
This is as clear a reference to leasing, as if he had said
in full, " demise, lease, grant and to farm let."
OTHELLO. 113
manner in 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/'
SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
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 be 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 ;
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 tale deliver
Of my whole course of love ; what drugs, what charms,
What conjuration, and what mighty magic
(For such proceedings I am charged withal)
I won his daughter with."
Having fully opened his case, showing that
he had used no forbidden arts, and having ex-
plained the course which he had lawfully pur-
sued, he says in conclusion : —
116 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
" This only is the witchcraft I have used :
Here comes the lady — let her witness it."
He then examines the witness, and is
honourably acquitted.
Again, the application to Othello to for-
give Cassio is made to assume the shape of a
juridical proceeding. Thus Desdemona con-
cludes her address to Cassio, assuring him of
her zeal as his Solicitor: —
" I'll intermingle every thing he does
With Cassio's suit : Therefore be merry, Cassio ;
For thy Solicitor shall rather die
Than give thy cause away" — (Act in. sc. 3.)
The subsequent part of the same scene
shows that Shakespeare was well acquainted
with all courts, low as well as high ; — where
lago asks —
Who has a breast so pure
But some uncleanly apprehensions
Keep leets and law-days, and in session sit
With meditations lawful ?
ANTONIO AND CLEOPATRA. 117
Jlntmtg and
In c Julius Csesar ' I could not find a sin-
gle instance of a Eoman being made to talk
like an English lawyer ; but in ' Antony and
Cleopatra' (Act i. Sc. 4) Lepidus, in trying
to palliate the 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 ; hereditary
Rather than purchased."
That is to say, they are taken by descent,
not by purchase*
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 purchased
Falls upon tnee in a more fairer sort.
i. e. I took by purchase, you will take by descent •.
118 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
money, called the price ; but lawyers consider
that " 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 tabes by purchase, or to B.
for life, remainder to A. and his heirs, B. be-
ing a stranger to A., A. takes "by purchase;
but upon the death of A., his eldest son would
take by descent.
English lawyers sometimes use these terms
metaphorically, like LEPIDUS. Thus a Law
Lord who has suffered much from hereditary
gout, although very temperate in his habits,
says, " I take it by descent, not by 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
COKIOLANUS. 119
another joke Lord Stowell was fond of — " My
brother, the Chancellor, in vacation goes out
with his gun to kill — time."
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. Pickwick, be-
fore Mr. Justice Starey, for breach of promise
of marriage. Menenius (Act n. 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 SHAKESPEAKE'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 party and party, if you chance to be pinch-
ed with the colic, you make faces like mummers, set up
the bloody flag against all patience, and in roaring for a
— pot dismiss the controversy pleading more en-
tangled by your hearing: all the peace you make in
their cause is, calling both the parties knaves."
Shakespeare here mistakes the duties of
the Tribune for those of the Prcetor; — but in
truth he was recollecting with disgust what
he had himself witnessed in his own country.
Nowadays all English judges are exemplary
for despatch, patience, and good temper ! ! !
mtf Julifi
The first scene of this romantic drama
may "be studied by a student of the Inns of
Court to acquire a knowledge of the law of
" assault and battery/' and what will amount
to a justification. Although Sampson ex-
ROMEO AND JULIET. 121
claims, " My naked weapon is out : quarrel,
I will back th.ee," he adds, " Let us take the
law of our sides ; let them begin." Then we
learn that neither frotvning, nor biting the
thumb, nor answering to a question, " Do you
bite your thumb at us, Sir ? " " I do bite my
thumb, Sir," — would be enough to support
the plea of se defendendo.*
The scene ends with old Montagu and old
Oapulet being bound over, in the English
fashion, to keep 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,5 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:
though I struck Mm first, yet it's no waiter for that."
6
122 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
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 ihe fee-simple of my life for an hour and a
quarter. (Act in. Sc. 1.)
Talking of the 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-simple of his salvation * * and cut the
entail from all remainders"
POEMS. 123
With a view to your inquiry respecting
the learning of Shakespeare I have now, my
dear Mr. Payne Collier, gone through all his
plays, — and I can venture to speak of their
contents with some confidence, having been
long familiar with them. His Poems are by
no means so well known to me ; for, although
I have occasionally looked into them, and I
am not blind to their beauties, I must confess
that I never could discover in them (like some
of his enthusiastic admirers) the same proofs
of surpassing genius which render him im-
mortal as a dramatist. Biit a cursory perusal
of them £oes discover the propensity to legal
thoughts and words which might be expected
in an attorney's clerk who takes to rhyming.
I shall select a few instances, without un-
necessarily adding any comment.
From VENUS AND ADONIS.
" But when the heart's attorney once is mute,
The client breaks as desperate in the suit."
124: SHAKESPEAKE'S LEGAL ACQUIKEMENTS.
" Which purchase if thou make for fear of slips,
Set thy seal-manual on my wax-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 law"
" No rightful plea might plead for justice there."
" Hath served a dumb arrest upon his tongue."
From the SONNETS.
•
u When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past."
" So should that beauty which you hold in lease."
" 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 bail shall carry me away."*
rt Of faults concealed, wherein I am attainted."
" Which works on leases of short numbered hours."
f c Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
To thee I send this written embassage."t
" And I myself am mortgaged"
" Why so large cost, having so short a lease ? "J
" So should that beauty, which you hold in lease,
Find no determination"^
* Death is the sheriff's officer, strict in his arrest,
and will take no bail.
t This is the beginning of a love-letter, in the lan-
guage of a vassal doing homage to his liege lord.
J Taxing an overcharge in the attorney's bill of
costs.
§ The word "determination" is always used by
lawyers instead of " end."
126 SHAKESPEAKE'S LEGAL ACQUIKEMEOTS.
SONNET XL VI.
" Mine Eye and Heart are at a mortal war
How to divide the- conquest of thy sight;
Mine Eye my Heart thy picture's sight would bar,
My Heart mine Eye the freedom of that right.
My Heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie
(A closet never pierced with crystal eyes),
But the Defendant doth that plea deny,
And says in him thy fair appearance lies.
To 'cide this title is 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 ;
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 by 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, — each moiety then to be held in
severalty. There are regular Pleadings in
the suit, the HEAKT being represented as
Plaintiff and the EYE as Defendant. At
last issue is joined on what the one affirms
and the other denies. Now a jury [in the
nature of an inquest] is to be impannelled to
'cide [decide] and by their verdict to appor-
tion between the litigating parties the subject
matter to be divided. The jury fortunately
are unanimous, and after due deliberation find
for the EYE in respect of the lady's outward
form, and for the HEART in respect of her in-
ward love.
Surely Sonnet XLVI. 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 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
's WSXL
Among Shakespeare's writings, I tliink
that attention should be paid to his WILL;
for, upon a careful perusal, it will be found
to have been in all probability composed by
himself. It seems much too simple, terse,
and condensed, to have been the composition
of a Stratford attorney, who was to be paid
by the number of lines which it contained.
But a testator, without professional experi-
ence, could hardly have used language so ap-
propriate as we find in this will, to express
his meaning.
Shakespeare, the greatest of British dram-
atists, appears to have been as anxious as
Sir Walter Scott, the greatest of British
novelists, to found a family, although he does
not require all his descendants to " bear the
name and arms of Shakespeare/' But, as far
as the rules of English law would permit, he
seeks to perpetuate in an heir male, descended
from one of his daughters (his son having died
ins 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 stirps from which
this line 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-
6*
130 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
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
Robinson 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 heirs of
me the said William Shakespeare for ever."
In his will, when originally engrossed,
there was no notice whatever taken of his
wife ; but immediately after these limitations
he subsequently interpolated a bequest to her
in the following words : —
" I give unto my wife my second best bed with the
furniture."
The subject of this magnificent gift being
only personal property, he shows his technical
skill 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 have leen tenderly attached
132 SHAKESPEARE'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 " misgraifed 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'-s biographers, in the absence
of any register of his marriage, had conjectured that it
took place in June, 1582), by searching the records of
KETKOSPECT. 133
not only by their number, but by the accura-
cy and propriety with which 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 Shakespeare 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
his address to the English nation, speaking
of the House of Commons, and wishing to say
that the beneficial interest in the state be-
longs to the people, and not to their represent-
atives, says, "They are only trustees; the fee
is in us/' Now every attorney's clerk knows
that when land is held in trust, the fee (or
legal estate) is in the trustee, and that the
beneficiary has only an equitable interest.
While Novelists and Dramatists are constant-
ly making mistakes as to the law of marriage,
of wills, and of inheritance, — to Shakespeare's
law, lavishly as he propounds it, there can
neither be demurrer, nor bill of exceptions,
nor writ of error.
He is no doubt equally accurate in refer-
ring to some other professions, but these refer-
ences are rare and comparatively slight.
Some have contended that he must have been
by trade a gardener, from the conversation, in
the ' WINTER'S TALE/ between Perdita, Po-
lixenes, and Florizel, about raising carnations
and gilliflowers, and the skilful grafting of
fruit trees. Others have contended that
HIS REFERENCES TO OTHER PROFESSIONS. 135
Shakespeare must have been bred to the sea,
from the nautical language in which directions
are given for the manoeuvring of the ship in
the ' TEMPEST/ and from the graphic descrip-
tion in Henry IV.'s soliloquy of trie " high and
giddy mast/' of the " ruffian billows/' of the
" slippery shrouds/' and of " sealing 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 f Borneo
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 — Borneo'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
136 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, who had once enter-
ed the shop to buy a dose of rhubarb, might
have safely given a similar account of what
he saw, although utterly ignorant of Galen
and Hippocrates. But let a non-professional
man, however acute, presume to talk law, or
to draw illustrations from legal science in
discussing other subjects, and he will very
speedily fall into some laughable absurdity.
To conclude my summing up of the evi-
dence under this head, I say, if Shakespeare
is shown to have possessed a knowledge of
law, which he might have acquired as clerk
in an attorney's office in Stratford, and which
he could have acquired in no other way, we
are justified in believing the fact that he was
a clerk in an attorney's office at Stratford,
without any direct proof of the fact. Logi-
cians and jurists allow us to infer a fact of
STATE OF THE EVIDENCE. 137
which there is no direct proof, from facts ex-
pressly proved, if the fact to be inferred may
have existed, if it be consistent with all other
facts known to exist, and if facts known to
exist can only be accounted for by inferring
the fact to be 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. JENEAS, 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 " cpme 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.
Kesuming the Judge, however, I must lay
down that your opponents are not called upon
to prove a negative, and that the onus pro-
bandi rests upon you. You must likewise re-
member that you require us implicitly to be-
138 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
lieve a fact, which, 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 Kobert Greene
having asserted the fact ; but 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 Senec&. Nash and Eobert 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 " Litfes " 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 4000?. a
year, which he has ever since received, thereby robbing
140 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
What you have mainly to rely upon (and
this consideration may prevail in your favour
with a large majority of the literary world) is
the seemingly utter impossibility of Shake-
speare having acquired, on any other theory,
the wonderful knowledge of law which he un-
doubtedly displays. But we must bear in
mind that, although he was a mortal man,
and nothing miraculous can be attributed to
him, he was intellectually the most gifted of
the public ; whereas in truth and in fact} he made it a
stipulation on his going to Ireland 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
they may sometimes be justly compared to the hogs of
Westphalia, who without discrimination pick up what
falls from one another.
STATE OF THE EVIDENCE. 14:1
mankind, and that lie was capable of acquir-
ing knowledge where the opportunities he en-
joyed would have been insufficient for any
other. Supposing that John the father lived
as a gentleman, or respectably carried on
trade as one of the principal inhabitants of
the town, and that William the son, from the
time of leaving the grammar-school till he
went to London, resided with his father, as-
sisting him in the management of his houses
and land and any ancillary business carried on
by him, — the son might have been in the
habit of attending trials in the Stratford
Court of Eecord, and when of age he might
have been summoned to serve as a juryman
there or at the Court Leet ; he might have
been intimate with some of the attorneys who
practised in the town and with their clerks,
and while in their company at fairs, wakes,
church ales, 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 SHAKESPEARE'S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS.
Moreover, it is to be considered that, al-
though Shakespeare in 1589 was unquestion-
ably a shareholder in the Blackfriars Theatre,
and had trod the boards as an actor, the time
when he began to write for the stage is uncer-
tain ; and we are not in possession of any piece
which we assuredly know to have been written
and finished by him before the year 1592.
Thus there was a long interval 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 these court theatricals ; and
the author, in all probability, was* present
among the lawyers when ' Twelfth Night '
was brought out at the Keaders' Feast in the
Middle Temple, and when ' Othello ' was
acted at Lord Chancellor Ellesmere's before
Queen Elizabeth.
Shakespeare, during his first years in
London, when his purse was low, may have
dined at the ordinary in Alsatia, thus de-
scribed by Dekker, where he may have had a
daily surfeit of law, if, with his universal
thirst for knowledge, he had any desire to
drink deeply at this muddy fountain :
" There is another ordinary at which your London
usurer, your stale bachelor and your thrifty attorney
do resort ; the price three-pence ; the rooms as full of
company as a gaol ; and indeed divided into several
wards, like the beds of an hospital. * * * If they
chance to discourse, it is of nothing but of statutes,
bonds, recognizances, fines, recoveries, audits, rents, sub-
sidies, sureties, enclosures, liveries, indictments, outlaw-
ries, feoffments, judgments, commissions, bankrupts,
amercements, and of such horrible matter." — Dekker*s
GulVs Hornbook, 1609.
In such company a willing listener might
14:4: 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 think 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.
And, all-admiring, with an inward wish,
You would desire the king were made a prelate.
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs.
You would say, it hath been all-in-all his study.
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle render'd you in music.
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose
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."
Henry V., Act i. Sc. 1.
CONCLUSION. 145
We cannot argue with confidence on the
principles which would guide us to safe con-
clusions respecting ordinary men, when we
are reasoning respecting one of whom it was
truly said :
k'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 6 Terence/ after
being present at a consultation of lawyers on
the validity of his son's marriage, you may
sigh and say, " Incertior sum mult6 quam
dudum."
However, if my scepticism and my argu-
mentation (worthy of Serjeant Eitherside)
should stimulate you deliberately to reconsider
the question, and to communicate your ma-
7
14:6 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 all events you
will much gratify,
Your sincere admirer and friend,
(Signed) CAMPBELL.
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