Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 10.pdf/370

 William Shakespeare, Attorney at Law. for reformation, tells him how Richard II — "Grew a companion to the common streets. Enfeoffed himself to popularity." and finally lost his throne. Shakespeare desired to express by this statement that the king had surrendered himself absolutely and completely to public pleasures and places. The word " enfoeff," thus employed, gives strength to the utter ance and an easy flow to the verse, but strict legal phraseology would offer objection to its use. Troilus and Cressida display some hesi tancy about showing their love. Panderus thus seeks to encourage them : — "So rub on and kiss the mistress, How now a kiss in fee farm." Shakespeare evidently meant a kiss in perpetuity. The style is hardly Shakes pearean. ' "Jointure " occurs in Shakespeare five times. The word is twice manifestly mis applied. Its use in two of the other three instances is of doubtful correctness. In Romeo and Juliet the reconciliation between Capulet and Montague is spoken of as "Julia's jointure," while in the Merry Wives of Windsor, Shallow offers Anne a hundred and fifty pounds " in jointure," pro vided his hand is accepted in marriage. Traino employs the word most prop erly : — "Besides two thousand ducats by the year Of fruitful lands, all of which shall be her jointure." We are not, however, to understand that all of Shakespeare's law is at fault. There are, in his writings, many legal expressions employed both fittingly and effectively. Thus, in Love's Labor Lost, we find this bit of conversation between Maria and Boyet. The former had just referred to Boyet and Biron as " sheep," when Boyet responds : — "No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.

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Maria. — You sheep and I pasture; shall that finish the jest? Boyet. — So you grant pasture for me. (Offer ing to kiss her.) Maria. — Not so, gentle beast. My lips are no common, though several they be." We cannot but admire the skillful use to which the poet puts the two terms, " com mon " and "several." The quotation shows with what cunning and force Shakespeare improved his legal intelligence. The following statement of Troilus, in as serting his constancy to Cressida, is no less to be admired : — "Our head shall go bare till merit crown it: no perfection in reversion shall have a praise in present." The Chief Justice calls Falstaff to account for some of his misdoings. Among other accusations is this : — "I sent for you when there were matters against you for your life to come speak with me." To which Sir John responds : — "As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws ot this land's service, I did not come." And he seems to have been well advised. Falstaff at this time was in the army, and, under the law then in vogue, he was not amenable for the offence charged against him. In Anthony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare evidences considerable knowledge of realproperty law in the words placed by him in the mouth of Lepidus when referring to his great competitor : — "His faults hereditary rather than purchased." Here the poet aptly expresses his idea by a distinction known to but few civilians. Lord Campbell quotes the following from the Merry Wives of Windsor as one of the best proofs of Shakespeare's connection with the law: Ford, disguised as Brooks, calls on Falstaff, ostensibly to secure the latter's as sistance in an amour with Mrs. Ford, — in reality to discover the character of his wife. Brooks tells Sir John of his attempts to cap tivate Mrs. Ford and his indifferent success: