Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 14.pdf/87

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WAS SHAKESPEARE

BOUND TO AN ATTORNEY?

By J. B. Mackenzie. IN view of the unmeasured knowledge of things pertaining to each of the learned departments of human activity,—to leave out of account his equally familiar acquaintance with the situation and concerns of those fol lowing the humbler vocations of life— that was absorbed by the receptive mind of the great dramatist, and is graven with such power and skill on the "ages of his deathless creations, it may be set down by many as both idle and whimsical to select for inti mate examination the subject of his facile grasp of legal principles—principles helped notably in their submission, as they are, by a garbing of just legal nomenclature. Propo sitions germane to the realm in question are, however, advanced by him with so true an apprehension, and reasoning to enforce them is impressed by so rare a cogency; and illustrations are employed with such peculiar aptness (not to mention his fruitful tillage of the dry wastes of procedure), that to allow the claim suggested would hardly pledge the judgment to any violent presump tion. The writer, obliged to be honest, ap proaches his theme by confessing himself the proclaimer of no original gospel. Were a patent, indeed, sought for his theory, want of novelty would clearly stand in the way of its issue. And, in no small degree, because one danger of remaining neutral in a contro versy is the turning out of a colorless product, he conceives that he should array his forces on one side or the other. Malone, a studious commentator (himself a wearer of the long-robe), maintains the affirmative of the question as something in capable of being disputed; while Payne Collier, another fraternizer, in spirit, with the bard, who—ranked, also, with the pro fession—informs the debate by large acu

men (both, it may be remarked, securing a guarded approver of their contention in Lord Chief Justice Campbell) unreservedly endorses the opinion of his fellow-student. Of those engaging with the problem in this country, Heard and Davis champion the same view. Not a few, it must be granted, (amongst them Lee and Knight in England, and Allen in America) gainsay the belief altogether. Most authorities, nevertheless, uniting to dismiss, in short order, the notion, favored by some, that our English monarch of song adopted in early life his father's call ing of glover or wool-stapler—it has to be kept in mind that his occupation of much of this interval is wrapped in obscurity—con cede a reasonable foundation on which to rest the hypothesis launched. For the widely-indulged surmise, at all events, that Shakespeare's understanding of law should be referred to a medium offering a better guaranty of its soundness and extent than a number of chance accretions, expanding some meagre nucleus of self-acquired in formation—a string of odds-and-ends laid hold of in fitful intercourse with practitioners —ore from the mine of lofty discussion, pro found soliloquy uncovered by the deeper gleams from the phosphorescent wave of free-tongued levity, sportive banter shining about the lighter dramas; these—coupled with jets from the fount of glowing senti ment, irised fantasy which plays through the sonnets—yield unequivocal support. There will be an effort, in dealing with the spequlation, to present as logical a factum as possible. Regard, by way of initial showing, this example of demonstrating the intent as that which, in the criminal sphere, determines the color of an act. Henry V.. pursuing, while disguised, an argument with a soldier of his