law to all legal modes of obtaining property, except inheritance or descent. And in this peculiar sense the word occurs five times in Shakespeare's thirty-four plays, but only in a single passage in the fifty-four plays of Beaumont and Fletcher. And in the first scene of the Midsummer Night's Dream the father of Hermia begs the ancient privilege of Athens, that he may dispose of his daughter either to Demetrius or to death, * according to our law Immediately provided in that case." - 66 He pleads the statute; and the words run off his tongue in heroic verse as if he were reading them from a paper. As the courts of law in Shakespeare's time occupied public attention much more than they do now — their terms having regulated the season " of London society, it has been suggested that it was in attendance upon them that he picked up his legal vocabulary. But this supposition not only fails to account for Shakespeare's peculiar freedom and exactness in the use of that phraseology, it does not even place him in the way of learning those terms his use of which is most remarkable; which are not such as he would have heard at ordinary proceedings at nisi prius, but such as refer to the tenure or transfer of real property "fine and recovery," "statutes merchant," "purchase," "indenture,' tenure," ""double voucher," "fee simple," farm," "remainder," "reversion," forfeiture," &c. This conveyancer's jargon could not have been picked up by hanging round the courts of law in London two hundred and fifty years ago, when suits as to the title to real property were comparatively so rare. And beside, 66 66 "fee * Falstaff, for instance, speaks of the wearing out of six fashions, which is four terms or two actions." Shakespeare uses his law just as freely in his early plays, written in his first London years, as in those produced at a later period. Just as exactly too; for the correctness and propriety with which these terms are introduced have compelled the admiration of a Chief Justice and a Lord Chancellor.† Again, bearing in mind that genius, although it reveals general truth, and facilitates all acquirement, does not impart facts or acquaintance with technical terms, how can we account for the fact that in an age when it was the common practice for young lawyers to write plays, one play-wright left upon his plays a stronger, sharper legal stamp, than appears upon those of any of his contemporaries, and that the characters of this stamp are those of the complicated law of real property? Must we believe that this man was thus distinguished among a crowd of playwriting lawyers, not only by his genius, but by a lack of special knowledge of the law? Or shall we rather believe that the son of the late high bailiff of Stratford, a somewhat clever lad, and ambitious withal, was allowed to commence his studies for a profession for which his cleverness fitted him, and by which he might reasonably * Thus, in Henry the Sixth, Part II., Jack Cade says, "Men shall hold of me in capite and we charge and command that wives be as free as heart can wish or tongue can tell"— words which indicate acquaintance with very ancient and uncommon tenures of land. In the Comedy of Errors, when Dromio of Syracuse says, "There's no time for a man to recover his hair that grows bald by nature," (Hear, O Rowland! and give ear, O Phalon !) his master replies, "May he not do it by fine and recovery" Fine and recovery was a process by which, through a fictitious suit, a transfer was made of the title in an entailed estate. In Love's Labour's Lost, almost without a doubt the first comedy that Shakespeare wrote, on Boyet's offering to kiss Maria, (Act II. Sc. 1,) she declines the salute, and says, "My lips are no common, though several they be." Maria's allusion is plainly to tenancy in common by several (i. e. divided, distinct) title. See the Note upon this passage. †These are Lord Campbell's words: "While novelists and dramatists are constantly 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." hope to rise at least to moderate wealth and distinction, and that he continued these studies until his father's misfortunes, aided, perhaps, by some of those acts of youthful indiscretion which clever lads as well as dull ones sometimes will commit, threw him upon his own resources, - and that then, law failing to supply his pressing need, he turned to the stage, on which he had townsmen and friends? One of these conclusions is in the face of reason, fact, and probability; the other, in accordance with them all. But the bare fact that Shakespeare was an attorney's clerk, even if indisputably established, though of some interest, is of little real importance. It teaches us nothing about the man, of what he did for himself, thought for himself, how he joyed, how he suffered, what he was in his mere manhood. It has but a naked material relation to the other fact, that he uses legal phrases oftener, more freely, and more exactly than any other poet. III. Somewhere, then, within the years 1585 and 1586, Shakespeare went from Stratford to London, where we next hear of him as an actor and a mender of old plays. That he went with the intention of becoming an actor, has been universally assumed: but perhaps too hastily. For he had social ambition and high self-esteem; and in his day to become an actor was to cast the one of these sentiments aside, and to tread the other under foot. Betterton's story, told through Rowe, is, that Shakespeare was obliged to leave his business and family for some time, and shelter himself in London." In so far as this may be relied upon, it shows that Shakespeare had business in Stratford, and that he sought only 66 a temporary refuge in the metropolis. Probably it was with no very definite purpose that he left his native place. Poverty, persecution, and perhaps a third Fury, made Stratford too hot to hold him; and he might well flee, vaguely seeking relief for the present and provision for the future. He would naturally hope to live in London by the business which he had followed at Stratford. Such is the way of ambitious young men who go from rural districts to a metropolis. And, until every other means of livelihood had failed him, it was not in this high-minded, sensitive, aspiring youth to assume voluntarily a profession then scorned of all men. We may be sure that if he sought business as an attorney in London, he did not at once obtain it. Shakespeare although he was, no such miracle could be wrought for him; nay, the less would it be wrought because of his being Shakespeare. He doubtless in these first days hoped for a publisher; and not improbably this purpose was among those which led him up to London. Let who will believe that he went that journey without a manuscript in his pocket. For to suppose that a man of poetic power lives until his twentyfirst year without writing a poem, which he then rates higher than he ever afterward will rate any of his work, is to set aside the history of poetry, and to silence those years which are most affluent of fancy and most eager for expression. With Venus and Adonis written, if nothing else, but I think it not unlikely a play, Shakespeare went to London and sought a patron. For in those days a poet needed a patron even more than a publisher; as without the former he rarely or never got the latter. Shakespeare found a patron; but not so soon, we may be sure, as he had expected. Meantime, while he waited, the stage door stood ajar invitingly, and he was both tempt ed and impelled to enter. For that natural inclination to poetry and acting which Aubrey tells us he possessed had been stimulated by the frequent visits of companies of players to Stratford, at whose performances he could not have failed to be a delighted and thoughtful spectator. Indeed, as it was the custom for the mayor or bailiff of a town visited by a travelling company to bespeak the play at their first exhibition, to reward them for it himself, and to admit the audience gratis, it may safely be assumed that the first theatrical performance in Stratford, of which there is any record, had John Shakespeare for its patron. For it was given in 1569, the year in which he was high bailiff; and the bailiff's son, although he was then only five years old, we may be sure was present. Between 1569 and 1586 hardly a year passed without several performances by one or more companies at Stratford. But natural inclination and straitened means of living were not the only influences which led Shakespeare to the theatre. Other Stratford boys had gone up to London, and some of them had become players. Thomas Greene, one of the most eminent actors of the Elizabethan period, he who gave his name to The City Gallant, which was known and published as Greene's Tu Quoque," was in 1586 a member of the company known as The Lord Chamberlain's Servants," to which Shakespeare became permanently attached. Greene was of a respectable family at Stratford, one of which was an attorney, who had professional connections in London, and who was Shakespeare's kinsman. Burbadge, Sly, Heminge, and Pope, who all bore Warwickshire names, were on the London stage at the time of Shakespeare's arrival at the metropolis. If Shakespeare went to London relying upon the 66 See the Remarks on the Preliminary Matter to the Folio, Vol. II. pp. xxxvi. xlvii., xlviii. of this work. |