第18章

However,we must do Mr.Collins the justice of saying that he has fully recognized,what is indeed tolerably obvious,that Shakespeare must have had a sound legal training."It may,of course,be urged,"he writes,"that Shakespeare's knowledge of medicine,and particularly that branch of it which related to morbid psychology,is equally remarkable,and that no one has ever contended that he was a physician.(Here Mr.Collins is wrong;that contention also has been put forward.)It may be urged that his acquaintance with the technicalities of other crafts and callings,notably of marine and military affairs,was also extraordinary,and yet no one has suspected him of being a sailor or a soldier.(Wrong again.Why even Messrs.Garnett and Gosse 'suspect'that he was a soldier!)This may be conceded,but the concession hardly furnishes an analogy.To these and all other subjects he recurs occasionally,and in season,but with reminiscences of the law his memory,as is abundantly clear,was simply saturated.In season and out of season now in manifest,now in recondite application,he presses it into the service of expression and illustration.At least a third of his myriad metaphors are derived from it.It would indeed be difficult to find a single act in any of his dramas,nay,in some of them,a single scene,the diction and imagery of which is not colored by it.Much of his law may have been acquired from three books easily accessible to him,namely Tottell's Precedents (1572),Pulton's Statutes (1578),and Fraunce's Lawier's Logike (1588),works with which he certainly seems to have been familiar;but much of it could only have come from one who had an intimate acquaintance with legal proceedings.We quite agree with Mr.Castle that Shakespeare's legal knowledge is not what could have been picked up in an attorney's office,but could only have been learned by an actual attendance at the Courts,at a Pleader's Chambers,and on circuit,or by associating intimately with members of the Bench and Bar."This is excellent.But what is Mr.Collins'explanation."Perhaps the simplest solution of the problem is to accept the hypothesis that in early life he was in an attorney's office (!),that he there contracted a love for the law which never left him,that as a young man in London,he continued to study or dabble in it for his amusement,to stroll in leisure hours into the Courts,and to frequent the society of lawyers.On no other supposition is it possible to explain the attraction which the law evidently had for him,and his minute and undeviating accuracy in a subject where no layman who has indulged in such copious and ostentatious display of legal technicalities has ever yet succeeded in keeping himself from tripping."A lame conclusion."No other supposition"indeed!Yes,there is another,and a very obvious supposition,namely,that Shakespeare was himself a lawyer,well versed in his trade,versed in all the ways of the courts,and living in close intimacy with judges and members of the Inns of Court.

One is,of course,thankful that Mr.Collins has appreciated the fact that Shakespeare must have had a sound legal training,but Imay be forgiven if I do not attach quite so much importance to his pronouncements on this branch of the subject as to those of Malone,Lord Campbell,Judge Holmes,Mr.Castle,K.C.Lord Penzance,Mr.Grant White,and other lawyers,who have expressed their opinion on the matter of Shakespeare's legal acquirements.

Here it may,perhaps,be worth while to quote again from Lord Penzance's book as to the suggestion that Shakespeare had somehow or other managed "to acquire a perfect familiarity with legal principles,and an accurate and ready use of the technical terms and phrases,not only of the conveyancer's office,but of the pleader's chambers and the courts at Westminster."This,as Lord Penzance points out,"would require nothing short of employment in some career involving CONSTANT CONTACT with legal questions and general legal work."But "in what portion of Shakespeare's career would it be possible to point out that time could be found for the interposition of a legal employment in the chambers or offices of practising lawyers?It is beyond doubt that at an early period he was called upon to abandon his attendance at school and assist his father,and was soon after,at the age of sixteen,bound apprentice to a trade.While under the obligation of this bond he could not have pursued any other employment.Then he leaves Stratford and comes to London.He has to provide himself with the means of a livelihood,and this he did in some capacity at the theatre.No one doubts that.The holding of horses is scouted by many,and perhaps with justice,as being unlikely and certainly unproved;but whatever the nature of his employment was at the theatre,there is hardly room for the belief that it could have been other than continuous,for his progress there was so rapid.

Ere long he had been taken into the company as an actor,and was soon spoken of as a 'Johannes Factotum.'His rapid accumulation of wealth speaks volumes for the constancy and activity of his services.One fails to see when there could be a break in the current of his life at this period of it,giving room or opportunity for legal or indeed any other employment.'In 1589,'says Knight,'we have undeniable evidence that he had not only a casual engagement,was not only a salaried servant,as many players were,but was a shareholder in the company of the Queen's players with other shareholders below him on the list.'This (1589)would be within two years after his arrival in London,which is placed by White and Halliwell-Phillipps about the year 1587.The difficulty in supposing that,starting with a state of ignorance in 1587,when he is supposed to have come to London,he was induced to enter upon a course of most extended study and mental culture,is almost insuperable.Still it was physically possible,provided always that he could have had access to the needful books.But this legal training seems to me to stand on a different footing.It is not only unaccountable and incredible,but it is actually negatived by the known facts of his career."Lord Penzance then refers to the fact that "by 1592(according to the best authority,Mr.Grant White)several of the plays had been written.The Comedy of Errors in 1589,Love's Labour's Lost in 1589,Two Gentlemen of Verona in 1589or 1590,and so forth,and then asks,"with this catalogue of dramatic work on hand .was it possible that he could have taken a leading part in the management and conduct of two theatres,and if Mr.Phillipps is to be relied upon,taken his share in the performances of the provincial tours of his company--and at the same time devoted himself to the study of the law in all its branches so efficiently as to make himself complete master of its principles and practice,and saturate his mind with all its most technical terms?"I have cited this passage from Lord Penzance's book,because it lay before me,and I had already quoted from it on the matter of Shakespeare's legal knowledge;but other writers have still better set forth the insuperable difficulties,as they seem to me,which beset the idea that Shakespeare might have found time in some unknown period of early life,amid multifarious other occupations,for the study of classics,literature and law,to say nothing of languages and a few other matters.Lord Penzance further asks his readers:"Did you ever meet with or hear of an instance in which a young man in this country gave himself up to legal studies and engaged in legal employments,which is the only way of becoming familiar with the technicalities of practice,unless with the view of practicing in that profession?I do not believe that it would be easy,or indeed possible,to produce an instance in which the law has been seriously studied in all its branches,except as a qualification for practice in the legal profession."This testimony is so strong,so direct,so authoritative;and so uncheapened,unwatered by guesses,and surmises,and maybe-so's,and might-have-beens,and could-have-beens,and must-have-beens,and the rest of that ton of plaster of paris out of which the biographers have built the colossal brontosaur which goes by the Stratford actor's name,that it quite convinces me that the man who wrote Shakespeare's Works knew all about law and lawyers.Also,that that man could not have been the Stratford Shakespeare--and WASN'T.

Who did write these Works,then?

I wish I knew.