THE FOOTSTEPS OF SHAKSPERE. ON reading in January, 1859, a paragraph in a newspaper, that Lord Campbell was about publishing some remarks on Shakspere's Legal Acquirements, it struck me, as an interesting occupation for a leisure hour, to examine into the subject beforehand, and see how far my own opinions might coincide with those of the learned Judge. As it is believed by some, though disputed by others, that Shakspere, before going to London, was for several years a lawyer's clerk at Stratford, it may be presumed, if such were the case, his legal phraseology and imagery would be most abundant in his earlier plays; and I cannot give the result of my investigation more concisely and distinctly, than by commenting on a few extracts from his Lordship's book: "The great difficulty is to discover, or to conjecture, with reasonable probability, how Shakspere was employed from about 1579, when he most likely left school, till about 1586, when he is supposed to have gone to London." "Of Shakspere's actual occupations during these im B portant years, when his character was formed, there is not a scintilla of contemporary proof." "An attorney's clerk,"-"first suggested by Chalmers and since countenanced by Malone, yourself, &c.," "but impugned by nearly an equal number of biographers and critics of almost equal authority." "We should only have to recollect the maxim, that the vessel long retains the flavour with which it has been once imbued." "In Two Gentlemen of Verona, Pericles of Tyre, and Titus Andronicus, &c. in fourteen of the thirty-seven dramas generally attributed to Shakspere,-I find nothing that fairly bears upon this controversy." It may here be remarked, that no "flavour" in the first three plays ought to be considered, according to Lord Campbell's own showing, strong presumptive evidence, Shakspere could not have been a lawyer's clerk at Stratford. But let us see what law phrases and allusions are to be found in these plays : Thaliard. "For if a king bid a man be a villain, he is bound by the indenture of his oath to be one." Pericles, act i., scene 3. 2nd. Fish. "Help, master, help; here's a fish hangs in the net, like a poor man's right in the law; 'twill hardly come out."-Pericles, act ii., scene 1. Prot. 'That they are out by lease." Two Gentlemen of Verona, act v., scene 2. Tit. "I did my lord, yet let me be their bail to answer their suspicion."-Titus Andronicus, act ii., scene 4. If there be any more law-phrases in these three plays, they are so few and trivial as to have escaped observation. We will now proceed to another extract from his Lordship's book: "Hamlet. In this tragedy various expressions and allusions crop out, showing the substratum of law in the author's mind," "Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole and, 66 A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee." Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task "this passage has been quoted by Judges on the bench as an authority upon the press-gang, and upon the debated question whether shipwrights as well as common sea-men are liable to be pressed into the service of the royal navy." "The discussion as to whether Ophelia was entitled to Christian burial, proves that Shakspere had read and studied Plowden's Report 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. Upon an inquisition before the Coroner, a verdict of felo 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 forfeited to the crown." "Hamlet's own speech, &c., abounds with lawyer-like thoughts and words." The having "studied Plowden's Report and the ridiculing of the counsel and of the Judges" no more proves Shakspere to have been a lawyer's clerk, than that a novelist, who ridicules the contradictory evidence of medical men in a case of poisoning, must necessarily have been an apothecary's apprentice. I shall here give Hamlet's speech according to the first edition, 1603, as being more suitable to the present inquiry : Ham. Look you, there's another Horatio, Why mai't not be the skull of some lawyer? Of an action of Batterie, for knocking your Him about the pate with's shovel, now where is Hor. I Is parchment made of sheep-skinnes? my Lorde, and of calves-skinnes too. Ham. I faith they prove themselves sheepe and calves That deale with them, or put their trust in them." It may here be objected, this speech proves too much for the advocates of the attorney's office; the writer must have been a practised lawyer, or else, studentlike, he picked the various terms and phrases out of a book, and so concocted the speech. As there is scarcely an atom of law in the three preceding plays, it is contrary to all probability Shakspere should have " bottled up "his law for three whole years, and then suddenly burst out, like Minerva from Jupiter's head, a full-blown lawyer. Let us examine the chronology of the first six plays; Pericles, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Titus Andronicus, are acknowledged to be the first three. Hamlet was certainly in existence in 1589, and most probably written in '88; in act fifth, scene first, Hamlet says, "By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it; the age is grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe;" and again, "For O, for O, the hobby horse is forgot." Now in Love's Labour's Lost is the following passage: Arm. How hast thou purchased this experience? Arm. But O, but 0.— Moth. - the hobby horse is forgot. Act iii., scene 1. It is therefore evident, these two plays were intimately connected together in the poet's mind, and must have been produced about the same time. That the comedy followed the tragedy, may be inferred from its containing an allusion to Bank's dancing horse, exhibited in London in 1589. As the Comedy of Errors contains an allusion to the civil contests in France, which followed upon the assassination of Henry III, in August, 1589, it was most probably written after Love's Labour's Lost. In this latter play we find there is a sprinkling of law, but in the Comedy of Errors the poet luxuriates, riots in legal jokes and quibbles, like a whale off Wick gambolling amongst the herrings, "very like a whale." As all the other plays, the Poems as well as the Sonnets,* were written at a later period, it is unnecessary to refer to them. We may therefore sum up :- -there is not in the first three plays a scintilla of evidence, that Shakspere had been a lawyer's clerk; in the fourth and * I have proved clearly and concisely, that the Sonnets extend over the period from 1591 to 1596, vide The Sonnets of Shakspere, rearranged. London, J. Russell Smith, 1859. |