As You Like It

In Act I, Sc. 2, Shakespeare makes the lively Rosalind, who, although well versed in poesy and books of chivalry, had probably never seen a bond or a law-paper of any sort in her life, quite familiar with the commencement of all deeds poll, which in Latin was, Noverint universi per presentes, in English, "Be it known to all men by these presents:"

Le Beau. There comes an old man and his three sons—

Cel. I could match this beginning with an old tale.

Le Beau. Three proper young men, of excellent growth and presence;—

Ros. With bills on their necks—"Be it known unto all men by these presents,"—

This is the technical phraseology referred to by Thomas Nash in his ‘Epistle to the Gentlemen Students of the two Universities,’ in the year 1589, when he is supposed to have [48] denounced the author of Hamlet as one of those who had "left the trade of Noverint, whereto they were born, for handfuls of tragical speeches"—that is, an attorney’s clerk become a poet, and penning a stanza when he should engross.

As You Like It was not brought out until shortly before the year 1600, so that Nash’s Noverint could not have been suggested by it. Possibly Shakespeare now introduced the "Be it known unto all men," &c., in order to show his contempt for Nash’s sarcasm.

In Act. II. Sc. 1, there are illustrations which would present themselves rather to the mind of one initiated in legal proceedings, than of one who had been brought up as an apprentice to a "lover, or an assistant to a butcher or a woolstapler: for instance, when it is said of the poor wounded deer, weeping in the stream:

And again where the careless herd, jumping by him without greeting him, are compared to "fat and greasy citizens," who look

Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there,

without pitying his sufferings or attempting to relieve his necessities.

It may perhaps be said that such language might be used by any man of observation. But in Act III, Sc. 1, a deep technical knowledge of law is displayed, howsoever it may have been acquired.

The usurping Duke, Frederick, wishing all the real property of Oliver to be seized, awards a writ of extent against him, in the language which would be used by the Lord Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer:

Duke Fred. Make an extent upon his house and lands

an extendi facias applying to house and lands, as a fieri facias would apply to goods and chattels, or a capias ad satisfaciendum to the person. [50]

So in King Henry VIII. we have an equally accurate statement of the omnivorous nature of a writ of Praemunire. The Duke of Suffolk, addressing Cardinal Wolsey, says:

In the next scene of As You Like It, Shakespeare shows that he was well acquainted with lawyers themselves and the vicissitudes of their lives. Rosalind having told "who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal," being asked, "Who Time stands still withal?" answers:

With lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep between tem and term, and then they perceive not how Time moves. [51]

Our great poet had probably observed that some lawyers have little enjoyment of the vacation after a very few weeks, and that they again long for the excitement of arguing demurrers end pocketing fees.

In the first scene of Act IV. Shakespeare gives us the true legal meaning of the word "attorney," viz. representative or deputy. [Celui qui vient à tour d’autrui; Qui alterius vices subit; Legatus; Vakeel.]

Ros. Well, in her person I say—I will not have you.

Orl. Then, in my own person, I die.

Ros. No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost six thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man died in his own person, videlicet, in a love cause.* [52]

I am sorry to say that in our time the once most respectable word "attorney" seems to have gained a new meaning, viz. "a disreputable legal practitioner;" so that attorneys at law consider themselves treated discourteously when they are called "Attorneys." They now all wish to be called Solicitors, when doing the proper business of attorneys in the Courts of Common Law. Most sincerely honouring this branch of our profession, if it would please them, I am ready to support a bill "to prohibit the use of the word attorney, and to enact that on all occasions the word Solicitor shall be used instead thereof."

Near the end of the same scene Shakespeare again evinces his love for legal phraseology and imagery by converting Time into an aged Judge of Assize, sitting on the Crown side: [53]

Ros. Well, Time is the old Justice that examines all such offenders, and let Time try.

As in Troilus and Cressida (Act IV, Sc. 5) Shakespeare makes Time an Arbitrator:

And that old common Arbitrator, Time,
Will one day end it.

Much Ado About Nothing

It has been generally supposed that Shakespeare, in the characters of Dogberry and Verges, only meant to satirize the ignorance and folly of parish constables—a race with which we of this generation were familiar till the establishment of the metropolitan and rural police; but I cannot help suspecting that he slyly aimed at higher legal functionaries—Chairmen at Quarter-sessions, and even judges of assize—with whose performances he may probably have become acquainted at Warwick and elsewhere.

There never has been a law or custom in [54] England to "give a charge" to constables; but from times immemorial there has been "a charge to grand juries" by the presiding judge. This charge, we are bound to believe, is nowadays always characterised by simplicity, pertinaence, and correctness, although, according to existing etiquette, in order that it may not be too severely criticised, the barristers are not admitted into the Crown Court till the charge is over. But when Justice Shallow gave the charge to the grand jury at sessions in the county of Gloucester, we may conjecture that some of his doctrines and directions were not very wise; and Judges of the superior courts in former times made themselves ridiculous by expatiating, in their charges to grand juries, on vexed questions of manners, religion, politics, and political economy. Dogberry uses the very words of the oath administered by the Judges’ marshal to the grand jury at the present day:

If the different parts of Dogberry’s charge are strictly examined, it will be found that the author of it had a very respectable acquaintance with crown law. The problem was to save the constables from all trouble, danger, and responsibility, without any regard to the public safety:

Dogb. If you meet a thief, you may suspect him, by virtue of your office, to be no true man; and for such kind of men, the less you meddle or make with them, why, the more is for your honesty.

2 Watch. If we know him to be a thief, shall we not lay hands on him?

Dogb. Truly, by your office you may; but, I think, they that touch pitch will be defiled. The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is to let him show himself what he is, and steal out of your company.

Now there can be no doubt that Lord Coke himself could not more accurately have defined the power of a peace-officer.

I cannot say as much for the law laid down by Dogberry and Verges in Act IV, Sc. 2, that it was "flat perjury" to call a prince’s brother villain; or "flat burglury as ever was commited" to receive a thousand [56] ducats "for accusing a lady wrongfully." But the dramatist seems himself to have been well acquainted with the terms and distinctions of our criminal code, or he could not have rendered the blunders of the parish officers so absurd and laughable.

Love’s Labour’s Lost

In Act I, Sc. 1, we have an extract from the Report by Don Adriano de Armado of the infraction he had witnessed of the King’s proclamation by Costard with Jaquenetta; and it is drawn up in the true lawyerlike, tautological dialect—which is to be paid for at so much a folio:

Then for the place where; where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene and most preposterous event that draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink, which here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, and seest. * * * Him I (as my ever-esteemed duty pricks me on) have sent to thee to receive the meed of [57] punishment, by thy sweet Grace’s officer, Antony Dull, a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation.

The gifted Shakespeare might perhaps have been capable, by intuition, of thus imitating the conveyancer’s jargon; but no ordinary man could have hit it off so exactly, without having engrossed in an attorney’s office.

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* So in Richard III., Act IV, Sc. 4, the crook-backed tyrant, after murdering the infant sons of Edward IV., audaciously proposes to their mother to marry the Princess Elizabeth, their sister, and wishing the queen to intercede with her in his favour, says: Be the attorney of my love to her. Again in the same play (Act V, Sc. 3) Lord Stanley, meeting Richmond on the field at Bosworth, says: I by attorney bless thee from thy mother. back