"Shakespeare's Legal Knowledge"

excerpt from Chapter I, pp. 4-6

Now one of the ideas which were operative in my mind when I wrote my book—which, by the way, had taken several years to put together—was to take the assertions of the "Shakespeareans"—or may I, without offence, make use of the very convenient and compendious term, "Stratfordians"?—as I found them, and carry them to what seemed to me their logical conclusions. I found, for example, that one of the acutest, most learned, and most distinguished of Shakespearean critics, Malone to wit, himself a lawyer of no mean authority, had written of Shakespeare: "His knowledge of legal terms is not merely such as might be acquired by the casual observation of even his all-comprehending mind; it has the [5] appearance of technical skill." I found that Steevens entertained a similar opinion. I found that such an eminent lawyer as Lord Campbell, who had been both Lord Chief justice of England and Lord Chancellor, had written a letter to Mr. Payne Collier, subsequently published in book form, in which he bore testimony not only to the frequency but to the wonderful accuracy with which Shakespeare makes use of legal terms and expressions. I found that another lawyer, of unimpeachable "orthodoxy," namely Richard Grant White, a very distinguished Shakespearean, had written: "No dramatist of the time, not even Beaumont, who was the younger son of a judge of the Common Pleas, and who, after studying in the Inns of Court, abandoned law for the drama, used legal phrases with Shakespeare’s readiness and exactness! … legal phrases flow from his pen as part of his vocabulary and parcel of his thought." I found that Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke—not lawyers these, but critics whose names will ever be remembered in the history of Shakespearean bibliography—spoke of "the marvellous intimacy which he displays with legal terms, his frequent adoption of them in illustration, and his curiously technical knowledge of their form and force." I found that even Sir Sidney Lee had spoken of "Shakespeare’s accurate use of legal terms, which deserves all the attention that has been paid it," making reference in a foot-note to Lord Campbell on Shakespeare’s Legal Acquirements. There was more authority to the same effect,* and as this appeared to be, on the whole, an accepted position among Stratfordians of light and leading, I certainly imagined I was fully justified in making [6] argumentative use of it, relying more especially on Malone’s high authority both as lawyer and critic.

But John P.
Robinson he
Sez this kind o’ thing’s an exploded idee.

In other words, "M.P. Robertson he" now asserts that the whole of this is ridiculous nonsense; that beyond a knowledge of "the common vocabulary of lawyers," so easily picked up, there is really no law at all in Shakespeare’s Plays and Poems, or, at any rate, no more than is to be found in the works of many contemporary dramatists who were not lawyers and had had no legal education. He waxes wroth with the unhappy Lord Campbell’s "scandalous deliverances," and declares that the use which I have made of his "egregious treatise" calls for "somewhat serious reprehension"! He therefore proceeds to "reprehend" me in good set terms, and to his own entire satisfaction. Well, it amuses him and does not much hurt me! But if it can really be proved, that Malone, and Steevens, and Lord Campbell, and Rushton, and Grant White, and Mr. Castle, K.C., and all the rest, were labouring under an entire delusion as to Shakespeare’s supposed knowledge of law, the sooner that delusion can be dispelled the better will it be for all parties concerned. For myself I am conscious of only one desire in this connection, which is to ascertain the truth. But I will say another word or two later concerning this question, and on the proof offered by Mr. Robertson in support of his thesis.

excerpt from Chapter I, pp. 14-16

I will give one more instance of the same method of procedure. In order to show that the use of legal terms and expressions was habitual with seventeenth-century writers and speakers (this, of course, upon the question of Shakespeare’s alleged knowledge of law), the late Judge Willis published some extracts from a sermon preached by one Thomas Adams at St. Paul’s Cross in 1612, in which he introduced some not very striking legal terms, which will be found quoted at pp. 392-3 of my book, The Shakespeare Problem Restated. Upon this instance of a divine making use of legal expressions I then proceed to make certain comments. But let us first see how Mr. Robertson puts the case. Having cited certain utterances of Bishop Hooper, he proceeds (p. 170): "After this we can understand how a later divine, Thomas Adams, could deliver in a sermon the ‘legal’ passages cited from him by Mr. Judge Willis [sic], and candidly quoted by Mr. Greenwood, who can offer no better semblance of a rebuttal [15] than the suggestion that Adams had probably looked into some law books, and perhaps been thrown into legal company.’† Now the passages cited are so technical that, had Lord Campbell found them in Shakespeare, he would have reckoned them ‘the best stakes in his hedge,’ as Hooker would say. If it be rational to explain Adams’ law by the ‘probably’ and the ‘perhaps’ above cited, why, in the name of reason and consistency, should not the same suggestion hold in the case of Shakespeare?"

Now, if the reader will once again be so kind as to turn to my book, at p. 393, he will find that this is another distressing instance of quoting what is convenient, and leaving unquoted that which does not so well suit the critic’s case. It is not true that I "can offer no better semblance of a rebuttal than the suggestion that Adams had probably looked into some law books, and perhaps been thrown into legal company." True it is that I suggest this as a reader’s first comment on Adams’s reproduction of some legal jargon which, though Mr. Robertson, following judge Willis, calls it "technical," is, certainly, not a proof of anything more than a superficial acquaintance with the ordinary vocabulary of lawyers, but, so far am I from contenting myself with this explanation that I proceed to show why, in Adams’s case, the use of such language can hardly be cited as typical of the ordinary practice of seventeenth-century preachers. "This legal terminology," I say, "used by the preacher certainly does not prove that he had had a regular legal training; they (the legal expressions) are, however, examples of that ‘omnivorous learning and recondite reading’ for which, as Dr. Grosart has told us, he was famous, and ‘the spoils’ whereof he constantly ‘lays under contribution.’" But I do not stop there, for I point out that there was a special reason why Adams was "so fond of displaying his [16] familiarity with certain legal terms," viz. because "he was ‘observant chaplain’ to Sir Henry Montague, Lord Chief Justice of England, and had dedicated to him a work on the ‘Spiritual Prerogatives of the Church.’ That Thomas Adams, a man of omnivorous learning and recondite reading, observant chaplain to the Lord Chief justice, thrown much among lawyers, and constantly preaching to them, should have affected the use of legal terminology in his sermons is not very remarkable. The only thing which, as it seems to me, can be inferred from the analogy is that Shakespeare also was a man ‘of omnivorous learning and recondite reading.’"

All this is omitted by Mr. Robertson, with the effect that he represents me as having no better "semblance of a rebuttal" to the case cited by the gentleman whom he quaintly styles "Mr. Judge Willis" than the "probably" and the "perhaps" of which he speaks so contemptuously. It is very easy to "score" off an opponent by such methods as these.

_________

* Amongst others Mr. W. L. Rushton, a well-known barrister in his day, had written a book called Shakespeare a Lawyer (1858) before Lord Campbell published his letter to Mr. Payne Collier. It has been said that his lordship made free use of Mr. Rushton's work without making acknowledgment. It must be remembered that all the lawyers I have cited were entirely "orthodox." back

† Mr. Robertson puts "probably" and "perhaps" into italics. The other italics are mine. back