FINAL NOTE

[47] Tis impossible not to take note of the curious change which has of late manifested itself in orthodox criticism with regard to Shakespeare’s law. As we have seen, the earlier critics, including lawyers like Malone and Lord Campbell, appeared to entertain no doubt that Shakespeare’s works evinced such an exceptional knowledge of law that their author must, somewhere and somehow, have received a certain amount of technical training. Just to give another example of the opinion which prevailed on this matter till about the beginning of the present century, I may cite a little book which lies before me by a Barrister, who dedicates his work to the late Lord Hatherley, then Lord Chancellor (Was Shakespeare a Lawyer? by "H. T." Longmans, 1871).

The author, who appears to be a lawyer of some distinction, asserts with confidence that "any practising lawyer, who had attentively studied the Plays, would feel satisfied" that nothing less than some technical training would "account for the perpetual and abundant crop of legal lore which bristles over the productions of Shakespeare’s mind." And we have already seen that Sir Sidney Lee, in the earlier editions of his Life of Shakespeare, refers to the poet’s "accurate use of legal terms which deserves all the attention that has been paid to it."

Now, however, we see that a marked change has come over the spirit of the critical dream. Shakespeare’s legal knowledge, so far from being exceptional, is but "a mingled skein of accuracy and inaccuracy; the errors are numerous and important." Shakespeare displays "a radical unsoundness in his interpretation alike of elementary legal principles and of legal procedure."

Now, in the meantime it had been asked by certain [48] audacious sceptics, how came it about that William Shakspere of Stratford had acquired all the exceptional knowledge of law that the earlier critics—lawyers and laymen alike—had attributed to him? When, where, and how had he obtained it? The theory that he had once been an Attorney’s clerk had not a scintilla of evidence to support it, and, for many reasons, seemed wildly improbable. How, then, to account for Shakespeare’s law? Was it possible that the name "Shakespeare" stood, not for Shakspere of Stratford, but for some other in whose case the hypothesis of a legal training presented no difficulty?

Then at once the alarum sounded in the orthodox camps. The note of criticism was changed. What? Shakespeare evinces an exceptional knowledge of law? Nonsense. Those old critics and commentators were all absurdly wrong. We know better now. The layman of today is more competent to decide this question than old lawyers like Malone, or Campbell, or Rushton, or Grant White, or Judge Webb, or Lord Penzance, et hoc genus omne. Go to. Shakespeare had no more legal knowledge than any other dramatist of his day, in fact not so much. Shakespeare was no more learned in the law than he was learned in Latin, or, in fact, in anything else. So that difficulty is happily disposed of. Nous avons changé tout cela. Magna est Falsitas et praevalebit.