Shakespeare a Lawyer - Five
by William Lowes Rushton

PANDARUS. How now, a kiss in fee-farm.
Troilus and Cressida, Act 3, Scene 3.

Fee-farm is where a tenant holds of his lord in fee, paying annually the value, at least of a fourth part of the land, without homage, fealty, or other services to be done, more than are especially comprised in the feoffment.

FALSTAFF. I will devise matter enough out of this Shallow to keep Prince Harry in continued laughter, the wearing out of six fashions (which is four terms, or two actions) and he shall laugh without intervallums.
Second Part, Henry IV, Act 5, Scene 1.

[42] Formerly the law terms regulated what is now called the season,

ORLANDO. Who stays it [time] withal?
ROSALIND. With lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep between term and term, and then they perceive not how time moves.
As You Like It, Act 3, Scene 2.

OLIVIA. Let thy fair wisdom, not thy passion, sway
In this uncivil and unjust extent
Against thy peace;
Twelfth Night, Act 4, Scene1.

DUKE F. And let my officers of such a nature
Make an extent upon his house and lands.
As You Like It.

Extent is directed to the sheriff to seize and value lands and goods to the utmost extent. The execution upon a statute or recognizance, pursuant to the 23rd Henry VIII, c. 6, is called an extent.—Wood's Inst., 2nd ed., p. 287, 566.

HOSTESS. Master Fang, have you entered the action?
FANG. It is entered.
HOSTESS. I pray ye, since my exion is entered, and my case so openly known to the world, let him be brought in to his answer.
Henry IV, Act 2, Scene 1.

Humbly complaining to your highness.
King Richard III.

Bills in Chancery commence "Humbly complaining to your lordship," &c.

YORK. This is the day appointed for the combat.
And ready are the appellant and defendant.
Second Part Henry VI, Act 2, Scene 3.

Combat, in our ancient law, denoted a formal trial of a doubtful cause or quarrel by the swords or bastons of two champions. There was a trial by combat in the sixth year of the reign of King Charles I, between two Scotchmen, [43] Donald Rey, appellant, and David Ramsey, Esq., defendant; but, after many formalities, the matter was referred to the king's pleasure.

ARCITE. I've a good title,
I am persuaded: this question, sick between us,
That to your sword you will bequeath this plea,
And talk of it no more.
Two Noble Kinsmen, Act 3, Scene 1.

FIRST SERVANT. And say, you would present her at the leet,
Because he brought stone jugs and no seal'd quarts.
Taming of the Shrew, Induc. Scene 2.

Sealed quarts, licensed quarts. At the court leet of a manor, the jury presented those who made use of false weights and measures.

FALSTAFF. I say to you, I do desire deliverance from these officers, being upon hasty employment in the king's affairs.
Second Part, Henry IV, ct 2, Scene 1.

Protection, "cum clausula volumes," is an immunity given by the king to a person in his service to be free against suits at law for one year; and so from year to year. Thus, the king may grant a protection to his debtor that he be not sued till the king is paid his debt.—Vide 25th Edward III., c. 19, and Wood's Inst., 2nd ed., p. 571.

I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel.
Sonnet CXXI.

An angle, except a right angle, is called a bevel angle, whether it be acute or obtuse. In deeds it is usual, in the description of property, to make use of the words "beveling line" to signify the inclination of a surface from a right line.

ALCIABIADES. I am a humble suitor to your virtues;
For pity is the virtue of the law,
[44] And non but tyrants use it cruelly.
It pleases time and fortune to lie heavy
Upon a friend of mine, who, in hot blood,
Hath stepp'd into the law, which is past depth
To those that, without heed, do plunge into it.
Timon of Athens, Act 3, Scene 5.

KING. Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice;
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law. But 'tis not so above:
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence.
Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2.

SECOND FISHERMAN. Help, master, help; here's a fish hangs in the net, like poor man's right in the law: it will hardly come out.
Pericles of Tyre, Act 2, Scene 2.

The laws have been satirically composed to spiders' webs, which catch the small flies, and let the great ones through.

I weep for thee, and yet no cause I have;
For why? Thou left'st me nothing in thy will.
And yet thou left'st me more than I did crave;
For why/ I craved nothing of thee still;
Thy discontent thou didst bequeath to me.
The Passionate Pilgrim, 8.

"Poor dear," quoth he, "thou makest a testament, as worldlings do, giving thy sum of more to that which had too much."
As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 1.

VIOLA. 'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white
Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on;
Lady, you are the cruel'st she alive,
If you will lend these graces to the grave,
And leave the world no copy.
[45] OLIVIA. O. sir, I will not be so hard-hearted; I will give out divers schedules of my beauty. It shall be inventoried; and every particle and utensil labeled to my will: as, item, two lips indifferent red; item, two grey eyes, with lids to them; item, one neck, one shin, and so forth."
Twelfth Night, Act 1, Scene 5.

Inventory is generally used to signify a schedule, containing a full description of all the goods and chattels of a testator at the time of his death, together with the value of the same as apprised by two indifferent person. (Vide 2nd Henry VIII, c. 5.) Viola by copy means issue; Olivia plays upon the word.

KING RICHARD. Let's choose executors, and talk of wills;
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath,
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Richard II, Act 3, Scene 2.

This brief abridgement of my will I make;
My soul and body to the skied and ground.
The Rape of Lucrece.

The old forms of wills, commonly commenced by the testator commending his soul into the hands of God, his Creator, and his body to the earth, whereof it was made, Shakespeare's will commences in this manner:

"First, I commend my soul into the hands of God, my Creator, hoping and assuredly believing, through the only merits of Jesus Christ, my Saviour, to be made partaker of life everlasting, and my body to the earth whereof it is made."

Thou, Collatine, shall oversee this will.
The Rape of Lucrece.

Old forms of wills often contained appointments of overseers, as well as executors.

And so espous'd to death, with blood he seal'd
A testament of noble-ending love.
Henry V.

[46] SLENDER. My will? Ods, heartlings, that's a pretty jest, indeed! I ne'er made my will yet. I thank heaven, I am not such a sickly creature; I give heaven praise.
Merry Wives of Windsor, Act3, Scene 4.

ROMEO. Bid a sick man in sadness make his will:
Ah! word ill urged to one that to one that is so ill!
Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 1.

ELIZABETH. Thou unadvised scold, I can produce
A will that bars the title of thy son.
King John, Act 2, Scene 1.

COUNT. Of six preceding ancestors, that you
Conferr'd, by testament, to the sequent issue,
Hath been owed and word.
All's Well That Ends Well, Act 5, Scene 3.

PAINTER. To promise is most courtly and fashionable: performance is a kind of will or testament which argues a great sickness in his judgment that makes it.
Timon of Athens, Act 5, Scene 1.

The words will and testament, though generally used indiscriminately, are not, strictly speaking, synonymous. A will relates, properly, to real estate, and a testament to personal property requiring executors.

I have now quoted most of the passages in the works of William Shakespeare containing law terms, law customs, legal allusions, and legal phraseology, my memory ahs enabled me to refer to, excepting those which are incident to the plot of the play in which they occur, such as the passage in Henry V, act 5, scene 1, after the line "In terram salicam mulieres ne succedant," that portion of scene 2, act 3, of Julius Caesar referring to Caesar's Will and Testament, and the Court of Justice scene, act w of the [47] Merchant of Venice; and although many of them would be intelligible without sufficient explanation, excepting to those who have acquired a general knowledge of the various branches of the laws of England—some of them have been afforded merely as examples of the frequent use the poet makes of the language of the law, though he may not always intend, in so doing, to convey a legal meaning.

Although ignorance of the theory and practice of the laws of England may have prevented many of Shakespeare's commentators from explaining or even perceiving the meaning of passages containing legal terms, &c., it will not account for the absurdity of some of their observations and emendatory criticisms. Persons of literary taste, familiar with the finest productions of the greatest authors of ancient and modern times, are not probably more grieved by the neglect of what is truly excellent in literature, and the preference given to the inferior writings of the day, than by the apparent incapacity of some men of acknowledged ability and profound learning to appreciate the fine touches of genius.
In the plays of Seneca, Corneille, and Dryden, when Jocasta discovers that Oedipus was the murderer of her husband, she continues to lament her affliction in the tedious and "set phrase of speech." But Shakespeare and Sophocles, Jocasta, after delivering the lines—

[Greek text.]

leave the stage in the silence of her unutterable anguish; and Shakespeare frequently in one line, often even with a [48] few words or short exclamations, expresses the most acute mental suffering.

LEAR. O me, my heart! My rising heart; but down.
Act 2, Scene3.

LEAR. Wilt break my heart!
Act 3, Scene 4.

After contemplating the misery of Edgar, Lear says:

Thou wert better in thy grave than to answer with thy uncover'd body this extremity of the skies. Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume: Ha! here's three of us are sophisticated! Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings: Come, unbutton here.
Act 3, Scene 4.

A commentator, in a note on this passage, observes, "The words unbutton here are probably only a marginal direction crept into the matter!" Shakespeare, however, makes use of the same expression in another part of King Lear.

LEAR. Pray you, undo this button. Thank you, sir,
Do you see this! Look on her, look, her lips.
Look there, look there!                   [Dies.
Act 5, Scene 3.

Moreover, such expressions, intended to describe the anguish of the "o'er fraught heart," are not peculiar to this play.

QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, cut my lace asunder,
That my pent heart may have some scope to beat,
Or else I swoon with this dead, killing news.
King Richard III, Act 4, Scene1.

[49] PAULINA. Woe the while!
O, out my lace, lest my heart, cracking it,
Break too!
Winter's Tale, Act 3, Scene 2.

In the third scene of the first act of the Merchant of Venice, Shylock says,

"Signior Antonio, many a time and oft
In the Rialto, you have rated me
About my monies and my usances."

The actor who first made this alteration,

"Signior Antonio, many a time—and oft
In the Rialto, you have rated me
About my monies and my usances,"

was considered to have exercised much ingenuity, and his example has been very generally followed, both on and off the stage, it being stated that the expression "many a time and oft" is tautological, and could never have been intended by so great a master of the English language. Now, although in this passage the expression is so situated as to admit of a double reading, it is not certain that the poet intended such reading to be adopted; for, contrary to the statement generally made, that the expression is peculiar to the Merchant of Venice, it occurs in several other portions of Shakespeare's works, where it is so situated as not to admit of such alteration.

FALSTAFF. Well, thou has called her to a reckoning many a time and oft.
First Part, Henry IV, Act 1, Scene 2.

WIFE. Most true, forsooth; and many a time and oft myself have heard a voice to call him so.
Second Part, Henry VI, Act 2, Scene 1.

[50] LUCULLUS. Many a time and oft I have dined with him, and told him on't.
Timon of Athens, Act 2, Scene 1.

MARCELLUS. Knew you not Pompay? Many a time and oft
Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements,
To towers and windows, yes, to chimney tops,
Your infants in your arms, and there have sat
The live long day, with patient expectation,
To see Great Pompey pass the streets of Rome;
And when you saw his chariot but appear,
Have you not made an universal shout,
That Tyber trembled underneath her banks
To hear the replication of your sounds,
Made in her concave shores?
Julius Caesar, Act 1, Scene 1.

To conclude, whether William Shakespeare was or was not a member of the legal profession, sufficient has probably been stated to prove that he had acquired a general knowledge of the laws of England—the accumulated wisdom of ages, the stronghold of freedom, of civil and religious liberty—the wisest, the noblest, the most fair and equitable system of jurisprudence ever respected and obeyed by the just, or calumniated and violated by the evil, or that the human race in any age or any clime has ever yet beheld!