PVilliam Shakespeare, Attorney at Law.
303
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, ATTORNEY AT LAW. By Benjamin F. Washer of the Louisville, Ky., Bar.
TIME either solves a problem or con signs the problem unsolved to obliv ion. It settles discussions either by proving the truth and falsity of respective conten tions, or it relegates both dispute and dis putants to the realm of forgetfulncss. Few questions live to perplex the mind of more than a single generation, and a controversy which survives a century goes begging for company as well as decision. There are, however, several subjects of inquiry which seem to defy both reason and time. The interrogatory, old as eternity, "Whence, whither, where? " still seeks an answer.
No one has ever satisfactorily identified the " Man in the Iron Mask." The question mark following these and many other inquiries ends the investigation. But, perhaps, the first and foremost of perpetual problems is Shakespeare. Every phase and feature of Shakespeare's life have given rise to numberless controversies, now and forever unsettled. Shakespeare is the never failing subject for that vast horde of writers and essayists who can place on the skeleton of historical facts the flesh of romance, and quicken the whole with the life of imagination. To such artists the fewer the known con ditions, the more is left them to discover and proclaim, and the richer, therefore, the harvest which ambitious authorship culls from the fields of conjecture and guess. For such, Shakespeare furnishes a most delightful topic, and the quantity of paper and ink that has been employed in the dis cussion of what Shakespeare was, or what Shakespeare ought to have been, attest how well the opportunity has been improved. The doctor peruses the dramas of Shakes peare and at once declares that the author
was a physician — not an ordinary practi tioner but a genius in medicine — one who has anticipated Harvey in the discovery that the blood circulates, for does not Bru tus say : — "As dear to me as are the ruddy drops, That visit my sad heart."
The minister charmed by the divine ut terances of Avon's Bard, finds in those pas sages unmistakable evidence that Shakes peare was a theologian — an advocate of natural theology and its doctrines, as op posed to revelation and its dogmas. To the teacher Shakespeare appears as a pedagogue, while the military man sees in Shakespeare and his works, a soldier by thought, tendency and occupation. The poet is then by turn an ornithologist, a botanist, or an angler, as a lover of birds, flowers or fish, happens to read and consider him. The lawyer has also had occasion to be come acquainted with the master dramatist and, after frequent interviews and extended consultations, he offers the hand of fellow ship to his " Brother Shakespeare." At stated periods, during the past fifty years, there has fallen from the press, arguments of counsel in support of the assertion that Shakespeare was a lawyer. W. L. Rushton, an English barrister of learning and repute, has produced four works on the law in Shakespeare. Camp bell found time and inclination between his life as Lord Chancellor and his " Lives of the Lord Chancellors," to prepare a brief on "Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements." Germany has, by the pen of J. Kohler, presented " Shakespeare before the Forum of Jurisprudence," while American ability and industry has been vindicated by two prominent members of its bar, F. F. Heard
