IVilliam Shakespeare, Attorney at Law. an additional period of five years, when he was elevated to the rank of apprentice of the law. It required, therefore, twelve years of instruction and study before a barrister could plead before any court of Westminster, or even subscribe a pleading. The apprentice in turn became a sergeant, and the lawyer was completely developed. Fees secured by a student below the rank of apprentice were insignificant, and candi dates for the profession were expected to possess means sufficient to support them dur ing their twelve years novitiate. The law was preeminently the calling of the wealthy, and the bankruptcy of the Shakespeare family would have prevented William from adopting it had his inclination and talent favored such vocation. Reason rather inclines to the belief that John Shakespeare, himself an illiterate wool dealer, determined upon a more lucrative occupation for a beginner, and either took William into his own employ, or apprenticed him to a fellow tradesman. The following account of the dramatist during the period from 1578 to 1585, given by Archbishop Davis in 1700, marks rather the conduct of a butcher's assistant than a barrister's clerk : — "The poet was much given to all unluckiness in stealing venison and rabbits, par ticularly from Sir Thomas Lucy, who had him oft whipped and sometimes imprisoned, and at length made him fly his native country to his great advancement." After Shakespeare arrived in London he had neither time nor opportunity of adopt ing law as a profession. He appears to have followed lowly inclinations, for Ben Johnson tells us that " he came to London a needy adventurer and lived for a time by very mean employments." At first he held horses at the theatre as we would expect a butcher's boy to do. He then became a prompter's attendant, and his peculiar gifts manifesting themselves, was soon elevated to a player's role.
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Thus it is that the legal phase of Shake speare's career, considered in the light of history and reason, becomes a matter of most serious and perplexing doubt. It would seem, however, a task of no great difficulty to discover Shakespeare's connec tion with the law by a reference to his writings. As an aboriculturist, passing through a forest of trees, can tell with accuracy the kind of seed and soil from which it sprang, so, one traversing a woodland of words, can with certainty, ascertain the character of mind that produced them. Every one is more or less given to " talk ing shop," or employing expressions of his shop. The language of a man who has spent any considerable time amongst law books or lawyers is apt to have about it the distinctive flavor of the courts. Few per sons are such consummate artists as to be able to cast aside the sign of their profession when they leave the office or desk. It is quite impossible to take off and hang up mental predilections as one does an office coat. It does not require the suggestion of counter or counting-room to detect a banker when he begins to handle coin. Votaries of the stage are actors even when footlights and audience are restricted to a candle and a dog. The clergyman, fallen and disgraced, carries to prison the accent, voice and ges ture of the pulpit. A man conversant with two tongues often mingles a word of one in a sentence of the other. The language of an art or a profes sion is, in a measure, separate and distinct from that of an ideal essay or drama, but the two are seldom kept apart by one fa miliar with both. A lawyer, a doctor, or a scientist, in writing or speaking, will ever and again express a common-place idea by a technical phrase. A lawyer called upon to make a speech, or write an article, has to overcome a powerful inclination if he does not discuss a topic directly or remotely con nected with the law. But whatever may be the theme selected, it is almost assured that
