IVas Shakespeare Bound to an Attorney? craved popularity as something to be en joyed as firmly and durably as though its holder had been enfeoffed thereto? Through lines of the same dialogue, that irresponsible youth, who had incurred the reproach of his father, that, by his continuance in a de bauched course of living, he allowed Hot spur to defraud him of fame on a stage where he should have brooked no rival, en gages that—affiancing himself to arms—he will break with his evil companions, and wipe out the stigma borrowed from his an tecedents: "Percy is but my factor, good my lord, to engross up glorious deeds in my behalf." How abundantly that promise was fulfilled the plain of Shrewsbury appeared to testify . What experience other than a more or less extended period of tribulation spent in the murky den of an attorney could, it may be asked, have enabled the user to acquire such command of the prolixities of convey ancing as is evidenced by the following, imported, in the most fantastic connec tion imaginable, into "Troilus and Cressida": "In witness whereof, the parties interchange ably;" or by Rosalind's amazing overture, "with bills on their necks, be it known to all men by these presents"? And what must root more deeply the impression that Shakes peare derived these flourishes from some wrinkled parchment is the fact that both al lusions are found printed between inverted commas. Nor is the proficiency thus be trayed less evident from the outline of a marriage-settlement vouchsafed by "The Taming of the Shrew": "And for that dowry, I'll assure her of her widowhood—be it that she survive me—in all my lands and leases whatsoever. Let specialties be therefore drawn between us, that covenants may be kept on either hand." Conceive of a mere snatcher, from time to time, of eleemosynary crumbs of law, dropped from the lavish board of intimates in the profession—a gatherer, so to speak, of the learning's driftwood—sandalled entering
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the holy mosque, and treating of a piscary—a license, even readers within the circle may need to be reminded, to fish in another man's waters. In addition to its other gratuities "The Merry Wives of Windsor" dishes for the Shakespearian banqueter this educative rarebit. One of the series of brilliant en counters of wits the spectator has a chance of viewing through panes in that airy edi fice, "Love's Labor Lost," affords strong testimony of our poet's intellect having been liberally steeped in the profundities of Jus tinian. The dialogue, as far as it is in point, is reproduced. Boyet: "No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips." Maria: "You sheep and I pasture: Shall that finish the jest?" "Boyet: "So you grant pasture for me." Maria: "Not so, gentle beast; my lips are no common, though several they be." It may only be to sink in the yielding earth of conjecture to risk its exposition, yet, in the writer's judgment, by this passage is traced an accepted distinction in the char acter of estates, a rational perception of which could scarcely have been gained at random. Under this head of property, fuller enlightenment may be had from "The Merry Wives of Windsor." Evans, the Welsh par son, in a learned discourse, affirms that "the lips is parcel of the mouth," a use of the descriptive term almost wholly confined to law. It will come, with ease, to the recollection of Shakespearian votaries that the usurping Duke, in "As You Like It," publishes, with reference to Orlando, this wintry decree: "Let my officers of such a nature make an extent upon his house and lands." Furness objects to the allowance of an execution without a previous judgment. Cavilling, truly, if ever that has been exer cised. Has an imaginative writer to pay such regard to minutiae as this? And if no latitude is to be conceded, why not go
