may be forgiven if I do not attach quite so much importance to his
pronouncements on this branch of the subject as to those of Malone,
Lord Campbell, Judge Holmes, Mr. Castle, K.C., Lord Penzance, Mr.
Grant White, and other lawyers, who have expressed their opinion on
the matter of Shakespeare’s legal acquirements.
Here it may, perhaps, be worth while to quote again from Lord
Penzance’s book as to the suggestion that Shakespeare had somehow
or other managed “to acquire a perfect familiarity with legal
principles, and an accurate and ready use of the technical terms
and phrases, not only of the conveyancer’s office, but of the
pleader’s chambers and the courts at Westminster.” This, as Lord
Penzance points out, “would require nothing short of employment in
some career involving CONSTANT CONTACT with legal questions and
general legal work.” But “in what portion of Shakespeare’s career
would it be possible to point out that time could be found for the
interposition of a legal employment in the chambers or offices of
practising lawyers? . . . It is beyond doubt that at an early
period he was called upon to abandon his attendance at school and
assist his father, and was soon after, at the age of sixteen, bound
apprentice to a trade. While under the obligation of this bond he
could not have pursued any other employment. Then he leaves
Stratford and comes to London. He has to provide himself with the
means of a livelihood, and this he did in some capacity at the
theatre. No one doubts that. The holding of horses is scouted by
many, and perhaps with justice, as being unlikely and certainly
unproved; but whatever the nature of his employment was at the
theatre, there is hardly room for the belief that it could have
been other than continuous, for his progress there was so rapid.
Ere long he had been taken into the company as an actor, and was
soon spoken of as a ‘Johannes Factotum.’ His rapid accumulation of
wealth speaks volumes for the constancy and activity of his
services. One fails to see when there could be a break in the
current of his life at this period of it, giving room or
opportunity for legal or indeed any other employment. ‘In 1589,’
says Knight, ‘we have undeniable evidence that he had not only a
casual engagement, was not only a salaried servant, as many players
were, but was a shareholder in the company of the Queen’s players
with other shareholders below him on the list.’ This (1589) would
be within two years after his arrival in London, which is placed by
White and Halliwell-Phillipps about the year 1587. The difficulty
in supposing that, starting with a state of ignorance in 1587, when
he is supposed to have come to London, he was induced to enter upon
a course of most extended study and mental culture, is almost
insuperable. Still it was physically possible, provided always
that he could have had access to the needful books. But this legal
training seems to me to stand on a different footing. It is not
only unaccountable and incredible, but it is actually negatived by
the known facts of his career.” Lord Penzance then refers to the
fact that “by 1592 (according to the best authority, Mr. Grant
White) several of the plays had been written. The Comedy of Errors
in 1589, Love’s Labour’s Lost in 1589, Two Gentlemen of Verona in
1589 or 1590, and so forth, and then asks, “with this catalogue of
dramatic work on hand . . . was it possible that he could have
taken a leading part in the management and conduct of two theatres,
and if Mr. Phillipps is to be relied upon, taken his share in the
performances of the provincial tours of his company–and at the
same time devoted himself to the study of the law in all its
branches so efficiently as to make himself complete master of its
principles and practice, and saturate his mind with all its most
technical terms?”
I have cited this passage from Lord Penzance’s book, because it lay
before me, and I had already quoted from it on the matter of