mine together; things that happened to us in the morning of life,
in the blossom of our youth, in the good days, the dear days,
“the days when we went gipsying, a long time ago.” Most of them
creditable to me, too. One child to whom I paid court when she
was five years old and I eight still lives in Hannibal, and she
visited me last summer, traversing the necessary ten or twelve
hundred miles of railroad without damage to her patience or to
her old-young vigor. Another little lassie to whom I paid
attention in Hannibal when she was nine years old and I the same,
is still alive–in London–and hale and hearty, just as I am.
And on the few surviving steamboats–those lingering ghosts and
remembrancers of great fleets that plied the big river in the
beginning of my water-career–which is exactly as long ago as the
whole invoice of the life-years of Shakespeare numbers–there are
still findable two or three river-pilots who saw me do creditable
things in those ancient days; and several white-headed engineers;
and several roustabouts and mates; and several deck-hands who
used to heave the lead for me and send up on the still night the
“Six–feet–SCANT!” that made me shudder, and the “M-a-r-k–
TWAIN!” that took the shudder away, and presently the darling “By
the d-e-e-p–FOUR!” that lifted me to heaven for joy. [1] They
know about me, and can tell. And so do printers, from St. Louis
to New York; and so do newspaper reporters, from Nevada to San
Francisco. And so do the police. If Shakespeare had really been
celebrated, like me, Stratford could have told things about him;
and if my experience goes for anything, they’d have done it.
——
1. Four fathoms–twenty-four feet.
VII
If I had under my superintendence a controversy appointed to
decide whether Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare or not, I believe
I would place before the debaters only the one question,
WAS SHAKESPEARE EVER A PRACTICING LAWYER? and leave everything
else out.
It is maintained that the man who wrote the plays was not
merely myriad-minded, but also myriad-accomplished: that he not
only knew some thousands of things about human life in all its
shades and grades, and about the hundred arts and trades and
crafts and professions which men busy themselves in, but that he
could TALK about the men and their grades and trades accurately,
making no mistakes. Maybe it is so, but have the experts spoken,
or is it only Tom, Dick, and Harry? Does the exhibit stand upon
wide, and loose, and eloquent generalizing–which is not
evidence, and not proof–or upon details, particulars,
statistics, illustrations, demonstrations?
Experts of unchallengeable authority have testified
definitely as to only one of Shakespeare’s multifarious craft-
equipments, so far as my recollections of Shakespeare-Bacon talk
abide with me–his law-equipment. I do not remember that
Wellington or Napoleon ever examined Shakespeare’s battles and
sieges and strategies, and then decided and established for good
and all that they were militarily flawless; I do not remember
that any Nelson, or Drake, or Cook ever examined his seamanship
and said it showed profound and accurate familiarity with that
art; I don’t remember that any king or prince or duke has ever
testified that Shakespeare was letter-perfect in his handling of
royal court-manners and the talk and manners of aristocracies; I
don’t remember that any illustrious Latinist or Grecian or
Frenchman or Spaniard or Italian has proclaimed him a past-master
in those languages; I don’t remember–well, I don’t remember that
there is TESTIMONY–great testimony–imposing testimony–
unanswerable and unattackable testimony as to any of
Shakespeare’s hundred specialties, except one–the law.
Other things change, with time, and the student cannot trace
back with certainty the changes that various trades and their
processes and technicalities have undergone in the long stretch
of a century or two and find out what their processes and
technicalities were in those early days, but with the law it is
different: it is mile-stoned and documented all the way back,
and the master of that wonderful trade, that complex and
intricate trade, that awe-compelling trade, has competent ways of
knowing whether Shakespeare-law is good law or not; and whether
his law-court procedure is correct or not, and whether his legal