The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 21, July, 1859

Duke F. Well, push him out of doors, And let my officers of such a nature Make an extent upon his house and lands." Act iii. Sc. 1.

"Extent," as Mr. Rushton remarks, is directed to the sheriff to seize and value lands and goods to the utmost extent; "an extendi facias" as Lord Campbell authoritatively says, "applying to the house and lands as a fieri facias would apply to goods and chattels, or a capias ad satisfaciendum to the person." But that John Fletcher knew, as well as my Lord Chief Justice, or Mr. Barrister Rushton, or even, perhaps, William Shakespeare, all the woes that followed an extent, the elder Mr. Weller at least would not have doubted, had he in the course of his literary leisure fallen upon the following passage in "Wit Without Money" (1630):—

"Val Mark me, widows
Are long extents in law upon men's livings,
Upon their bodies' winding-sheets; they that enjoy 'em
Lie but with dead men's monuments, and beget
Only their own ill epitaphs."

    Act ii. Sc. 2.
George Wilkins, too, the obscure author of "The Miseries of Enforced Marriage," uses the term with as full an understanding, though not with so feeling an expression or so scandalous an illustration of it, in the following passage from the fifth act of that play, which was produced about 1605 or 1606:—

"They are usurers; they come yawning for money; and the sheriff with them is come to serve an extent upon your land, and then seize your body by force of execution."

Another seemingly recondite law-phrase used by Shakespeare, which Lord Campbell passes entirely by, though Mr. Rushton quotes three instances of it, is "taken with the manner." This has nothing to do with good manners or ill manners; but, in the words of the old law-book before cited,—

–"is when a theefe hath stollen and is followed with hue and crie and taken, having that found about him which he stole;—that is called ye maynour. And so we commonly use to saye, when wee finde one doing of an unlawful act, that we tooke him with the maynour or manner."

Termes de la Ley, 1595, fol. 126, b.

Shakespeare, therefore, uses the phrase with perfect understanding, when he makes Prince Hal say to Bardolph,—

"O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years ago, and wert taken with the manner, and ever since thou hast blush'd extempore." 1 Henry IV.Act ii, Sc. 4.

But so Fletcher uses the same phrase, and as correctly, when he makes

Perez say to Estefania, in "Rule a Wife and Have a Wife,"—

"How like a sheep-biting rogue, taken i' the manner,
And ready for the halter, dost thou look
now!"—Act v. Sc. 4.

But both Fletcher and Shakespeare, in their use of this phrase, unusual as it now seems to us, have only exemplified the custom referred to by our contemporary legal authority,—"And so we commonly use to saye, when wee finde one doing of an unlawfull act, that we tooke him with the maynour"; though this must doubtless be understood to refer to persons of a certain degree of education and knowledge of the world.

It seems, then, that the application of legal phraseology to the ordinary affairs of life was more common two hundred and fifty years ago than now; though even now-a-days it is much more generally used in the rural districts than persons who have not lived in them would suppose. There law shares with agriculture the function of providing those phrases of common conversation which, used figuratively at first, and often with poetic feeling, soon pass into mere thought-saving formulas of speech, and which in large cities are chiefly drawn from trade and politics. And if in the use of the law-terms upon which we have remarked, which are the more especially technical and remote from the language of unprofessional life among all those which occur in Shakespeare's works, he was not singular, but, as we have seen, availed himself only of a knowledge which other contemporary poets and playwrights possessed, how much more easily might we show that those commoner legal words and phrases, to remarks upon Shakespeare's use of which both the books before us (and especially Lord Campbell's) are mainly devoted, "judgment," "fine," "these presents," "testament," "attorney," "arbitrator," "fees," "bond," "lease," "pleading," "arrest," "session," "mortgage," "vouchers," "indentures," "assault," "battery," "dower," "covenant," "distrain," "bail," "non-suit," etc., etc., etc.,—words which everybody understands,—are scattered through all the literature of Shakespeare's time, and, indeed, of all time since there were courts and suits at law!

Many of the passages which Lord Campbell cites as evidence of Shakespeare's "legal acquirements" excite only a smile at the self-delusion of the critic who could regard them for a moment in that light. For instance, these lines in that most exquisite song in "Measure for Measure;"—"Take, oh, take those lips away,"—

"But my kisses bring again Seals of love, but seal'd in vain";—

and these from "Venus and Adonis,"—

"Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted,
What bargains may I make, still to be sealing!"—

to which Mr. Rushton adds from "Hamlet,"—

"A combination and a form, indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal."

Act iii. Sc. 4.

"Now must your conscience my acquittance seal."—Act iv. Sc. 7.

And because indentures and deeds and covenants are sealed, these passages must be accepted as part of the evidence that Shakespeare narrowly escaped being made Lord High Chancellor of England! It requires all the learning and the logic of a Lord Chief Justice and a London barrister to establish a connection between such premises and such a conclusion. And if Shakespeare's lines smell of law, how strong is the odor of parchment and red tape in these, from Drayton's Fourth Eclogue (1605):

"Kindnesse againe with kindnesse was repay'd, And with sweet kisses covenants were sealed."

We ask pardon of the reader for the production of contemporary evidence, that, in Shakespeare's day, a knowledge of the significance and binding nature of a seal was not confined to him among poets; for surely a man must be both a lawyer and a Shakespearean commentator to forget that the use of seals is as old as the art of writing, and, perhaps, older, and that the practice has furnished a figure of speech to poets from the time when it was written, that out of the whirlwind Job heard, "It is turned as clay to the seal," and probably from a period yet more remote.

And is Lord Campbell really in earnest in the following grave and precisely expressed opinion?

"In the next scene, [of "Othello,"] Shakespeare gives us a very distinct proof that he was acquainted with Admiralty law, as well as with the procedure of Westminster Hall. Describing the feat of the Moor in carrying off Desdemona against her father's consent, which might either make or mar his fortune, according as the act might be sanctioned or nullified, Iago observes,—

"'Faith, he to-night hath hoarded a land carack:
If it prove a lawful prize, he's made forever';

the trope indicating that there would be a suit in the High Court of Admiralty to determine the validity of the capture"!—p. 91.

"Why did not his Lordship go farther, and decide, that, in the figurative use of the term, "land carack," Shakespeare gave us very distinct proof that he was acquainted with maritime life, and especially with the carrying-trade between Spain and the West Indies? We respectfully submit to the court the following passage from Middleton and Rowley's "Changeling,"—first published in 1653, but written many years before. Jasperino, seeing a lady, calls out,—

"Yonder's another vessel: Ile board her: if she be lawfall prize, down goes her topsail." Act i. Sig. B. 2.

And with it we submit the following points, and ask a decision in our favor. First, That they, the said Middleton and Rowley, have furnished, in the use of the phrase "lawful prize," in this passage, very distinct proof that they were acquainted with Admiralty law. Second, That, in the use of the other phrases, "board," and especially "down goes her topsail," they have furnished yet stronger evidence that they had been sailors on board armed vessels, and that the trope indicates, that, had not the vessel or lady in question lowered her topsail or top-knot, she would then and there have been put mercilessly to the sword.

But what shall we think of the acumen and the judgment of a Chief Justice, a man of letters, and a man of the world, who brings forward such passages as the following as part of the evidence bearing upon the question of Shakespeare's legal acquirements?—

"Come; fear not you; good counsellors lack no clients." Measure for Measure. Act i. Sc. 2.

"One that before the judgement carries poor
souls to hell."

    Comedy of Errors. Act iv. Sc. 2.
"Well, Time is the old Justice that examines all such offenders,—and let Time try." As You Like It. Act iv. Sc. 1.

"And that old common arbitrator, Time."
Troilus and Cressida. Act iv. Sc. 5.

"No cock of mine; you crow too like a craven."
Taming of the Shrew. Act ii. Sc. 1.

"Bestial oblivion or some craven scruple."
Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 4.

By which last line, according to Lord Campbell, (p. 55,) "Shakespeare shows that he was acquainted with the law for regulating 'trials by battle'"!

But to proceed with the passages quoted in evidence:—

"Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled o'er, should undo a man? Some say, the bee stings: but I say, 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since."—2 Henry VI. Act vi. Sc. 2.