III. i. 105, 106. For slander lives upon succ IV. i. 6. I'll attach you by this officer. IV. ii. 32-50; 32. No, he 's in Tartar limbo, 36. A fellow all in buff. 40. One that, before the Ju 42. He is 'rested on the case. 43. Tell me at whose suit. 49. Was he arrested on a band 61. And a sergeant in the way Gives them a bob, and 'rests the v. i. 100. And will have no attorney but my (3) General references: 1. i. 9. Have seal'd his rigorous statutes wit The Errors, it is true, does not conta of legal references, nothing like so many nets, and some of the other plays, but quite numerous enough to show the cold speare's mind had previously imbibed, evinced in this play, written as it mu 1591-2, and therefore not long, about five he came to London. He might of cour this intimate technical knowledge in the all I can say to that is to repeat my bel gaged as he must have been in his "bre suits of acting, recasting old plays, writi uccession, gets possession. bo, worse than hell. g garment. Judgement, carries poor =and? eant. way. them. myself. with their bloods. of this town. ch is this? ntain any large number any as the poems, sonut these references are colouring which Shakeed, and which he has must have been about five years in fact, after course have attained to the intervening period : belief that actively enbread and butter" purriting new ones and as sisting his "fellows" in theatrical management, it would have been nothing short of a miracle if he had, at the same time, sought to make an express study of the law. And to what end? Scenes ii, and iii. of Act IV. are particularly noticeable as showing Shakespeare's intimate acquaintance with the principles of special pleading and "arrest on mesne process,” as it was called; not to mention the social aspect of his evident familiarity with some of the manners and customs of old London. It is not to be assumed that such knowledge was limited to Shakespeare alone among the dramatists: many of them from John Lyly onwards use even special and technical legal terms with exactness and propriety. What I do repeat is that, as is instanced in the case of this, one of the earliest, if not the very earliest of his comedies, the total cumulative effect of the numerous legal references in the poems and plays leads irresistibly to the conclusion that the technical language of the law is an ingrained and ineradicable part of his vocabulary and his thought, and could only have been acquired in the way of regular study as an apprentice to the law. In conclusion, it may be remarked that in The Errors the well-known "unities" of action, time and place seem to be rigidly adhered to; and the play is "all compact" on the true classical model; but, in my opinion, this end was attained by Shakespeare, not of any set purpose or deliberate intention, but rather by his simply following the nature and scope of the subject-matter as set forth in the old Plautine play. |