For why, Death s hand hath sued a strict divorce Twixt her and thee. In point of fact the learned judge sees legal preoccupation in 11. Thus can a judge reason. According to our law Immediately provided in that case. Midsummer Night s Dream , i, 1.
Poetry disclaims it.
That is to say, the young poet was so much of an attorney s clerk as to obtrude his office reminiscences where poetry would have been more appropriate. Then the attorney s clerk is not true to his office reminiscences. The process of self-confusion has here become curiously interesting. The simple fact is that the dramatist has put in the mouth of a lay citizen one of those more or less loosely used legal tags which are to be found in almost every play of the Elizabethan and Jacobean era. Massinger, A New Way to Pay Old Debts , iii, 2.