Arizona republican., 1903-11-07
WILLIAM WAS No LAWYER

The question whether William
 Shakespeare, or the person who ''wrcte Shakespeare" had an intimate ac- quaintance with the law of his time has been learnedly and unlcarnedly discused ever since the late Lord
 Campbell raised. the question in Q book
 on the subject. It has entered more
 or less into the ShakespeareBac
 controversy, there being no question of
 the legal Knowledge supposed to be
 displayed in the plays attributed to
 Shakespeare being regarded by the
 Baconites as conclusive proof that the
 poor player" did not write them.
 At the annual meeting Of the Yer mont Bar association on Tuesday the
 attention of that state bar was directed
 to the question of Shakespeare's
 Knowledge of the law. The subject was
 gone into with great thoroughness and
 the conclusion reached by the president
 of the association was that what the
 writer of Shakespeare's plays did not
 knew about law would fill a volume,
 while what he did know correctly could be put in para graph. The
 dramatist had heard some law terms
 during the discussion of his fathers
 affairs in court for the elder Shakes l DEdIe was al lUe MIOLlE ttltl DL sever al cases in which money was involved.
 He had also picked up a few phrases
 from lawyers who hobnobbed with the London players. and several words
 now exclusively used by lawyers were
 in the common language of the people
 Of Shakespeare's time.
 The curious thing about Shakes
 peare's use of law terms, ac-
 ccrding to the Vermont deci-
 sion, is that they are nearly always misuses. His misuse of legal terms was frequent and fragrant" For instance, President Senter asserted that in several cases of the use of the word "dower" only one was correct. So also his use of "indenture" and "moiety," of "distrained" and "testa- ment." was wrong and his use Of "ac- ton on the case" in "The Comedy of Errors" was altogether wrong, since the action, in the sense there indicat- ed. was net known in England till nine years after the play was written. The description of the trial of the Duke of Buckingham, given in Henry VIII, ." was not admitted to show a familiar | ity with legal procedure and technical terms. but any argument that might be founded on that is destroyed by the fact that the legal phraseolcgy is talk en almost literally from Halls Chron- | icles. If anyone's legal standing is affirmed by that passage, it is Halls, not Shakespoare's. Most of the legal l phraseology in the historical plays comes from the Chronicles of Hall or Holinshed said President Senter. and he cited ether parallel passages in proof. Almost without exception, in these plays, the technical legal terms
 were taken from these writers.
 As for the famous trial scene in the | Merchant of Venice," it was shown by a thorough analysis of the case that a more fragrant illustration of ig- ncrance of the law of Shakespeare's own time could hardly have been pre- sented. The procedure had no founda- tiOn in common law, statute law, or moral law The man who wrote that scene not only had TO legal training.
 but described proceedings that could
 net possibly have occurred in any l court of law.
 William Shakespeare may consider himself disbarred.-Cleveland Plain Dealer.
 CHARLEY TONNE AND HIS SOUL.