One is, of course, thankful that Mr.Collins has appreciated the fact that Shakespeare must have had a sound legal training, but I may be forgiven if I do not attach quite so much importance to his pronouncements on this branch of the subject as to those of Malone, Lord Campbell, Judge Holmes, Mr.Castle, K.C., Lord Penzance, Mr.Grant White, and other lawyers, who have expressed their opinion on the matter of Shakespeare's legal acquirements.
...
Here it may, perhaps, be worth while to quote again from Lord Penzance's book as to the suggestion that Shakespeare had somehow or other managed "to acquire a perfect familiarity with legal principles, and an accurate and ready use of the technical terms and phrases, not only of the conveyancer's office, but of the pleader's chambers and the Courts at Westminster." This, as Lord Penzance points out, "would require nothing short of employment in some career involving CONSTANT CONTACT with legal questions and general legal work." But "in what portion of Shakespeare's career would it be possible to point out that time could be found for the interposition of a legal employment in the chambers or offices of practicing lawyers?...It is beyond doubt that at an early period he was called upon to abandon his attendance at school and assist his father, and was soon after, at the age of sixteen, bound apprentice to a trade.While under the obligation of this bond he could not have pursued any other employment.Then he leaves Stratford and comes to London.He has to provide himself with the means of a livelihood, and this he did in some capacity at the theater.No one doubt that.The holding of horses is scouted by many, and perhaps with justice, as being unlikely and certainly unproved; but whatever the nature of his employment was at the theater, there is hardly room for the belief that it could have been other than continuous, for his progress there was so rapid.Ere long he had been taken into the company as an actor, and was soon spoken of as a "Johannes Factotum.' His rapid accumulation of wealth speaks volumes for the constancy and activity of his services.One fails to see when there could be a break in the current of his life at this period of it, giving room or opportunity for legal or indeed any other employment.'In 1589,' says Knight, 'we have undeniable evidence that he had not only a casual engagement, was not only a salaried servant, as may players were, but was a shareholder in the company of the Queen's players with other shareholders below him on the list.' This (1589) would be within two years after his arrival in London, which is placed by White and Halliwell-Phillipps about the year 1587.The difficulty in supposing that, starting with a state of ignorance in 1587, when he is supposed to have come to London, he was induced to enter upon a course of most extended study and mental culture, is almost insuperable.
Still it was physically possible, provided always that he could have had access to the needful books.But this legal training seems to me to stand on a different footing.It is not only unaccountable and incredible, but it is actually negatived by the known facts of his career." Lord Penzance then refers to the fact that "by 1592 (according to the best authority, Mr.Grant White) several of the plays had been written.'The Comedy of Errors' in 1589, 'Love's Labour's Lost' in 1589, 'Two Gentlemen of Verona' in 1589 or 1590," and so forth, and then asks, "with this catalogue of dramatic work on hand...was it possible that he could have taken a leading part in the management and conduct of two theaters, and if Mr.Phillipps is to be relied upon, taken his share in the performances of the provincial tours of his company--and at the same time devoted himself to the study of the law in all its branches so efficiently as to make himself complete master of its principles and practice, and saturate his mind with all its most technical terms?"I have cited this passage from Lord Penzance's book, because it lay before me, and I had already quoted from it on the matter of Shakespeare's legal knowledge; but other writers have still better set forth the insuperable difficulties, as they seem to me, which beset the idea that Shakespeare might have found them in some unknown period of early life, amid multifarious other occupations, for the study of classics, literature, and law, to say nothing of languages and a few other matters.Lord Penzance further asks his readers: "Did you ever meet with or hear of an instance in which a young man in this country gave himself up to legal studies and engaged in legal employments, which is the only way of becoming familiar with the technicalities of practice, unless with the view of practicing in that profession? I do not believe that it would be easy, or indeed possible, to produce an instance in which the law has been seriously studied in all its branches, except as a qualification for practice in the legal profession."This testimony is so strong, so direct, so authoritative;and so uncheapened, unwatered by guesses, and surmises, and maybe-so's, and might-have-beens, and could-have-beens, and must-have-beens, and the rest of that ton of plaster of Paris out of which the biographers have built the colossal brontosaur which goes by the Stratford actor's name, that it quite convinces me that the man who wrote Shakespeare's Works knew all about law and lawyers.Also, that that man could not have been the Stratford Shakespeare--and WASN'T.
Who did write these Works, then?
I wish I knew.
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1.From Chapter XIII of THE SHAKESPEARE PROBLEM RESTATED.
By George G.Greenwood, M.P.John Lane Company, publishers.
