"Bass. To you, Antonio, I owe the most, in money and in love;

And from your love I have a warranty,
To unburthen all my plots and purposes,

How to get clear of all the debts I owe."1

A "warranty," in real property, was a covenant, where by the grantor of an estate of freehold was bound to war

'Merchant of Venice, Act I, Scene I.

rant the title and either upon voucher or upon eviction, to yield lands of an equal value with those from which the tenant was evicted. In the old practice, the warrantor was called into court, by the party warranted to defend the suit for him and the time for the voucher was after the demandant had counted. The thought expressed by Bassanio is that the love of Antonio was to stand sponsor for all his debts or that by his love his debts were to be warranted.

Sec. 80. Breach of bond-penalty for.

"Ant. If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not As to thy friends (for when did friendship take A breed for barren metal of his friend?)

But lend it rather to thine enemy;

Who, if he break, thou may'st with better face
Exact the penalty."

113

It was remarked by Lord Bacon, in one of his Essays,* that people were wont to say that it was "against nature, for money to beget money"; Antonio expresses this same thought in his philosophy that friendship would not exact a breed "for barren metal." He asked no special favor or courtesy, but only that in case he failed to keep his bond, that the penalty be exacted.

A penalty is the undertaking to pay an additional sum of money or to submit to punishment of a certain kind, if there shall be a failure to fulfill the contract obligation." The term is mostly applied to pecuniary punishment," but may as well include the corporal punishment included in the obligation of this bond, in case of a breach of its condition.

Sec. 81.

Sealing a written instrument.

"Shy. Go with me to a notary; seal me there
Your single bond; and, in a merry sport,
If you repay me not on such a day,
In such a place, such sum, or sums, as are
Expressed in the condition, let the forfeit,
Be nominated for an equal pound

Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken
In what part of your body pleaseth me.
Ant. Content, in faith: I'll seal to such a bond,
And say, there is much kindness in the Jew,
Yes, Shylock, I will seal unto this bond."i

The distinction between a singular bond and a regular bond with principal and surety, in common form, is recognized by the Poet in Shylock's request for a "single bond," but in demanding the sealing of such bond, the English legal requisite to a valid specialty contract is likewise recognized. The novelty of making written instruments with seals of wax and other ceremonies, was introduced into England by the Normans. Such instruments were originally brought into court; either the king's court, the court of the county, or into some assembly and there the act of making and acknowledging the instrument was performed. When the instruments were not executed in this public manner, they were usually attested by men of character and prominence, or by officers of the king, notaries, or such like, or by the mayor, bailiff or some such civil officer. The "condition" of a bond is that part which specifies the agree

1 Merchant of Venice, Act I, Scene III.
'I Reeve's History English Law, p. 336.

In practice, a wafer or seal was attached to the end of the writing, and the party who executed it, after his signature put his finger on the seal and said: "I deliver this as my act and deed," at the same time handing the writing over. Mad Form. Biss. 26; 1 Reeves History Eng. Law, p. 337.

'I Reeve's History Eng. Law, 337.

ment between the parties and the sum to be paid, on the breach of the obligation, is called the forfeit.1

Shylock's invitation to go with him to the "notary," had reference to this legal ceremony of signing and sealing the bond, and Antonio's consent to "seal to such a bond" expresses, in common legal parlance, the familiarity of one used to such a ceremony, and his willingness to put the obligation in the legal form of a binding specialty

contract.

1 Bouvier's Law Dictionary.

A "single bond,"-simplex obligatio-is one in which the obligor binds himself, his heirs, etc., to pay a certain sum of money to another at a day named. (Bouvier's Law Dictionary.) It is properly to be distinguished from a conditional bond, in that the former does not contain the same form in law, as the latter, which is conditioned that if the obligor does some act, the bond is to be void. It is passing strange that the Poet, if unlearned in the deep science and technicalities of the law, should have noted, in this verse this legal distinction between these different kinds of bonds and made of this bond, the kind the transaction made essential, instead of the other kind, that one less informed in the law would perhaps have selected, or, more likely, would have specialized no particular kind of bond at all. The substance and condition of this bond and the incidents of the forfeiture are related in the Gesta Romanorum, but there is little doubt, as stated by Hudson, but what the details and plot of the play were taken from the Italian novel by Giovanni Fiorentino, written in 1378, as the main points of this story are reproduced in the play, in a slightly transformed form. Bassanio corresponds to the hero in this novel, who had executed the bond to the Jew, and his intended bride, disguised as a doctor of law so construes the bond as to deny the Jew his pound of flesh, in substantially the same way in which the bond was construed by Portia. (See Introduction to Hudson's Merchant of Venice, pp. 50, 51.)

Glendower is quoted as saying, in 1' Henry IV:

"Glen. Come, come, lord Mortimer; you are as slow,
As hot lord Percy is on fire to go.

By this our book's drawn: we'll but seal, and then
To horse immediately."

(Act III, Scene I.)

Sec. 82. Extorting evidence upon the rack.

"Por. Ay, but I fear, you speak upon the rack, Where men enforced do speak anything."

Alluding to the old custom of sealing instruments with soft wax, Falstaff, in 2' Henry IV, refers to his meeting with Justice Shallow, as follows: "Fal. . I'll through Glostershire;

and there will I visit master Robert Shallow, esquire; I have him already tempering between my finger and my thumb and shortly will I seal with him." (Act IV, Scene III.)

Pandarus tells Troilus and Cressida, after the details of their pre-contract of marriage, are agreed to: "Pan. Go to, a bargain made; seal it, seal it; I'll be the witness." (Act III, Scene II,) The Senators tell Alcibiades, in urging clemency for the people of Athens, in Timon of Athens:

"2 Sen. . . all thy powers,

Shall make their harbour in our town, till we

Have seal'd thy full desire."

(Act V, Scene V.,

Coriolanus tells the Citizens, on his return to the Volscians: “Cor. . . . And we here deliver, subscrib'd by the consuls and patricians, together with the seal o' the senate, what we have compounded on." (Act V, Scene V.)

Pompey tells Lepidus, in Antony and Cleopatra:
"Pom. I hope so, Lepidus.-Thus we are agreed:
I crave our composition may be written,
And seal'd between us."

(Act II, Scene VI.)

Enobarbus tells Agrippa, in Antony and Cleopatra: "Eno. They have despatched with Pompey, he is gone;

The other three are sealing."

(Act III, Scene II.)

Antony, in his death, is made to refer to the legal formula of sealing, in the following lines:

Mars what it does; yea, very force entangles

Itself with strength; Seal then, and all is done."

(Act IV, Scene XII.)

Helicanus, in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, speaks of the "Seal'd commission, left in trust," with him, on the commencement of his journey, by king Pericles. (Act I, Scene III.)

Simonides joins the hands of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, and his daughter Thasia, and tells them that their "hands and lips must seal it too." (Act II, Scene V.)

1 Merchant of Venice, Act III, Scene II.