at the same time a petty conveyancer, and perhaps also the seneschal of some manor court." There can be no doubt that legal expressions are more frequent, and are used with more precision, in his writings than in those of any other dramatic author of the period. "The technical language of the law runs from his pen as part of his vocabulary and parcel of his thought." A professional acquaintance with the law is certainly indicated by his familiarity with the technical. terms and phrases of its most intricate branches, the law of real property and the law of pleading,-terms and phrases which he uses "with an air of as entire unconsciousness as if they were a part of the language of his daily life."

Lord Campbell, the Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, in summing up the evidence in the case, said: "I am amazed not only at the number of Shakespeare's juridical phrases and forensic allusions, but by the accuracy and propriety with which they are uniformly introduced. While novelists and

Collier.
Staunton.

R. G. White.

Lord Campbell.

Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke.

White.

Staunton.

dramatists are constantly making mistakes as
to the law of marriage, of wills, and of inheri-
tance, to Shakespeare's law, lavishly as he
propounds it, there can neither be demurrer,
nor bill of exceptions, nor writ of error."
There is a seemingly utter impossibility of
his having acquired, on any other theory,
than that of having studied the law, "the
marvellous intimacy which he displays with
legal terms, his frequent adoption of them in
illustration, and his curiously technical knowl-
edge of their form and force," which no mere
quickness of intuition can account for. "Ge-
nius, though it reveals general and even par-
ticular truths, and facilitates all acquirement,
does not impart facts or the knowledge of
technical terms." If these inquiries do not
prove that "in hot blood he stepp'd into the
law," they help to show with what masterly
comprehensiveness he could deal with the
peculiarities of this, as of nearly every other
human pursuit. Indeed, he confesses,-
I have been a truant in the law,

And never yet could frame my will to it.

Authors do not use technical terms in the familiar way in which Shakespeare speaks of the law, unless the terms really are familiar to them by frequent use; and we find these terms and allusions used by him in an apparently unconscious way, as the natural turn of his thoughts. Among these, there are some which few but a lawyer would, and some even which none but a lawyer could, have written. Of course they are necessarily short and incomplete, for it is not in a tragedy or comedy that we should expect to find a technical description of the law or any other profession.

This question can be decided by the internal evidence afforded by the Poet's writings. When Malone published his theory, he cited in support of it twenty-four passages. Subsequent writers have cited a much larger number, many of which are impertinent and immaterial.

First Parish in
Sudbury v.
Jones, 8 Cush.

184, 189.

IN

CHAPTER II.

N "The Merry Wives of Windsor," Act II. sc. 2, where Ford, disguised, tries to induce Falstaff to assist him in his intrigue with Mrs. Ford, and states that for all the money and trouble he had bestowed upon her he had received no satisfaction, nor promise of any at her hands, there is this passage:

FAL. Of what quality was your love, then?

FORD. Like a fair house, built on another man's ground; so that I have lost my edifice by mistaking the place where I erected it.

In 1852 by a decision of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, the town of Sudbury in the county of Middlesex, lost a school-house "by mistaking the place where they erected it." The term "land" legally

includes all houses and buildings standing thereon. Whatever is affixed to the realty is thereby made parcel thereof, and belongs to the owner of the soil. Quicquid plantatur solo, solo cedit. Buildings erected on land of another voluntarily and without any contract with the owner become part of the real estate, and belong to the owner of the soil. Although the principle is one of great antiquity, yet it is so far technical, that it is not familiar to unprofessional persons.

Co. Litt. 4a. Wentw. Off. Ex. 14th ed. 145. Angus v. Dalton, 6 App. Cas. 740.

In Riddle v. Welden, it was decided that the goods of a boarder are not liable to be distrained for rent due by the keeper of the boarding-house. Chief Justice Gibson, in delivering the opinion of the court, said that Falstaff "speaks with legal precision when he demands, Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn."" In early times an inn signified a dwelling; and "To take mine ease in mine inne" was an ancient proverb, says Percy, not

5 Wharton, 15.

Henry IV. Part I., Act III. sc. 3.