whom an action had been brought for a robbery, pleaded" that time out of mind felons had used to rob at Gadshill, and so prescribed."

Taken with the

manner.

Cowel, Law Dict. s. v. "Mainour."

Year Books, 30 and 31 Edw. I.

The phrase, "taken with the manner," occurs in Shakespeare. It means to be caught in a criminal act; originally in a theft, with the thing stolen in hand. Cowel thus explains it: "Mainour, alias manour, alias meinour, from the French manier, i. e. manu tractare: in a legal sense denotes the thing that a thief taketh or stealeth; as to be taken with the mainour is to be taken with the thing stolen about him." In "Pleas of the Crown before Spigurnel, &c." published in Appendix I. to "Year Books," 30 and 31 Edward I. p. 512, is the following case, decided in

1302:

If a thief be taken with the "mainour," with oxen or other chattels, and the owner of the chattels pursue the thief, and the thief abandon the oxen or the chattels, and the bailiff of the liberty

take them, and assign a day to the owner, and receive his proof of ownership of the chattels, and deliver to him the chattels (as it happened to the sheriff of Cornwall regarding two oxen which were delivered in that manner), he shall be charged with them, and shall answer to the king.

The phrase also occurs in the translation of the Bible of 1611:

If any man's wife go aside, and commit a trespass against him, and a man lie with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes of her husband, and be kept close, and she be defiled, and there be no witness against her, neither she be taken with the manner. Numb. v. 12, 13.

In "The First Part of Henry IV." Prince
Henry exclaims, —

O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years ago, and wert taken with the manner. · Act ii. sc. 4. In "Love's Labour's Lost," Act i. sc. 1, Costard quibbles on manner, i.e. the thing stolen, and manor, house, where he was arrested.

COSTARD. The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta. The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.

BIRON. In what manner?

COST. In manner and form following, sir; all those three: I was seen with her in the manorhouse, sitting with her upon the form, and taken following her into the park; which, put together, is in manner and form following. Now, sir, for the manner, — it is the manner of a man to speak to a woman: for the form, — in some form.

"With

The expression, "taken yourself with the
manner," occurs in the third scene of the
fourth act of "The Winter's Tale."
the manner" is more proper than "in the
manner;" and accordingly Latimer writes
correctly,-

Even as a theife that is taken, with the maner that he stealeth. ·Sermons, 110.

Subornation of perjury.

In "Othello,” Desdemona says,

Beshrew me much, Emilia,

I was - unhandsome warrior as I am-
Arraigning his unkindness with my soul;
But now I find I had suborn'd the witness,
And he's indicted falsely.

-Act iii. sc. 4.

This is clearly a reference to the crime of

subornation of perjury, which is an offence

at common law, and consists in the procuring another to take such a false oath as constitutes perjury in the principal, or person taking it.

As has already been observed, the gravediggers' scene in Hamlet "is the mine which produces the richest legal ore." Lord Campbell remarks: "These terms of art are all used seemingly with a full knowledge of their import; and it would puzzle some practising barristers with whom I am acquainted to go over the whole seriatim, and to define each of them satisfactorily:".

HAMLET. There's another: why might not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddets now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery? Hum! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries: is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers

Hamlet, Act. v.
SC. I.

Ante, p. 48.

Lord Campbell.

Sonnet XLVI.

Lord Campbell.

vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more, ha?

Sonnet XLVI. is purely legal both in thought and in expression:

Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,
How to divide the conquest of thy sight;

Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar,
My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.
My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,
A closet never pierc'd with crystal eyes, —
But the defendant doth that plea deny,
And says in him thy fair appearance lies.
To cide this title is impannelled

A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart;
And by their verdict is determinèd

The dear eye's moiety and the dear heart's part:

As thus, mine eye's due is thy outward part,

And my heart's right thy inward love of heart.

Lord Campbell well observes, that "even where Shakespeare is most solemn and sublime, his sentiments and language seem some