the word devise, which he had used in disposing of his realty.*

* The idolatrous worshippers of Shakespeare, who think it necessary to make his moral qualities as exalted as his poetical genius, account for this sorry bequest, and for no other notice being taken of poor Mrs. Shakespeare in the will, by saying that he knew she was sufficiently provided for by her right to dower out of his landed property, which the law would give her; and they add that he must have been tenderly attached to her, because (they take upon themselves to say) she was exquisitely beautiful as well as strictly virtuous. But she was left by her husband without house or furniture (except the second best bed), or a kind word, or any other token of his love; and I sadly fear that between William Shakespeare and Ann Hathaway the course of true love never did run smooth. His boyish inexperience was no doubt pleased for a short time with her caresses; but he probably found that their union was "misgraffed in respect of years,” and gave advice from his own experience when he said,―

"Let still the woman take

An elder than herself; so wears she to him,
So sways she level in her husband's heart.

For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,
Our fancies are more giddy and infirm,
More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn,
Than women's are. * 部

Then let thy love be younger than thyself,

Or thy affection cannot hold the bent;

For women are like roses; whose fair flower,'
Being once displayed, doth fall that very hour."

To strengthen the suspicion that Shakespeare was likely not to have much respect for his wife, persons animated by the spirit of the late John Wilson Croker (although Shakespeare's biographers, in the absence of any register of his marriage, had conjectured that it took place in June, 1582), by searching the records of the Ecclesiastical Court at Worcester, have lately made the very awkward discovery that the bond given on grant of the licence for William

Having concluded my examination of Shakespeare's juridical phrases and forensic allusions,-on the retrospect I am amazed, not only by their number, but by the accuracy and propriety with which they are uniformly introduced. There is nothing so dangerous as for one not of the craft to tamper with our free-masonry. In the House of Commons I have heard a county member, who meant to intimate that he entirely concurred with the last preceding speaker, say, "I join issue with the honourable gentleman who has just sat down;" the legal sense of which is, "I flatly contradict all his facts and deny his inferences." JUNIUS, who was fond of dabbling in law, and who was supposed by some to be a lawyer (although Sir Philip Francis, then a clerk in the War Office, is now ascertained, beyond all doubt, to have been the man), in his address to the English nation, speaking of the House of Commons, and wishing

Shakespeare to marry Ann Hathaway is dated 26th November, 1582, while the entry in the parish register of the baptism of Susanna, their eldest child, is dated 26th May, 1583. As Shakespeare, at the time of this misfortune, was a lad of eighteen years of age, and Miss Hathaway was more than seven years his senior, he could hardly have been the seducer; and I am afraid that she was no better than she should be," whatever imaginary personal charms may be imputed to her.

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to say that the beneficial interest in the state belongs to the people, and not to their representatives, says, They are only trustees; the fee is in us." Now every attorney's clerk knows that when land is held in trust, the fee (or legal estate) is in the trustee, and that the beneficiary has only an equitable interest. While Novelists and Dramatists are constantly making mistakes as to the law of marriage, of wills, and of inheritance,―to Shakespeare's law, lavishly as he propounds it, there can neither be demurrer, nor bill of exceptions, nor writ of error.

He is no doubt equally accurate in referring to some other professions, but these references are rare and comparatively slight. Some have contended that he must have been by trade a gardener, from the conversation, in the WINTER'S TALE,' between Perdita, Polixenes, and Florizel, about raising carnations and gilliflowers, and the skilful grafting of fruit trees. Others have contended that Shakespeare must have been bred to the sea, from the nautical language in which directions are given for the manoeuvering of the ship in the 'TEMPEST,' and from the graphic description in Henry IV.'s soliloquy of the "high and giddy mast," of the "ruffian billows," of the "slippery shrouds," and of "sealing up the ship boy's eyes." Nay, notwithstanding the admonition to be found in his works, "Throw physic to the dogs," it has been gravely suggested that he must have been

initiated in medicine, from the minute inventory of the contents of the apothecary's shop in 'Romeo and Juliet.' But the descriptions thus relied upon, however minute, exact, and picturesque, will be found to be the result of casual observation, and they prove only nice perception, accurate recollection, and extraordinary power of pictorial language. Take the last instance referred to -Romeo's photograph of the apothecary and his shop.

"Meagre were his looks,

Sharp misery had worn him to the bones :
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,

An alligator stuffed, and other skins

Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves

A beggarly account of empty boxes.

Green earthen pots, bladders and musty seeds,
Remnants of packthread and old cakes of roses,
Were thinly scattered to make up a show."
(Act v. Sc. 1.)

Any observing customer, who had once entered the shop to buy a dose of rhubarb, might have safely given a similar account of what he saw, although utterly ignorant of Galen and Hippocrates. But let a nonprofessional man, however acute, presume to talk law, or to draw illustrations from legal science in discussing other subjects, and he will very speedily fall into some laughable absurdity.

To conclude my summing up of the evidence under

this head, I say, if Shakespeare is shown to have possessed a knowledge of law, which he might have acquired as clerk in an attorney's office in Stratford, and which he could have acquired in no other way, we are justified in believing the fact that he was a clerk in an attorney's office at Stratford, without any direct proof of the fact. Logicians and jurists allow us to infer a fact of which there is no direct proof, from facts expressly proved, if the fact to be inferred may have existed, if it be consistent with all other facts known to exist, and if facts known to exist can only be accounted for by inferring the fact to be inferred.

But, my dear Mr. Payne Collier, you must not from all this suppose that I have really become an absolute convert to your side of the question. ENEAS, while in the shades below, for a time believed in the reality of all he seemed to see and to hear; but, when dismissed through the ivory gate, he found that he had been dreaming. I hope that my arguments do not "come like shadows, so depart." Still I must warn you that I myself remain rather sceptical. All that I can admit to you is that you may be right, and that while there is weighty evidence for you, there is nothing conclusive against you.

Resuming the Judge, however, I must lay down that your opponents are not called upon to prove a negative, and that the onus probandi rests upon you. You must