Shakespeare a Lawyer? - 14 - Legal jargon

Was Shake-Speare a lawyer?

Part 14

Valid Pointers to Shake-Speare being a Lawyer

15. Resisting law

In Coriolanus 3.1.265-6, Sicinius urges that Coriolanus shall be thrown down the tarpeian rock because

             "he hath resisted law
And therefore law shall scorn him further trial..."

This is presumably based on the legal tag from the Roman jurist Justinian, 2 Institutes 53,  Merito beneficium legis amittit qui legem ipsam subvertere intendit - "he who intends to subvert the law itself deservedly loses the benefit of law". Yet the tag is not in Plutarch, Shake-Speare's source. Would Will Shakspere have known it, even in an English version?

14. A Sentence Irrevocable

In The Comedy of Errors 1.1.147 a character says that a "passed sentence may not be recalled [revoked]". There was a legal tag Sententia interlocutoria revocari potest definitiva non potest - "an interlocutory order may be revoked but not a final one". A criminal sentence was a final order (subject to appeal), and the wording of Shake-Speare's line suggests that he had the tag in mind. I doubt if Will Shakspere of Stratford would have known it.

Also, Lord Campbell, speaking of the jests in The Comedy of Errors, he remarks : 

"These jests cannot be supposed to arise from anything in the laws or customs of Syracuse, but they show the author to be very familiar with some of the most abtruse proceedings in English jurisprudence." --(From Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements, p. 38)

And, 

Franklin Fiske Heard, an American authority, says :

"The Comedy of Errors shows that Shakespeare was very familiar with some of the most refined principles of the science of special pleading, a science which contains the quintessence of the law".

Remember that The Comedy of Errors was one of Shake-Speare's first plays. How could Will Shakspere, recently from Stratford, had obtained this expertise so quickly, (if at all, considering he had no formal training in law)?  See the timeline here:

http://www.bardweb.net/plays/timeline.html

13. The Leek and Ambiguities

In Henry V, 5.1.45-7, Pistol asks if he really must bite the leek, to which Fluellen replies:

"Yes certainly, and out of doubt and out of question too and ambiguities".

These words were often found in a codicil to a Will by way of explaining the Will. For example, a codicil of Nicholas Tooley (one of Shakspere's fellow actors) had: "For the explanation of such ambiguities, doubts, scruples, questions and variances". Or the words might appear in the body of a Will. that of Charles Brandon begins: "I Charles Duke of Suffolk, being of whole and perfect memory, considering the great ambiguities, doubts and questions that do daily rise and grow in last Wills". but would a non-lawyer have thought of introducing Will jargon into Pistol's disconfiture over the leek?

Shakespeare a Lawyer? - 17 - Brook abridgement

Was Shake-Speare a lawyer?

Part 17

Valid Pointers to Shake-Speare being a Lawyer

8.  Lovers like opposing barristers

In The Taming Of The Shrew 1.1.276-7, one of two rival lovers for the affections of the same lady suggests that they should

     "Do as adversaries do in law,
      Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends".

"Adversaries" here refers to opposing Counsel; a layman would probably use it of the parties themselves. Secondly, how many laymen would liken rival lovers to contesting barristers eating and drinking as friends? But the analogy would come naturally to a barrister since the camaraderie of the Bar is one of its most distinctive features. A lay client on the other hand might be a little surprised (and offended) to see his barrister lunching during the case with his forensic opponent. In rebuttal J.M. Robertson in his The Baconian Heresy (1913), p. 62, quotes from Westward Ho 1.1. by Dekker and Webster: "She sleeps as a client having great business with lawyers". But this is not comparable since it does not echo the ethics of the Bar.

7.  Brook abridgement

In Henry V Act 5, Prologue Line 44, the audience is enjoined. "Then brook abridgement and your eyes advance". There was a well known legal textbook called "Brooke's Abridgement, first published in 1573 and reprinted in 1576 and 1586. Bacon in his legal writings mentions it 4 times. Was the wording of Shake-Speare's "Brook abridgement" suggested by the book's title? That wording was probably a joke phrase in the Inns of Court, based on the title. Like "An advocate is a pheasant" considered in the next item (#6 in this list). "Brook abridgement" may have no legal connotation (especially as "brook" was a word Shake-Speare liked). But both together increase one's suspicions. Can two such legal coincidences (this item and also that in #6) be found in the works of any other Elizabethan playwright?

Essex and Henry V - plus more quotes on Bacon and Secrecy

 An addendum to the quote by the Earl of Essex about the Bacon brothers putting him on the stage:

“The speech by the Chorus at the beginning of act 5 of Henry V (in the folio text but omitted from the quartos) refers to the ‘General of our gracious Empress’ who is ‘from Ireland coming, / Bringing rebellion broached on his sword’.  It is generally agreed that the allusion is to the Earl of Essex, sent to Ireland in March 1599 to subdue the rebellion led by Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone.”

http://www.bl.uk/treasures/shakespeare/henry5.html

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Some more quotes of Francis Bacon:

From his essay   OF SIMULATION AND DISSIMULATION

“There be three degrees of this hiding and veiling of a man's self. The first, closeness, reservation, and secrecy; when a man leaveth himself without observation, or without hold to be taken, what he is. The second, dissimulation, in the negative; when a man lets fall signs and arguments, that he is not, that he is. And the third, simulation, in the affirmative; when a man industriously and expressly feigns and pretends to be, that he is not.”

“Therefore set it down, that an habit of secrecy, is both politic and moral.”

  “For the second, which is dissimulation; it followeth many times upon secrecy, by a necessity; so that he that will be secret, must be a dissembler in some degree.”

  “The great advantages of simulation and dissimulation are three. First, to lay asleep opposition, and to surprise. For where a man's intentions are published, it is an alarum, to call up all that are against them.”

“In choice of instruments, it is better to choose men of a plainer sort,. . .”

  Essay OF NEGOTIATING

“Let him do his private business under a mask.”

     De moribus interpretis

“Writings should be such as should make men in love with the lesson, and not with the teacher.”

Parallel - Neighboured by Fruit

First, Shakespeare:

 "The strawberry grows underneath the nettle
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality"
   Henry V 1.1.60-3

Now Bacon:

 "Wheresoever one plant draweth such a particular juice out of the earth as it qualifieth the earth, so as that juice which remaineth is fit for the other plant, there the neighbourhood doth good, because the nourishments are contrary or several; but where two plants draw much the same juice, there the neighbourhood hurteth."
   Natural History

Comment: What gives this parallel most of its force is "neighbour'd" / "neighbourhood". To illustrate that these little verbal parallels are significant, I quote two similar statements given by the Arden editor, in neither of which does "neighbour'd" or "neighbourhood" appear: "Strawberry aptly groweth in shadowy places, and rather joyeth under the shadow of other herbs, than by growing alone". "If it happened (as some gardeners say) that those roses and violets are ever the sweeter and more odiferous that grow near under garlic and onions, for so much as they suck and draw all the ill-savours of the ground unto them". There are many different ways of saying the same things.

Parallel - Chewed, Swallowed and Digested

First, Shake-Speare:

                       How shall we stretch our eye
When capital crimes, chewed, swallowed and digested
Appear before us?

 Henry V, 2.2.55-57

and now Bacon: "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested".
Essay on Studies