Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements Considered, a Letter (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1859. Excerpt: ... decide and by their verdict to apportion between the litigating parties the subject matter to be divided. The jury fortunately are unanimous, and after due deliberation find for the Eye in respect of the lady's outward form, and for the Heart in respect of her inward love. Surely Sonnet Xlvi. smells as potently of the attorney's office as any of the stanzas penned by Lord Kenyon while an attorney's clerk in Wales. Among Shakespeare's writings, I think that attention should be paid to his Will, for, upon a careful perusal, it will be found to have been in all probability composed by himself. It seems much too simple, terse, and condensed, to have been the composition of a Stratford attorney, who was to be paid by the number of lines which it contained. But a testator, without professional experience, could hardly have used language so appropriate as we find in this will, to express his meaning. Shakespeare, the greatest of British dramatists, appears to have been as anxious as Sir Walter Scott, the greatest of British novelists, to found a family, although he does not require all his descendants to "bear the name and arms of Shakespeare." But, as far as the rules of English law would permit, he seeks to perpetuate in an heir male, descended from one of his daughters (his son having died in infancy, and there being no longer any prospect of issue male of his own), all the houses and lands he had acquired, --which were quite sufficient for a respectable Warwickshire squire. His favourite daughter, Susanna, married to Dr. Hall, an eminent physician, was to be the stirps from which this line of male heirs was to spring; and the testator creates an estate in tail male, --with remainders over, which, but for fines and recoveries, would have kept the whole of his p...