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Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements Considered
Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements Considered Author:John Campbell, Baron Campbell, John Payne Collier Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 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 abs... more »truse proceedings in English jurisprudence. In Act iv. Sc. 2, Adriana asks Dromio of Syracuse, "Where is thy master, Dromio ? Is he well ? " and Dromio replies— No, he's in Tartar limbo, worse than hell: A devil in an everlasting garment hath him. One whose hard heart is button'd up with steel; A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough; A wolf; nay worse, a fellow all in buff; A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that counter- mands The passages and alleys, creeks, and narrow lands: A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry-foot well; One that before the judgment carries poor souls to hell. Adr. Why, man, what is the matter ? Dro. S. I do not know the matter; he is 'rested on the ease. Adr. What, is he arrested 1 tell me at whose suit. Dro. S. I know not at whose suit he is arrested. well, But he's in a suit of buff which 'rested him, that can I tell. Adr. This I wonder at: That he, unknown to me, should be in debt. Tell me, was he arrested on a bond f Dro. S. Not on a bond, but on a stronger thing: A chain, a chain ! Here we have a most circumstantial and graphic account of an English arrest on mesne process ["before judgment"], in .an action on the case, for the price of a gold chain, by a sheriffs officer, or bum-bailiff, in his buff costume, and carrying his prisoner to a sponging- house—a spectacle which might often have been seen by an attorney's clerk. A fellow- student of mine (since an eminent Judge), being sent to an attorney's office, as part of his legal education, used to accompany the sheriff's officer when making captions on mesne process, that he might enjoy ...« less