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 Greenwood 
 Shakespeare's Law and Latin
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S LAW AND LATIN
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE SHAKESPEARE PROBLEM RESTATED. (John Lane.) 
 1908. 
 
 IS THERE A SHAKESPEARE PROBLEM? (John Lane.) 
 1916.
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S LAW AND 
 
 LATIN 
 
 HOW I WAS "EXPOSED" BY 
 MR. J. M. PtOBEKTSON, M.P. 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR GEOEGE GEEENWOOD, M.P. 
 
 "It is not a confident brow, nor the throng of words that come with 
 such more than impudent saucincss from you, can thrust me from a 
 level consideration." — SJiakespcarc. 
 
 "Oh, valiant man, with sword drawn and cock'd trigger, 
 Now, tell me, don't you cut a pretty figure?" — Byron. 
 
 London : 
 WATTS & CO., 
 
 17 JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.G. 
 
 1916
 
 PR 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 In tlie summer of 1908 Mr. John Lane pviblished on my 
 behalf a book called The Shakespeare Problem Restated. 
 Five years afterwards — viz., in 1913 — there appeared a 
 work called The Baconian Heresy, from the pen of Mr. 
 J. M. Robertson, M.P. (Herbert Jenkins, Ltd.), wherein 
 I found that my book — -which, by the way, did not 
 advocate the Baconian theory — was made the subject 
 of a violent attack, embellished with all that elegant 
 vocabulary which is so familiar to those who are 
 acquainted with Mr. Robertson's peculiar style of 
 controversy. In a subsequent work. Is there a Shake- 
 speare Problem ? (John Lane, 1916), I took up the 
 main points of that attack, and, as I venture to think, 
 answered them with some success. Whereupon Mr. 
 J. M. Robertson once more assailed me, with even 
 greater bitterness, in two articles published in the 
 Literary Guide, a monthly journal printed and pub- 
 lished by Messrs. Watts it Co., of Johnson's Court, 
 Fleet Street. (See the issues of that journal for 
 January and February, 1916.) 
 
 In the second of these two articles Mr. Robertson 
 thought fit to write as follows : " Since Mr. Greenwood 
 will not be taught, he must just be ex2)0sed " (my 
 italics) ; and he thereupon proceeded, as he fondly 
 imagined, to visit me with the threatened " exposure." 
 
 Now, when a man, in the pages of a public journal, 
 announces that he is going to "expose" another, it is 
 needless to say that he makes use of an expression 
 perhaps as offensive as it is possible for him to employ 
 outside the law of libel. Nevertheless, if he can make 
 
 V 
 
 982ri8^S
 
 vi INTEODUCTOEY 
 
 good his threat, if he can succeed in convicting the 
 subject of tliat threat of fraud, or gross ignorance, or 
 false pretences, or whatever it may be that he has 
 undertaken to " expose," the individual aimed at must 
 even put up with it as best he may. 
 
 When, however, it turns out that the threat of 
 exposure " is based upon ignorance, then he that 
 makes it stands convicted of slieer insolence, if not of 
 something worse. 
 
 In the present case I have shown that Mr. Eobertson's 
 threat to expose " me is simply based upon ignorance. 
 
 I replied to Mr. Eobertson's articles, through the 
 courtesy of the Editor, in the Literary Guide of 
 March and x^pril, 1916, and I had purposed to reprint 
 all four articles verbatim ; l^ut I was informed that Mr. 
 Eobertson objected to the publication by me of his 
 articles, with further comments thereon, unless I con- 
 sented to join with them a sur-rejoinder which was 
 sent for my perusal, and which contained, inter alia, 
 a scandalous, but, doubtless, unintentional, false state- 
 ment concerning myself. This I naturally declined to do, 
 though I should have had no objection to publish the 
 rest of the document with comments of my own. I will 
 now, therefore, state Mr. Eobertson's accusations seriatim, 
 as far as possible in his own language, and will deal with 
 them very faithfully.' 
 
 But my main object in now publishing this paper is to 
 consider Mr. Eobertson in two aspects. Two familiar 
 questions concerning Shakespeare have been again much 
 mooted of late : (l) What was the extent of his legal 
 knowledge as evidenced by his works ? and (2) What was 
 the extent of his classical knowledge so evidenced ? 
 
 1 I do not doubt that I had the legal right to publish Mr. Robertson's 
 articles, together with mine in reply, whether he objected or not ; but, in 
 tlie circumstances, I thought it best not to do so.
 
 INTRODUCTORY vii 
 
 Now, I have no intention of making another examina- 
 tion of these questions at the present time with the view 
 of arriving, if possihle, at definite conclusions with regard 
 to them. To do tliat would require a volume of very 
 considerable length, upon which I have no desire to 
 embark. But, as Mr. Robertson has undertaken to 
 instruct the public both as to Shakespeare's law and 
 Shakespeare's classical knowledge, I propose to con- 
 sider what qualifications he appears to possess for such 
 a task. In so doing I shall have the opportunity of 
 examining and replying to many charges which he has 
 brought against me. I will commence, therefore, with 
 the consideration of Mr. Robertson as an exponent of 
 law, after which I will ask my readers to form an 
 estimate of his authority on the " classical " question ; 
 and, lastly, I will deal with such accusations as still 
 remain unanswered. 
 
 I will only add, to bring these prefatory remarks to a 
 conclusion, that a personal controversy such as this is 
 hateful to me. Moreover, I am acutely conscious of the 
 absurdity involved in the fact that two presumably 
 reasonable beings should be at daggers-drawn and fight- 
 ing d outrance over such questions as Shakespeare's 
 knowledge of law and of classics — more especially at a 
 time when the world is convulsed by the most terrible 
 war that it has ever known. But, as in real war, so it 
 is in the case of this ridiculous travesty of it. We all 
 recognize that war is monstrous, insensate, insane ; yet 
 we recognize further that the action of " the Huns " 
 made it impossible for us to keep out of it. And such, 
 too, as I opine, was my case in view of Mr. Robertson's 
 grand ' offensive." I venture to say, also, that such an 
 aggressive attack was quite uncalled for. The late Lord 
 Chief Justice Cockburn used to admonish counsel at the 
 Bar that they should tiglit " with the rapier of the gentle-
 
 viii INTEODUCTOEY 
 
 mail, and not with the dagger of the assassin." Well, 
 Mr. Andrew Lang assailed me " with the rapier of the 
 gentleman," and his written attack was none the less 
 effective — -indeed, was all the more effective because it 
 was always couched in terms of perfect courtesy ; and so 
 far was it from leading to anything like acrimonious 
 controversy that it resulted in a pleasant correspondence 
 between us, and I still preserve a letter which he was so 
 kind as to write to me in the train, on his way to Scot- 
 land, shortly before his lamented death. It would, of 
 course, be unreasonable to expect anything of this sort 
 from my present assailant. He is not so constituted. 
 His controversial manners really have not that repose 
 which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere. 
 
 I am not now writing, however, merely to answer a 
 personal attack. I should be quite content to leave the 
 personalities to die a natural death. But Mr. Eobertson 
 is well known not only as a distinguished politician, but 
 also as a strong controversialist and a writer of great 
 ability (more particularly on such subjects as economics, 
 and Eationalism, and the history of Free Thought) ; and 
 I fear many readers have been led by his authority into 
 serious errors with regard to Shakespeare and his works. 
 What some of these errors are I endeavour to demonstrate 
 in the following pages, and I would ask the reader 
 kindly to take note that my arguments in the present 
 brochure are quite independent of the question of the 
 Shakespearean authorship. They are addressed to the 
 ' orthodox " and the " unorthodox " alike. 
 
 Mr. Eobertson threatens to "go for " me again in a 
 second edition of TJic Baconian Heresy, but as, possibly, 
 I " may not be here " when that new edition makes its 
 appearance, I think it best to adopt the motto of dear old 
 David Harum — viz. : " Do to the other fellow what he 
 wants to do to you— and do I'd fust " I
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Introductory 
 
 PAfiE 
 V 
 
 Chapter I 
 MR. ROBERTSON AS EXPONENT OF LAW 
 
 Mr. Robertson's attack in the Literarj/ Guide and my 
 reply ...... 
 
 Two main evidential questions dealt with by Mr 
 Robertson — 
 
 (1) Shakespeare's legal knowledge 
 
 (2) Shakespeare's classical knowledge 
 Mr Robertson's qualifications to decide . 
 Opinion of lawyers .... 
 Mr. Robertson's claim to have "exposed" me 
 " Putting a cavcAt" .... 
 Bacon cited ..... 
 Lord Campbell on Shakespeare' s Legal Acquirements 
 Malone on the same .... 
 Lawyers on Shakespeare's knowledge of law 
 Sir Sidney Lee on the same 
 The question dealt with in Is tliere a Shakespeare 
 
 Problem'} ..... 
 
 Mr. Robertson on " forensic mystification " 
 Shakespeare's use of the expressions "fine" and 
 
 "recovery" ..... 
 
 Meaning of these terms .... 
 Merry Wives of Windsor cited by Lord Campbell 
 Mr. Robertson's suppoi^ed parallels in Greene 
 Comment of a reviewer in The Nation 
 Mr. Robertson's reply examined . 
 Comedy of Errors cited by Lord Campbell 
 Mr. Robertson's supposed parallel from Nashe . 
 His supposed parallels from Dekker and Porter . 
 His ignorance of the meaning of the words "fine" and 
 
 " recovery "...... 
 
 ix 
 
 2 
 2 
 2 
 3 
 
 4 
 4 
 5 
 5 
 5 
 G 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 8-10 
 10 
 11 
 12 
 12 
 13 
 13 
 15 
 
 lG-17
 
 X 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 His supposed " parallelisms " generally . 
 
 A futile citation from Dekker 
 
 "A house built upon another man's ground" {Merry 
 Wives) ..... 
 
 Lord Campbell's comment 
 
 Mr. Robertson's scornful criticism 
 
 Supposed parallels from Dekker and Heywood 
 
 All's Well cited by Lord Campbell 
 
 Mr. Robertson on knowledge of the " common law 
 
 Suggests it was " common to the multitude " ? 
 
 Shakespeare's accuracy vindicated 
 
 Mr. Devecmon on Shakespeare's law 
 
 Claimed as " ally " by Mr. Robertson 
 
 Shylock's bond not a "conditional" bond : the critics 
 astray ..... 
 
 Mr. Devecmon on "challenge" (Hen. VIII, ii, 4) 
 
 Followed by Mr. Robertson 
 
 Their error exposed 
 
 Shakespeare's knowledge of ecclesiastical law 
 
 Charles Allen's "Notes on the Bacon-Shakespeare Ques- 
 tion" ..... 
 
 Referred to with approval by Sir S. Lee . 
 
 Mr. Allen's blunders—" Statutes" 
 
 Mr. Devecmon too much for Mr. Robertson here 
 
 Mr. Robertson on the word "purchase" . 
 
 "No legal sense" of the word ! 
 
 His error demonstrated : real legal meaning of the word 
 
 Mr. A. Underbill, in Shal'esjyeare's England, on Shake- 
 speare's law ...... 
 
 PAGE 
 
 17-18 
 18 
 
 19 
 
 19 
 
 19-20 
 
 20-21 
 
 22 
 
 22 
 
 22 
 
 22-23 
 
 23 
 
 23 {n. 1) 
 
 23-27 
 
 27 
 
 27 
 
 28 
 
 28-29 
 
 29 
 
 29 
 
 29-30 
 
 30 
 
 30 
 
 30-31 
 
 31-35 
 
 36-37 
 
 Chapter II 
 MR. ROBERTSON AS EXPONENT OP THE CLASSICS 
 
 His book on " the historicity of Jesus " . 
 
 Passage cited : Dr. Conybeare's comments thereon 
 
 The three ]\Iarys and the three Moirai 
 
 My object in making these citations 
 
 Mr. Robertson charges me with misquotation 
 
 The charge refuted . . . . 
 
 Does Mr. Robertson deny Shakespeare " any vestige of 
 
 classic culture "? 
 Farmer on Shakespeare's ignorance of Latin 
 
 38 
 
 89 
 
 39- 
 
 41 
 
 41 
 
 41- 
 
 43 
 43 
 
 41 
 
 42
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS xi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Followed by Mr. Robertson . . . .43 
 
 Mr. Robertson on the word " Academe " {L. L. L.) . 4:4: 
 
 His assertion that " a good classical scholar " would not 
 
 use it as Shakespeare does . . . .44 
 
 His error demonstrated ..... 44-46 
 Mr. Robertson on the word " antres " (Othello) . . 47 
 
 His remarkable comments : are they indicative of 
 
 learning ?...... 47-48 
 
 His assertion that " adytum primarily meant a cave " . 48 
 ^Ir. Robertson Smith (Religion of the Semites) cited . 48 
 Real meaning of " adytum " . . . .49 
 
 Mr. Lang's mistake concerning the word "Delphos " . 49 
 Mr. Robertson's characteristic assertion that he referred 
 
 me to the use of the word by Florio . . .49 
 
 Use of the word by Milton, Puttenham, Lyly, and Sir 
 
 R. L'Estrange ..... 49-50 
 
 Mr. Robertson on mj- reference to lia.\\-a.m'ii Litemtiire of 
 
 Europe . . . . . . .50 
 
 He omits part of the quotation . . . .50 
 
 His misinterpretation of my words . . . 50-52 
 
 The word " continent " ..... 51-52 
 
 The word "deracinate ": my error in quoting W. Theobald 52-53 
 Mr. Robertson's mistake regarding the word ^'confer" . 53 
 Howl fell into a trap set for me by Mr. Robertson . 53 et seq. 
 
 My erroneous quotation of Galileo . . . 53-55 
 
 Mr. Robertson's use of the word " KrJToi " (for K777rot) , 54-55 
 Mr. Robertson charges me with a vile suggestion as to 
 
 Shakespeare's moral character . . . .50 
 
 The charge founded on ignorance of Plato and Greek 
 
 literature ...... 56-59 
 
 Mr. Robertson's unfounded assertion that I have sur- 
 rendered the " classical " case .... 59-61 
 
 Shakespeare's use of translations . . . . 60-61 
 
 Chapter III 
 
 " ALIA ENORMIA " 
 
 Strange case of Mr. Robertson and Professor Max Miillcr 02-05 
 Mr. Robertson's erroneous supposition that IMax Miiller 
 took his estimate of Shakespeare's vocabulary from 
 Renan ....... 62-65
 
 xii TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGH 
 
 An obviously wrong reference in Max Miiller's Science of 
 
 Language ...... 63-64 
 
 Mr. Robertson on Shakespeare's vocabulary . . 65-66 
 
 Mr. Robertson charges me with mis-statement with 
 
 regard to his dealing with Professor Collius's arguments 66 
 The charge examined ..... 67-69 
 A mistake admitted . . . . .69 
 
 Mr. Robertson's sarcasm on my alleged "pathological 
 
 lapses" . . . . . . .70 
 
 His ascription to me of words cited from Mr. Churton 
 
 Collins . . . . . . .70 
 
 His alleged offer of an erratum slip, and my alleged 
 
 refusal ....... 70-71 
 
 A slip of my memory and a contrast . . .72 
 
 I am charged with being " hypnotized " by Mr. Bennett's 
 
 "authority" . . . . . .73 
 
 The error exposed . . . . . .73 
 
 Professor Dryasdust and the sense of humour , . 74-75 
 
 A question of " epithets " . . . . . 76-79 
 
 The cobbler and his last . . . . .79
 
 MR. EOBERTSON AS EXPONENT OF 
 
 LAW 
 
 In the Literary Guide for March, 1916, replying to Mr. 
 J. M. Robertson's articles, I wrote as follows : — 
 
 In his book on The Baconian Heresy (1913) Mr. 
 J. M. Robertson made a violent attack upon me, in 
 his most approved style ; and if argument could be 
 killed by epithets, and assertion were equivalent to 
 demonstration, I should certainly be in a bad way. 
 But that attack was, in my opinion, as to certain 
 parts thereof, extremely unfair, and in my recently 
 published Is there a Shakespeare Problem ? I essayed 
 to answer it as vigorously and effectually as my 
 poor powers enabled me. Mr. Robertson now, 
 making use of the Literary Guide as the medium 
 for another attack, affects a superior tone, and some- 
 what loftily animadverts upon " the spirit " in w^iich 
 I write. I do not think this will carry much weight 
 with those who are familiar with his well-known 
 style of controversy. They will be reminded, I 
 fancy, of a much-quoted line of Juvenal about " the 
 Gracchi complaining of sedition " ! 
 
 Controversy is to Mr. Robertson as the breath of 
 his nostrils. He is to the manner born. But I fear 
 he is not too tolerant of an opponent who distinctly 
 refuses to " turn tlie other cheek." He would, 
 doubtless, describe me after the manner of the French 
 showman : " Cet animal est tres mechant ; quand on 
 Vattaque il se defend "! Hence, no doubt, his genial 
 sarcasm concerning my physical breakdown, and 
 consequent " pathological " lapses — a style of writing, 
 
 1
 
 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 
 
 concerning an opponent in literary controversy, which 
 
 I envy not in any moods." 
 
 And when Mr. Eobertson talks at large about my 
 " cloud of invective," I can only trust (if it be not 
 too much to hope) that some readers of the Guide 
 may be induced to turn to my book, whereupon they 
 will see how much — and how little — truth there is 
 in this imputation. Yet Mr. Robertson ought to 
 know what " invective " is, if any man does ! 
 
 Mr. Eobertson tells us that he has dealt with two 
 questions, which he considers the main evidential 
 questions with reference to the simple thesis with 
 which alone 1 am concerned — viz. (I state them in 
 my own terms) : (l) Do the works of " Shakespeare" 
 show accurate and exceptional legal knowledge such 
 as we cannot suppose the player to have possessed, 
 and (2) do they exhibit an amount of classical know- 
 ledge and learning, such, also, as the player could 
 not be supposed to possess '? 
 
 Now, as outspokenness seems to be the mot 
 d'ordre in this edifying controversy, I will express 
 my own opinion with the most entire frankness. I 
 fear it may not please Mr. Robertson, but, as it is 
 my honest and settled conviction, I see no reason to 
 suppress it. In my opinion, then, Mr. Robertson is 
 not adequately equipped to discuss these particular 
 questions, for the simple reason that he is neither 
 a lawyer nor a classical scholar. It is not the 
 slightest disparagement to Mr. Robertson to say 
 this. He was not condemned, as some of us were, 
 to learn Latin and Greek, and, I fear, little else, 
 between the ages of nine and twenty-three ; he had 
 not to seek scholarships rather " for gain " than 
 "for glory" ; he had not to slave for an " Honour 
 Degree." Neither had he to read for some years in 
 legal chambers, to pass an examination for admittance 
 to the Bar ; to go Circuit and Sessions ; to " keep 
 leets and law days " ; to attend County Courts, 
 Magistrates' Courts, and " High " Courts, and to go 
 through all the drudgery and discipline of a practising
 
 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 3 
 
 barrister. Instead of this, he was equipping himself, 
 and most efficiently, in other branches of knowledge, 
 and for other walks of life ; gaining all that experience 
 and learning and information w'hich have enabled 
 him to reach a distinguished position in the literary 
 world. I would think twice and thrice before 
 engaging in controversy wnth Mr. Eobertson on a 
 question of Economics, or of Kationalist (or 
 
 Humanist ") literature or history, or, indeed, on 
 many other questions. But ne sutor supra crcpidam. 
 It is even more difficult to-day than it was in 
 Bacon's time to take all knowledge for one's 
 province. 
 
 And now, if Mr. Eobertson shall retort that I also 
 am not qualified to pronounce on Shakespeare's law 
 and Shakespeare's scholarship, I will, certainly, 
 raise no complaint on that ground. As to law, I 
 subscribe to the words which I heard spoken in the 
 House of Commons the other day by a learned 
 King's Counsel, who said that the more he studied 
 it the less he felt he knew. It is only those who 
 are ignorant of it who think it can be acquired with 
 facility — "picked up," perhaps, in some local Court 
 of Justice ! But I would just ask this question : How 
 can a layman possibly decide as to Shakespeare's 
 knowledge of something whereof he is himself 
 ignorant ? A lawyer may, of course, go wrong ; but 
 he does, at least, speak with some knowledge of his 
 subject. A layman's judgment, as it seems to me, 
 can be of little or no use. Mr. Eobertson is, as we 
 know, and as he tells us, very contemptuous of 
 authority ; but, for my part, I think the opinion of 
 lawyers sucli as Malone, Eushton, Lord Campbell, 
 Lord Penzance, Judge Webb, Mr. Castle, and a few 
 others whom I might name, may, possibly, be of 
 more value upon this point even than Mr. Eobertson's. 
 
 For the I'est, I leave my arguments to speak for them- 
 selves. But, as I have already mentioned,^ Mr. Eobertson 
 
 ' Iutroductor>-, p. v.
 
 4 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 
 
 says he has " exposed " me. Let us now see, therefore, 
 how the "exposure" is effected. In The Shakespeare 
 Prohle^n Restated (1908), commenting upon Lord Camp- 
 bell's remark that a layman who undertakes to write 
 about law is sure to betray by some untechnical observa- 
 tion that he is not of the profession, I cited, by way of 
 illustration in a footnote, some words of Mr. Robertson's 
 
 — viz., " Let us formulate all the tests first putting a 
 
 few necessary caveats." I did not quote this as an error 
 on Mr, Robertson's part, but merely as a remark revealing 
 that he was not a lawyer. " No lawyer," I wrote (p. 372 
 note), "would speak of putting?^ caveat." Now this is 
 undeniably true. No lawyer of the present time, or 
 indeed of any time, so far as I know, would so speak, 
 simply because the legal expression is to " enter a caveat." 
 If the lay reader cares to refer to the " Probate " or 
 " Admiralty " Rules, or to the AnJiual Practice, or the 
 Encyclo2')cedia of the Laws of England, or any text-book 
 dealing with the subject, he will find that this is the 
 term used universally and without exception for the 
 process of lodging a " caveat." And even if a lawyer 
 should speak, in slipshod fashion, of " putting in " a 
 caveat, which I do not think any lawyer of to-day 
 would do, he certainly would not talk of ''putting" a 
 caveat, as Mr. Robertson does. Again, I say, I merely 
 cited this remark, not as an error, but as one of those 
 very small things wliich so often reveal the fact that a 
 writer is not "of the craft," as Lord Campbell says. 
 
 But, unfortunately, my indexer — for I had not time to 
 compile the index myself — wrote, with regard to this 
 little matter: " Robertson, J. M., betrays his ignorance 
 of law." This appears to have rankled in Mr. Robertson's 
 mind. He makes reference to it in his book, The Baconian 
 Heresy (p. 175), and I fear he has brooded over it ever 
 since. At last, however, he has made a discovery which 
 shall put me to shame. " Since Mr. Greenwood will not 
 be taught," he writes, " he must just be exposed."^ Now 
 mark how it is done. 
 
 1 Lit. Guide, February, 1916. My italics.
 
 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 5 
 
 Mr. Eobertson has discovered that Bacon writes in the 
 Advancement of Learning : " St. Paul gives a caveat," 
 and "Caesar's counsellor 7;?^^ in the same caveat." And 
 was not Paeon a lawyer? Wliat ignorance, then, on 
 my part to say that no lawyer would speak of ' 2^utting " 
 a caveat ! 
 
 Mr. Robertson, therefore, apparently supposes that 
 what Bacon wrote three hundred years ago somehow 
 invalidates my statement as to what is the use and 
 practice of lawyers of to-day ! I think he will enjoy 
 a monopoly of that quaint idea. 
 
 And such is the basis upon the strength of which this 
 courteous gentleman, with his exquisite urbanity, thinks 
 he is entitled to tell his readers that he has "exposed" 
 me ! Well, happily, I am not called upon to perform 
 that function in Mr. Robertson's case, for the simple 
 reason that he is always unconsciously and ingenuously 
 performing it for himself, proprio motu, as I shall 
 abundantly demonstrate in the course of this inquiry. 
 
 In tlie year 1859 Lord Campbell, who was, first. 
 Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, and afterwards 
 Lord Chancellor, published a small book, with the title 
 Shalccspcares Legal Acquirements, in which he main- 
 tained that Shakespeare must have possessed a very 
 exceptional and accurate knowledge of law. This idea 
 was not a new one, for Malone, himself a lawyer and 
 one of the most acute and learned of Shakespearean 
 critics, had, many years before, expressed the opinion 
 that Shakespeare's " knowledge of legal terms is not 
 merely such as might be acquired by the casual observa- 
 tion of even his all-comprehending mind ; it has the 
 appearance of teclmical skill." 
 
 Now, in The Shakespeare Problem Bestated (cb. xiii) 
 I made frequent reference to Lord Campbell's book. 
 Mr. Robertson is kind enough to say that I did so 
 
 1 Webster, in The Devil's Law Case, makes one of bis cbaracters say: 
 " I must put in a strong caveat." Webster was not a lawyer, but I bave 
 little doubt tliat otber lawyers of tbat day migbt use tbe expression "put 
 in a caveat," as Bacon did. But in all the examples given in The Oxford 
 Dictionary ot the leRal use of tbe word "caveat," including tbree of the 
 seventeentb century, the term used is the technically correct one— viz., to 
 "enter a caveat."
 
 6 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 
 
 without reading it. " Mr. Greenwood," he writes, "has 
 again and again rehed on sheer ' authority ' as such for 
 main points in his case. He did so with Lord Camphell, 
 whose arguments and evidence on the ' law ' theory he 
 
 had not read " (original italics) " As to law he quoted 
 
 at second hand the ostensible conclusions of Lord Camp- 
 bell, without noting his inconsistent reservations, and 
 above all without even reading his argument and his 
 evidence." 
 
 It is characteristic of Mr. Eobertson to make such 
 statements as these, but they are quite untrue. I had, 
 " as it happens " — to use a phrase of Mr. Kobertson's to 
 be referred to presently — read Lord Campbell's book— - 
 not a large task, for it is a very short one ; and if 
 Mr. Robertson had read my Vindicators of Sliahcspeare 
 — and, since he refers to it more than once, I presume 
 he liad read it — he must have known that I had done so, 
 for in that work I subject it to a somewhat prolonged 
 examination (see pp. 80-91). It is quite true, however, 
 that I did not make any attempt to criticize Lord Camp- 
 bell's arguments in The Shaliespcare Problem Bestated, 
 and I have given my reasons for not doing so. When 
 I published that book, it appeared to be an article of 
 the "orthodox" Shakespearean faith that the poet was 
 possessed of an unusual knowledge of law. Malone, 
 Steevens, Eitson, Lord Campbell, Rushton, the Cowden 
 Clarkes, Grant White, Mr. Castle, K.C., Professor 
 Churton Collins, and many others of the " orthodox," 
 had testified to the truth of this opinion ; and even 
 Sir Sidney Lee himself had written of " Shakespeare's 
 accurate use of legal terms, which deserves all the atten- 
 tion that has been paid to it."^ There thus appeared to 
 be a consensus of "orthodox" opinion on this matter, 
 and my purpose, when I wrote my first book, was, 
 accepting such " orthodox " opinion for the sake of 
 argument, to see to what conclusion it would lead us 
 with regard to the author of the plays and poems of 
 
 ' A Life of WiUiinii ShaT^rspcare. Ilhistrated Library Edition (1899), p. 30, 
 citing Lord Cauuibell, Shakespeare's Leunl Acquirements.
 
 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 7 
 
 Shakespeare. All this I have explained fully in my last 
 book,' but Mr. Eobertson sees fit to ignore what I there 
 wrote in this connection. He has now, of course, given 
 another shake to the kaleidoscope of Shakespearean 
 criticism, and asserts that all these authorities were in 
 error, and that the works of Shakespeare show the 
 author not to have been possessed of any special legal 
 knowledge whatsoever. Moreover, Sir Sidney Lee has 
 now changed his tone, and tells us Lord Campbell has 
 "greatly exaggerated Shakespeare's legal knowledge."^ 
 This being so, it would, no doubt, be well that the whole 
 matter should be examined anew by a competent lawyer, 
 and perhaps some day this may be done. I made no 
 attempt in my last book to undertake that work, which 
 would have demanded more time than I was able to give 
 to it, and would have added many pages to a volume 
 which, even as it is, sins, I fear, in the matter of length. 
 I, therefore, wrote {is there a Shakespeare Problem ? 
 p. 102) that, in view of the difficulty of finding " a legal 
 arbitrator to whom this question can be submitted with 
 
 confidence the safest course will be to consider the 
 
 ' Shakespeare Problem ' quite apart from this vexed 
 question of Shakespeare's legal knowledge," which I, 
 accordingly, proceeded to do. I further admitted that 
 I should, certainly, not care to rest the theory that 
 Shakespeare had the amount of legal knowledge which 
 Lord Campbell ascribes to him simply on the evidential 
 passages " which he has presented to us, while at the 
 same time deprecating the very largo measure of scorn 
 and contumely which Mr. Eobertson has heaped upon 
 the inferences which that learned Judge drew from them. 
 Whereupon INIr. Eobertson writes, ni07-e suo, that the 
 legal case has hopelessly broken down, and " our time 
 has been wasted by a forensic mystification." That, of 
 course, is quite in the Eobertsonian style, but it is not 
 necessary to criticize the statement further, since I am 
 not now arguing the question of Shakespeare's legal 
 
 1 See Is there a ^hakcwenre ProWein ? p. 4 et sea. 
 
 ~ A Life of WilUain Sluikesiieare, New Edition, 1915, p. 43.
 
 8 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 
 
 knowledge. I rather propose to set before the reader 
 certain passages from Mr. Robertson's work which 
 demonstrate how httle qualified he is to pronounce 
 any opinion worth having upon that question. I beg 
 the reader's attention to the following : — 
 
 Lord Campbell, in his book already referred to (p. 35), 
 makes mention of Shakespeare's use of the technical 
 legal expressions " fine " and " recovex'y." Now, as 
 every lawyer knows, although these terms are fre- 
 quently coupled together by Shakespeare and other 
 writers of his time, " fine " and " recovery " were very 
 distinct forms of procedure. Both, however, were forms 
 of collusive action, and both were habitually made use 
 of, with the sanction of the Courts of Law (it was the 
 Court of Common Pleas which had exclusive jurisdiction 
 in all "real actions"), in order to evade the awkward 
 consequences of the Statute of Westminster the Second, 
 passed in the reign of Edward I, and better known as 
 the Statute De Don is. 
 
 By that Statute it was enacted that land given to a 
 man and the lieirs of his body — i.e., for an estate in 
 " fee tail" — should always descend according to the will 
 of the donor ; in othei" words, tiiat those to whom the 
 land was given should have no power to alienate it, so 
 that it should always remain with their own issue after 
 death, or revert to the donor or his heirs if such issue 
 should fail. Bvat this was soon found to give rise to an 
 intolerable state of things, wherefore recourse Vas had 
 to these collusive actions, whereby a tenant in tail was 
 enabled to regain his right to alienate his land, either by 
 "levying" a fine, or "suffering" a recovery, or some- 
 times, it may be, doing both. The judges, in fact, drove 
 the proverbial coach-and-six through the Statute De 
 Donis Conditionalihus} 
 
 Now, a "fine" was a very complicated form of pro- 
 
 1 In Mr. Arthur UnrlerhiU's article on "Law," in Shal-espeare's England 
 whicli lias been piiblislied since the above was in print, this appears, by 
 an unfortunate oversitJ:ht, as " de bonis conditionalihus" (vol. i, p. 404). For 
 Mr. Underhill's opinion concerning Shakespeare's law, see note at the end 
 of this chapter.
 
 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 9 
 
 cedure, and those who wish to read more about it are 
 respectfully referred to Kerr's Blackstone, vol. ii, p. 350 
 (1862), where the various steps in tlie collusive action 
 are set forth at length. What I would impress upon 
 the lay reader is that the name " fine," as here used, is 
 merely the translation of the Latin //;(/.s, and has nothing 
 whatever to do with a money payment. The action was 
 intended to put an end to all disputes concerning the 
 land and, as w'e are informed by an ancient record of 
 Parliament, 18 Edward I, "finis sic vocatur eo quod finis 
 et consmnmatio omnium %)lcicitoruiii esse debet."^ So too 
 we read in the Statute 27 Edward I, c. i (1292) : " Quia 
 fines in curia nostra levati finem litibus debent imponere 
 et imponunt et id eo fines voca^itur." I need say no more 
 about it than that by a Statute of Henry VIII a " fine " 
 levied by a tenant in tail acted as an immediate bar to 
 his issue. 
 
 A " recovery " was, as already stated, a different form 
 of procedure, and he w'ho wishes to inform himself 
 concerning it may be referred to the late Mr. Joshua 
 Williams's well-known work on the Law of Eeal Pro- 
 perty, where he will find a brief and edifying description 
 of the process of "vouching to warranty,"' and of 
 " imparling the common vouchee." The following quota- 
 tion supplies an explanation of the name " recovery " : — 
 "The judges, in construing the Statute [De Bonis), had 
 admitted a principle which afterwards gave a handle to 
 overturn it altogether. It was held that if the tenant in 
 tail disposed of the land, but left assets, or lands of equal 
 value, to liis issue, the issue wei'e bound to abide by his 
 
 alienation of the entailed lands but the principle of 
 
 recompense in value was afterwards extended so as to 
 bar the issue from asserting their rights to the entailed 
 lands, if a mere judgment had been given entitling them 
 to recover from some other person lands of equal value 
 instead." By this process "not only were the issue (of 
 
 1 See Stephen's Comm. 8th edition, i, 564. Kerr's Blackstone{1862), vol. ii, 
 p. 351. 
 - Cf. Hamlet's reference to "double vouchers."
 
 10 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 
 
 the tenant in tail) barred of their right, but the donor, 
 who had made the grant, and to whom the lands were to 
 revert on failure of issue, had his reversion barred at the 
 same time. So also all estates which the donor might 
 have given to other persons, expectant on the decease of 
 
 the tenant in tail without issue (and which estates 
 
 are called remainders expectant on the estate tail), were 
 equally barred. The demandant, in whose favour judg- 
 ment was given, became possessed of an estate in fee 
 simple in the lands ; for in a recovery the lands were 
 always claimed in fee simple, and the demandant, being 
 a friend of the tenant in tail, of course disposed of the 
 estate in fee simple according to his wishes." 
 
 With regard to "recoveries," Slieppard's Touchstone 
 says (p. 41): " This kind of assurance is in some respects 
 better than a fine, for a fine will bar the heir in tail, but 
 not (by its own operation or otherwise than by non- 
 claim) him that is in the remainder or reversion ; but a 
 recovery will bar them all." 
 
 It is not necessary to consider here the somewhat 
 different effects produced by a "fine" and " recovery " 
 respectively with regard to the barring of claims, whether 
 of issue, remaindermen, reversioners, or outsiders. It 
 was, I apprehend, very seldom that both processes were 
 resorted to in respect of the same property ; but certainly, 
 if this were done, it would " make assurance doubly sure." 
 
 I need only add that " fines " and " recoveries," 
 besides being used to bar estates tail, and to bar dower, 
 and to convey estates to married women, were exten- 
 sively employed for the ordinary purpose of conveyance, 
 and were regarded as the strongest possible forms of 
 assurance. 
 
 After this little legal excursus, which is, perhaps,, not 
 without some interest, I will revert to the passage in the 
 Merry Wives of Windsor cited by Lord Campbell and 
 commented upon by Mr. Eobertson. In the Fourth Act 
 (Sc. ii, 219) Mrs. Ford says to Mrs. Page: "What 
 think you '? May w^e, with the warrant of womanhood, 
 and tlie witness of a good conscience, pursue him with 
 any further revenge? "
 
 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 11 
 
 To which Mrs. Page replies : " The spirit of wanton- 
 ness is, sure, scared out of him : if the devil have him 
 not in fee-simple, with fine and recovery, he will never, 
 I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again." 
 
 Tlie meaning of Mrs. Page's remark, as I understand 
 it, is this : Falstatf has had such a lesson that unless he 
 has been made the devil's absolute property by the very 
 strongest of assurances — unless the devil owns him " in 
 fee-simple," secured both by " fine " and " recovery " — he 
 will never make an attempt upon us again.' 
 
 Now, Lord Campbell cited this passage, not because 
 the mere employment by Shakespeare of the terms " fine 
 and recovery " in any way advanced the proposition that 
 he had an unusual knowledge of law, but because it 
 appeared to show that he had " the recondite terms of 
 the law " so constantly running in his head that he 
 actually puts them into a lady's mouth a j^ropos of 
 nothing, as it were, making her " pour them out in a 
 confidential tete-a-tete with another lady." 
 
 But Mr. Eobertson tells us that for all the legal terms 
 and allusions to be found in Shakespeare he can produce 
 parallels from contemporary dramatists who had had no 
 legal training, just as striking and just as evidential of 
 knowledge of law. In this particular instance, therefore, 
 he produces (p. 41) the following " piece of dialogue 
 between wooer and lady in one of Greene's stories " — 
 viz., The Card of Fancij. 
 
 Yet Madame (quoth he) w^hen the debt is confest 
 
 there remaineth some hope of recovery'^ The debt 
 
 being due, he shall by constraint of law and his own con- 
 fession (raaugre his face) be forced to make restitution." 
 Truth, Garydonius (quoth she), if he commence his 
 action in a right case, and the plea he puts in prove not 
 imperfect. But yet take this by the way, it is hard for 
 that plaintiff" to recover his costs where the defendant, 
 being judge, sets down the sentence." 
 
 Whereupon Mr. Eobertson asks (p. 41): "Shall we 
 
 1 Mrs. Ford here interpolates the words "in the way of waste," perhaps 
 with a soiis-entetidu. and an alUision to the legal docti'ine of "waste"; but 
 the words are somewhat obscure. - My italics.
 
 12 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 
 
 then pronounce tliafc Greene wrote as he did because 
 his head was full of the recondite terms of the law ' '? " 
 
 Now, when I read this passage in Mr. Robertson's 
 book, I supposed that he intended to i^arallel Sliake- 
 speare's use of the term ' recovery," as in the passage 
 referred to by him in the Mernj Wives, by that word as 
 it appears in the dialogue cited from Greene. And I was 
 not singular in that idea, for a reviewer ic The Nation 
 (November 13, 1915), wrote, with reference to Mr. 
 Robertson's comments on the legal vocabulary in the 
 Shakespeare plays : — 
 
 " When Mr. Robertson avows the belief that any 
 intelligent man could pick up this vocabulary, as it were, 
 in the streets, he delivers himself into the enemy's hand. 
 When he quotes from Greene a passage about the 
 recovery ' of a debt as a j)arallel to Shakespeare's 
 reference to a 'fine and recovery,' he puts himself on a 
 level with the index-maker who wrote on ' Mill on 
 Liberty and ditto on the Floss.' " 
 
 In I'eply to this, Mr. Robertson wrote (The Nation, 
 January 1, 1916), that it was " sheer hallucination" on 
 the part of the reviewer. The occurrence of the word 
 " recovery " in the passage cited by him from Greene 
 was, it seems, a mere coincidence. He only cited that 
 passage " as showing ' another lady ' talking in the legal 
 vein which Campbell declared to be proof of the author's 
 legal acquirements ' when put in a woman's dialogue by 
 Shakespeare." 
 
 Now, in the first place. Lord Campbell did not say that 
 the words put by Shakespeare into the mouth of Mrs. 
 Page are ''proof of the author's legal acquirements." He 
 merely adduced them as evidentiary of the fact that 
 " Shakespeare's head was full of the recondite terms of 
 the law." But the misfortune in connection with Mr. 
 Robertson's explanation is that the first part of his 
 quotation from Greene is not spoken by a lady, but by a 
 man, and is, therefore, quite irrelevant to his argument 
 as he now puts it. 
 
 What, then, as to the lady's part of the dialogue? 
 What "recondite terms of the law" does it contain?
 
 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 13 
 
 Well, we have "action," "case," "plea," "plaintiff," 
 "costs," "defendant," "judge," and "sentence." So 
 Mr. Robertson imagines that these are "recondite terms 
 of the law," fittingly paralleled with such highly technical 
 terras as " fine " and " recovery " ! Is it possible that lie 
 is ignorant of the fact that these terms used by his 
 " lady " are quite ordinary commonplace terms of every- 
 day life, the occurrence of which in any woman's mouth, 
 gentle or simple, is indicative of no " legal acquirements " 
 whatsoever ? 
 
 But perhaps Mr. Robertson would say that he quoted 
 the man's part of the dialogue merely l)ecause it led up 
 to the answering words of the lady. If so, I reply that 
 this makes his case even weaker, if that be possible, than 
 it was before, because it is not at all surprising that a 
 lady should make use of these ordinary terms concerning 
 an action at law if the male party to the dialogue intro- 
 duces the subject, and so leads up to them. The point 
 in Mrs. Page's case is that the legal terms are uttered 
 by her spontaneously, and, indeed, not a little in- 
 appropriately. 
 
 But let us turn to another instance of Mr. Robertson's 
 application of his method of parallelism. At p. 46 of his 
 book, The Baconian Heresy, he writes as follows : — • 
 
 Fine and recovery ' occurs again in the Comedy of 
 Errors (ii, 2) ; and this time we are told [by Lord 
 Campbell] that the puns extracted from the terms ' show 
 the author to be very familiar with some of the most 
 abstruse proceedings in English jurisprudence.' The 
 same deep knowledge is doubtless to be credited to Nashe, 
 who writes of ' suing the least action of recovery ' and ' a 
 writ of Ejectionefirma.' " 
 
 Mr. Robertson, therefore, cites Nashe as employing, 
 in the passage referred to, the technical legal term 
 " recovery," and sarcastically says that he, therefore, 
 " is doubtless to be credited " with " tlie same deep 
 knowledge," for whatever knowledge is to be ascribed to 
 Shakespeare when he makes use of the terqi "recovery " 
 must, of course, be ascribed to Nashe also when he makes 
 use of the same term. I may here again remark in pass-
 
 14 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 
 
 ing that Lord Campbell does not infer " deep knowledge " 
 on Shakespeare's part from his use of the terms " fine 
 and recovery," but only that he was " familiar with some 
 of the most abstruse proceedings in English jurisprud- 
 ence." Let us see, however, what it is that Nashe really 
 says. The passage is to be found in a prose piece called 
 " Nashe's Lenten Stuffe " (1599), containing a description 
 of the town of Great Yarmouth, " with a new Play never 
 played before, of the praise of the Red Herring." Here 
 he writes of Great Yarmouth that it is " out of an hill or 
 heape of sande, reared and enforced from the sea most 
 miraculously, and by the singular pollicy and incessant 
 inestimable expence of the Inhabitantes, so firmly piled 
 and vampiered against the fumish waves battry, or suying 
 the least action of recoverie, that it is more conjecturall 
 of the twaine, the land with a writ of Ejectione finna, 
 wil get the upperhande of the ocean, than the ocean one 
 crowes skip prevaile against the Continent." ^ 
 
 Now, here there can be no possibility of evasion. Here 
 it is plain that Mr. Ptobertson supposes that the 
 "recovery" alluded to by Nashe is the same as that of 
 which Shakespeare makes mention in the expression 
 " fine and recovery." But, unfortunately, it is not so. 
 Nashe tells us that at Great Yarmouth there is no 
 chance of the sea ' suing the least action of recovery " 
 against the land, where the allusion obviously is, not to 
 ' suffering a recovery," but to the ordinary action for 
 the recovery of land ! It is more probable, Nashe says, 
 that the land will "prevail over the ocean" with a writ 
 of Ejectione firma or of Ejectio firma, whichever be the 
 true reading. How Mr. Robertson can imagine that 
 this allusion to the writ in question in any way helps his 
 case I am at a loss to conceive. But the point is, that 
 he evidently was ignorant of the meaning of the term 
 " recovery " as used by Shakespeare in the passage to 
 which Lord Campbell refers. 
 
 1 I quote from Grosart's Edition of Nashe's Prose Works (1883-84). vol. v, 
 p. 204. In Charles HintUey's Edition (Old Book Collectors' Miscellany), 
 vol. i, p. 7. wo read, instead of "a writ of Ejectione firma," "the writ of an 
 Ejectio finna."
 
 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 15 
 
 But let us continue tlie quotation : — 
 " 'Fine,' as it happens," writes Mr. Eobertson, "is a 
 common figuyre in the drama of Shakespeare's day. 
 Bellafront, in Dekker's Honest Whore (Part II, iv, 1), 
 speaks of 
 
 an easy fine 
 For which methought, I leased away my soul. 
 
 From Mall, in Porter's Two Angry Women of Ahington 
 (iii, 2) we have : — 
 
 Francis, my love's lease I do let to thee 
 Date of my life and time : what say'st thou to me? 
 , The ent'ring, fine, or income thou must pay." 
 
 And Mr. Eobertson adds: " There is nothing more technical 
 in the Comedy of Errors " ! (My italics.) 
 
 Upon this I wa-ote {T}te Nation, January 8, 1916) : 
 " Now, no lawyer needs to be told that the w'ord ' fine,' 
 as used in the expression ' fine and recovery,' means an 
 obsolete method of transferring land by means of a 
 fictitious action. It was finis et consummatio omnium 
 ylacitorum (18 Edw. I.), and has nothing whatever to 
 do with a money payment. Yet, as parallel with this 
 technical legal term, as used by Shakespeare, Mr. 
 Robertson, in order to show what ' a common figure ' the 
 term is ' in the drama of Shakespeare's day,' cites two 
 passages where the word is used in its ordinary meaning 
 of a payment of money, as in the case of a premium on 
 a lease." 
 
 What was Mr. Eobertson's reply to that ? It w^as all 
 my mistake. I was " merely repeating the blunder of a 
 previous legal critic " — a blunder which he had already 
 " exposed " ! For, says Mr. Eobertson, " the use of ' fine ' 
 was not put by me (in the passages cited) as the equiva- 
 lent of the phrase ' fine and recovery ' " {The Nation, 
 January 22, 1916). 
 
 Here, then, is another " exposure " ! Well, let us 
 quietly examine it. " ' Fine,' as it happens," writes Mr. 
 Eobertson, dx>ropos of the expression " fine and recovery," 
 is a common figure in the drama of Shakespeare's day," 
 and he thereupon proceeds to give us some examples. 
 Now, it is clear that these examples are irrelevant unless
 
 16 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 
 
 they are examples of the word used in the same technical 
 sense as that in which Shakespeare uses it. The natural 
 inference, therefore — and I am entirely convinced the true 
 inference — is that the examples of the word " line " taken 
 by him from Dekker and Porter were meant as examples 
 of the word as it is used by Shakespeare. " Oh dear no," 
 cries Mr. Robertson, when confronted with this absurd 
 blunder, " the use of ' fine ' was not put by me as the 
 equivalent of the phrase 'fine and recovery ' " — where 
 we note in passing that he evidently supposes that " fine 
 and recovery" are one and the same thing, for how 
 otherwise could the word " fine " be " equivalent to the 
 phrase ' fine and recovery ' " ? 
 
 We are reduced to this, then. Mr. Robertson quotes 
 instances of the use of the word " fine," by Dekker and 
 Porter, not in its technical legal sense, but in its ordinary 
 sense of a money payment, and observes that, "as it 
 happens," the word in this sense " is a common figure in 
 the drama of Shakespeare's day " ! Well, who denies it ? 
 I do not know why Mr. Robertson should speak of it as 
 a "figure" ; but if he merely naeans, as he now says he 
 does, that the word " fine," in its ordinary sense of a 
 money payment, is of common occurrence in the drama 
 of Shakespeare's day, he speaks undoubted truth, though 
 what importance he attaches to it, and why he should 
 think it necessary to inform us of this well-known fact, 
 I am at a loss to conceive. 
 
 But then, unfortunately, he adds: "There is nothing 
 more technical in the ' Corned u of Errors' " ! What on 
 earth is the meaning of that? "Fine," as used by 
 Shakespeare in the expression " fine and recovery," is 
 certainly a highly technical term. But " fine " in the 
 ordinary sense of a money payment is not a technical 
 term at all. What, then, is the meaning of Mr. 
 Robertson's amazing assertion ? 
 
 I think the answer is a very simple one. Mr. 
 Robertson's attempted explanation is " gross as a 
 mountain, open, palpable." But if he was ignorant of 
 the real meaning of the technical legal terms "fine" 
 and " recovery," it was not unnatural that he should 
 
 I
 
 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 17 
 
 imagine he could " parallel " the use of the word " fine " 
 in the Comedy of Errors by the examples which he 
 has so ingenuously taken from Dekker and Porter. Et 
 voild tout ! to use his own expression. Here is another 
 " exposure " indeed ! 
 
 Mr. Eobertson writes in the Literary Guide, when 
 confronted with his citation of the word " fine," as 
 though it were a parallel to the word as used by 
 Shakespeare in the expression ' fine and recovery " : 
 " Again and again I have ' paralleled ' legal phrases 
 with absolutely different ones. The point is that the 
 one set is as much evidence for legal knowledge or 
 training as the other." So that, having paralleled 
 " fine " as in " fine and recovery " with fine in an 
 " absolutely different " sense (as he now tells us), he 
 asks us to believe that the word in its ordinary sense 
 of a money patjinent is "as much evidence for legal 
 knowledge or training" as the word in its technical 
 legal sense ! 
 
 Now, it would, in my judgment, be absurd to put 
 forwai'd the mere use of the expression " fine and 
 recovery " as " evidence for legal knowledge or train- 
 ing " ; but the word "fine," so used, is, certainly, a 
 highly technical term, whereas in the sense in which 
 it is employed by Dekker and Porter, in the passages 
 cited, it is not a technical term at all. Mr. Robertson, 
 therefore, has here paralleled a " legal phrase " with a 
 word which is not only " absolutely different " (except, 
 indeed, in sound and spelling), but which is not even 
 a technical term, or, indeed, an expression peculiar to 
 the law ! 
 
 But such are Mr. Robertson's parallelisms. Having 
 no knowledge of law, he cannot discriminate between a 
 really technical legal expression, such as might, possibly, 
 be evidentiary of the " legal acquirements " of the writer, 
 and a phrase which, though it may have some legal 
 flavour about it, is yet but a commonplace every-day 
 expression, from which no such inference can be drawn — 
 such, for instance, as tliose he cites from Greene, Porter, 
 and Dekker. 
 
 C
 
 18 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 
 
 Here is yet another citation from the latter dramatist. 
 
 Mr. Robertson asks us (p. 41) : " What, again, shall we 
 
 say of the passage in Dekker's Honest Whore (Pt. I, iv, l), 
 
 in which Hippolito points to the portrait of Infelice as — 
 
 The copy of that obligation 
 
 Where my soul 's bound in heavy penalties ; 
 
 and Bellafront replies — - 
 
 She's dead, you told me ; she'll let fall her suit." 
 
 And thereupon Mr. Robertson asks : " Must Dekker, too, 
 be a lawyer?" And gravely adds: "The reader has 
 already begun, perhaps, to realize that lawyership ' is 
 out of the question ! " He is annoyed with me because 
 I exclaim upon this : " IH Magni, that our time should 
 be wasted by such solemn nonsense ! " But what can 
 one say as to such absurdities ? Eor the above quota- 
 tion from Dekker contains absolutely nothing to suggest 
 that Dekker had any technical legal knowledge what- 
 soever. 
 
 Such, I repeat, are Mr. Robertson's supposed legal 
 parallelisms. They impress those who merely turn over 
 his pages by their multitude, and those who are ignorant 
 of law by their assumption of learning. But attacks in 
 massed formation are singularly ineffective when the 
 masses are made up of such sorry soldiers as Falstaff's 
 " tattered prodigals " when he was thought to have 
 "unloaded all the gibbets and pressed the dead bodies." 
 In other words, the mere multiplication of supposed 
 parallels which have no real cogency or application is 
 an entirely futile proceeding. 
 
 Mr. Robertson repeatedly alleges that Lord Campbell 
 is my " chief witness," or " main authority," in support 
 of the case for Shakespeare's exceptional knowledge of 
 law and legal terms. The allegation, however, has no 
 foundation in fact. As I have already stated, it was 
 not my purpose, when, in 1908, I published The Shake- 
 speare Problem Bestated, to formulate anew a case for 
 Shakespeare's legal knowledge. I found that the exist- 
 
 1 He means, I suppose, any exceptional knowledge of law on Sliake- 
 speare's part.
 
 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 19 
 
 ence of such knowledge was, so far as I could see, an 
 accepted article of the "orthodox" Shakespearean faith, 
 and I based a certain superstructure of argument upon 
 that fact. But Mr. Robertson having }'epudiated that 
 article of faith altogether, and having rejected the legalist 
 theory in toto, I wrote, in 1916, as above mentioned, 
 that, so far from relying upon Lord Campbell to sub- 
 stantiate the hypothesis in question, I was " quite free 
 to own that I should not care to rest the theory that 
 Shakespeare had the amount of legal knowledge which 
 Lord Campbell ascribes to him, simply on the evidential 
 passages which he has presented to us." ^ 
 
 This being so, I certainly did not think it worth while 
 to discuss these " evidential passages " seriatim, though 
 I selected four or five for examination, not so much for 
 their own sakes as in order to present for the reader's 
 consideration Mr. Robertson's criticism thereon. One 
 of these was the passage quoted by Lord Camj^bell from 
 The Merry Wives, where Ford says his love is " Like a 
 fair house built upon another man's ground ; so that 
 I have lost my edifice by mistaking the place where 
 1 erected it." Upon this Lord Campbell comments that 
 it " shows in Shakespeare a knowledge of the law of real 
 property not generally possessed." Mr. Robertson is very 
 contemptuous of this. " It might suffice to answer," he 
 writes, " that such knowledge is to-day possessed by 
 millions of laymen."" Commenting upon this, I made 
 the admission that Lord Campbell's proposition "certainly 
 sounds somewhat ridiculous." ''' Mr. Robertson nowquotes 
 these words {Literary Guide, January, 1916, p. 10) as a 
 " confession " on my part, and adds that I proceed " to 
 try to extenuate the absurdity." 
 
 Now, what I really did was to show that, though the 
 proposition in question perhaps " sounds somewhat ridicu- 
 lous," yet, in truth, when examined it proves not to be 
 ridiculous at all. " Millions of laymen " know the law 
 on this matter, says Mr. Robertson. But do they? 
 
 1 Is there a Shakesjieare Prohlem ? p. 53. - Op. cit. p. 40. 
 
 8 Is there a Shakespeare Problem ? p. 54.
 
 20 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 
 
 Ask any ordinary layman this question : If A builds a 
 house on B's land, honestly believing it to be his own 
 land, and B lies by and says nothing, and then, when A 
 has spent his money and built the house, claims it as his 
 property, to whom, in these circumstances, does the 
 house belong ? I fancy the ordinary layman, and i^erhaps 
 some lawyers, will find some little difficulty in answering 
 the question. As I have shown, ^ to understand the law 
 on this matter one has to go back to Justinian's Insti- 
 tutes, and the comments of the learned thereon ; and as 
 Lord Campbell truly says : " The unlearned would sup- 
 pose that if, by mistake, a man builds a fine house on the 
 land of another, when he discovers his error he will be 
 permitted to remove all the materials of the structure, 
 and particularly the marble pillars and carved chimney- 
 pieces with which he has adorned it ; but Shakespeare 
 knew better." Agreeably with this, I find that an 
 American lawyer, referring to the above quotation from 
 The Merry Wives, writes in Case and Comment — des- 
 cribed as " The Lawyer's Magazine " — for August, 1914, 
 that " This principle of law is not apt to be known by 
 laymen."" But Mr. Robertson says that all this is mere 
 "absurdity"! Can we "believe that the Judge is 
 serious ?" he asks. Well, I must leave it to the reader 
 to judge whether this indicates superior knowledge on 
 Mr. Robertson's part, or inferior ignorance. 
 
 But this learned critic, who has apparently been gifted 
 by nature with that knowledge of law which Lord Camp- 
 bell confessed it had taken him such long labour to 
 acquire, does not stop here. He will refute any infer- 
 ence which an uncritical reader might be disposed to 
 draw from Lord Campbell's quotation by parallel passages 
 evolved from his great knowledge of Elizabethan litera- 
 ture. " Let the lawyer be answered in legal form. In 
 Dekker's Shoemaker's Holiday, published in 1597, Hodge 
 says (v, 2) : ' The law's on our side ; he that sows on 
 
 • Op. cit. pp. 54, 55. - Shakesi)eare's Legal AcQidrements. p. 34. 
 
 ^ The writer is the Hon. John H. Light, Attorney General for Connecticut. 
 Mr. Light actually adds that " there are very few lawyers who really under- 
 stand the true spirit and science of the law as well as Shakespeare." What 
 a target for Mr. Robertson's scorn !
 
 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 21 
 
 another man's ground forfeits his Iiarvest.' Hodge is a 
 foreman shoemaker. Was Dekker an attorney's clerk, 
 or was Hodge talking in character and saying what any 
 shoemaker might ? Or was it a lawyer who penned in 
 Heywood's English Traveller (iv, 1) the lines: — 
 
 Was not the money 
 Due to the usurer, took upon his ground 
 That proved well built upon ? We are no fools 
 That knew not what we did." ^ 
 
 Observe the " parallels " ! I think it may be truly said 
 that " millions of laymen know " that if I sow on another 
 man's ground — -without any agreement with him, of 
 course — I forfeit my harvest. Even the "shoemaker" 
 could hardly have thought otherwise. But Mr. Robertson 
 thinks this is a parallel case to the man who knows the 
 law to the effect that if he, quite honestly, builds a house 
 on another man's land, and is allowed l)y that other to 
 complete it, the house becomes the property of tlie owner 
 of the soil ! 
 
 As to the passage cited from Heywood, how it is sup- 
 posed to be a parallel at all, or what its relevancy is 
 supposed to be, entirely passes my comprehension. 
 
 I am not now arguing whether or not the passage 
 quoted by Lord Campbell from The Merry Wives has any 
 importance with reference to the question of Shakespeai-e's 
 knowledge of law, but I do confidently submit that Mr. 
 Robertson's supposed " parallels " are absolutely futile. 
 Whether tliat is so or not the reader can judge for himself. 
 
 I have dwelt at some length on this particular example 
 of Mr. Robertson's criticism of Lord Campbell's book, 
 because his comment in the Literary Guide upon what I 
 wrote concerning it seems intended to leave the impres- 
 sion upon the reader's mind that I admitted the alleged 
 absurdity " and then proceeded to " try to extenuate 
 it." This, the reader will see, is far from being the case. 
 I will now refer to one more example of Mr. Robertson's 
 easy way of dealing with Lord Campbell's " absurdities," 
 and will then leave this part of the subject, since it 
 
 • Baconian Heresy, p. 40.
 
 22 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 
 
 would be quite unprofitable to follow it further, and 
 would, moreover, require far more time and space than I 
 am at present prepared to give to it. 
 
 At page 63 of The Baconian Heresy I find this curious 
 passage : " Lord Campbell gives three pageS' to the pro- 
 position that the bare plot of AlVs Well, as regards the 
 legal position of Bertram, is proof ' that Shakespeare had 
 an accurate knowledge of the law of England respecting 
 
 tenure in chivalry' and 'wardship of minors.' The 
 
 wardship of Bertram, we are told, ' Shakespeare drew 
 from his own knowledge of the common law of England, 
 
 which was in full force in the reign of Elizabeth.' 
 
 That is to say, the alleged knowledge must have been 
 common to the multitude [my italics] , since there is not a 
 word of technicalities in the play. And after all, we 
 learn, in a footnote, that ' according to Littleton it is 
 
 doubtful whether Bertram might not have refused to 
 
 marry Helena on the ground that she was not of noble 
 descent.' " 
 
 Now, what is the meaning of Mr. Eobertson's assertion 
 that the " alleged knowledge {i.e., the ' knowledge of the 
 common law of England ') must have been common to the 
 multitude " ? " The common law," it is scarcely necessary 
 to say, is a technical term, and INIr. Robertson can hardly 
 suppose that the knowledge of the common law, which it 
 requires many years, and perhaps a lifetime, of study to 
 acquire, was "common to the multitude"! Does he, 
 then, refer only to the knowledge of the common law 
 with regard to " wardship " '? But how can he conceive 
 that such knowledge was " common to the multitude " in 
 Shakespeare's time ? I must leave it to the reader to 
 form his own opinion as to this remarkable passage. 
 
 With regard, however, to Lord Campbell's footnote, I 
 think the answer is that the King of Franco had the 
 power of ennobling Helena, and expressed his intention 
 of so doing, so that Bertram, his ward, would not have 
 been " disparaged " by a m&salliancc. 
 
 If thou canst like this creature as a maid, 
 
 I can create the rest ; virtue and she 
 
 Is her own dower ; honour and wealth from me.
 
 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 23 
 
 And Bertram subsequently admits, 
 
 who so ennobled 
 Is as 't were born so. 
 
 Whereupon the King says to him : — 
 
 Take her by the hand, 
 And tell her she is thine : to ivhom I promise 
 A cotinterpoise, if not to thy estate, 
 A balance more complete. 
 
 Lord Campbell had, probably, overlooked the above 
 passages. 
 
 Mr. Eobertson, who is so contemptuous of " authority," 
 even on a matter of law in which his own want of 
 knowledge is so exceedingly obvious, nevertheless has 
 made frequent appeals to the authority of a certain Mr. 
 Devecmon, of the Maryland Bar, who in 1899 published 
 a book in which he made an attempt to convict Shake- 
 speare of " bad law " in various passages cited by him. ^ 
 I have shown that this attempt fails so signally as to 
 suggest grave doubts with regard to the quality of the 
 author's own legal attainments,^ and I have no inten- 
 tion of repeating here my survey of the cases cited by 
 him. I will, however, make brief allusion to two of 
 them. 
 
 Commenting on the w^ords of Shylock, " Go with me 
 to a notary ; seal me there your single bond " {Merchant 
 of Venice, i, 3), this critic writes: "It is hardly con- 
 ceivable that any lawyer, or anyone who had spent a 
 considerable time in a lawyer's office in Shakespeare's 
 age, could have been guilty of the egregious error of 
 calling a bond with a collateral condition a ' single bond.' 
 A single bond, simplex ohligatio, is a bond without a 
 collateral condition, but that described by Shylock is 
 with collateral condition." 
 
 Notwithstanding this confident pronouncement, I ven- 
 ture to think that the "error" is not Shakespeare's, but 
 
 1 See his Diil Shakespeare Write "Titus Andrnuiciis" ' p. 54, and The 
 Baconian Heresy whei-e indexed. At p. 17.3, note, Mr. Robertson spealts of 
 Devecmon as his ' ally." 
 
 2 The Shakespeare Froblem Bestated, p. 396 et seq.
 
 24 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 
 
 Mr. Devecmon's, though other critics have shared it with 
 him. 
 
 In the first place, those distinguished Shakespearean 
 scholars, tlie Cambridge Editors (Messrs. W. G. Clark 
 and Aldis Wright), tell us that the expression a "single 
 bond " may be properly used of a bond without sureties.' 
 But I do not rely upon this, as I propose to show that 
 Antonio's bond was not a " conditional " bond, as that 
 expression is understood by lawyers. 
 
 " Bonds have usually a condition annexed to them to 
 the effect that on the person bound paying so much 
 money, or doing some specified act, the bond shall be 
 void. A bond without a condition is called a single 
 bond." So says the Encyclojyedia of the Laivs of 
 England (Vol. ii, p. 334, Art. " Bond," 1906). Again, 
 a bond "is an instrument under seal whereby the party 
 from whom the security is taken obliges himself to pay 
 a certain sum of money to another at a day specified. 
 If this be all, the bond is called a single one {simplex 
 ohligatio), but there is generally a condition added that 
 if the obligor does, or abstains from doing, some parti- 
 cular act, the obligation shall be void, or else shall 
 remain in full force, and the sum mentioned in the 
 obligatory part of the bond is in the nature of a penal 
 sum (or penalty), and is usually fixed at much more 
 than is sufficient to cover any possible damage arising 
 from the breach of the condition." ' 
 
 A well-known example of a conditional bond is a 
 common recognizance, in which the obligor binds him- 
 self to pay a certain sum of money to his Majesty the 
 King, the " condition " of the recognizance being that if 
 he is of good behaviour for a certain time tlie bond 
 becomes void, and no money has to be paid.^ 
 
 1 So, too, Blr. Israel Gollancz says a "single bond," as here used by 
 Shakespeare, probably means "a bond with your own signatm-e witliout 
 the names of sureties." Temple Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, Glossary, 
 p. 124. 
 
 2 Stephen's Comm., 11th Ed. (1890), Vol. ii, p. 117. 
 
 ^ In practice, however, tliis recognizance is not reduced to writing, the 
 acknowledgment being made in open Court, and a note of it being taken 
 by the officer of the Court. It is otherwise with a recognizance of bail, 
 where he who tenders himself as bail for the accused acknowledges himself
 
 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 25 
 
 Now let us try to apply these legal definitions and 
 examples to Antonio's bond. Antonio bound himself to 
 pay to Shylock a certain sum of money " on such a day, 
 in such a place." ' And what was the " condition " upon 
 the performance of which the bond was to become void '? 
 There was no such condition. Antonio binds himself 
 absolutely to pay this certain sum at a certain place on 
 a certain day. True there was a penalty attached if he 
 failed to do so. In that case he was to forfeit a pound of 
 flesh. But that was not a " condition " upon the per- 
 formance of which the bond was to become void. On 
 the contrary, it was a penalty pure and simple, dependent 
 for its effect upon the existence of the bond. It is true 
 also that Shylock speaks of " such sum or sums as are 
 expressed in the condition " ; but that is not sufficient to 
 make the bond a " conditional " one if, upon examination, 
 it is found that there is no legal "condition" attached 
 to it. Moreover, I shall show presently whence it was 
 that Shakespeare took this word " condition," which 
 here means nothing more than a term of the agreement 
 between the parties. Of course, if it could be said that 
 Antonio entered into an obligation to allow Shylock to 
 cut off a pound of his flesh, " on such a day in such a 
 place," the " condition " of the bond being that if he 
 paid a certain sum of money at a fixed date, then the 
 bond should become void, in that case the bond would 
 be a "conditional" one. But we have only to refer to 
 the passage cited in the Merchant of Venice to see that 
 this was not so, for, I repeat, Antonio bound himself to 
 pay the money at a fixed time and place, without con- 
 dition or qualification, and, says Shylock, if he did not 
 
 do so — 
 
 let the forfeit [i.e., the penalty) 
 Be nominated for an equal pound 
 Of your fair flesh. 
 
 to owe to his Majesty the King the sum fixed for bail. The document then 
 proceeds as follows: "The condition of the within-written recognizance 
 is such that whereas the said A. B. was this day cliarged before us, the 
 
 Justices within mentioned for that, etc if therefore the said A. B. will 
 
 appear at the next Court, etc and there surrender himself, etc then 
 
 the said recognizance to be void, or else to stand in full force and virtue." 
 1 Merchant of Venice, I, i, in.
 
 26 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 
 
 And, further on, he asks : 
 
 If he should break his day, what should I gain 
 By the exaction of the forfeiture ? 
 
 So that the " obligation " was not to allow the pound of 
 flesh to be cut away; the "obligation " was to pay the 
 money, subject to the " forfeiture," or penalty, named, 
 which was to be enforced, if the Jew so pleased, upon 
 the obligor's failure to pay as agreed. It is as if A. 
 binds himself to pay to B. £100 on January 1, at the 
 Royal Exchange, subject to the penalty, on failure so 
 to do, of handing over his motor-car to B. But this, 
 I apprehend, is not what the law calls a bond " with 
 collateral condition." It is a " single bond " with a 
 penalty attached in the case of non-payment, and when 
 Shylock speaks of " the condition " it is clear that he 
 must be taken to mean the bargain, or this particular 
 term of the bargain ; ^ indeed, that this is so, and that 
 Shakespeare had not in view a " condition " in the 
 technical sense, is made manifest by a reference to the 
 original Italian from which the story is taken. Here 
 w^e read : " E perche gli mancavano dieci mila ducati, 
 ando a un Giudeo a Mestri, e accattogli con questi patti 
 e condizioni, che s'egli non glie I'avesse renduti dal detto 
 di a San Giovanni di giugno prossimo a venire, che '1 
 Giudeo gli potesse levare una libra di carne d'addosso di 
 qualunque luogo e' volesse " — i.e., "As he wanted still 
 ten thousand ducats, he applied to a Jew at Mestri, and 
 borrowed them on these terms and conditions, that if they 
 were not repaid on the feast of St. John in the next 
 month of June, the Jew might take a pound of flesh 
 from any part of his body he pleased." This clearly 
 shows whence the dramatist took the word 'condition," 
 which he puts into Shylock's mouth, and that its 
 meaning is only such as I have endeavoured to explain 
 above. It is from not observing this that the critics 
 have been misled into charging Shakespeare with bad 
 
 ' Mr. Robertson is, therefore, wholly in error when he writes of "the 
 theorem that if A. lends money on coiulition of being allowed to cut off 
 half of a newly-killed \)\ti belonging to li.," etc. (p. 60). That would not be 
 a "condition," but a penalty in case of B.'s failure to repay tlie money.
 
 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 27 
 
 law," because he calls Antonio's obligation a " single 
 bond," which in reality it was. 
 
 There is, of course, no reason why a bond sliould not 
 be drawn in the form above set forth. If it be objected 
 that such a form of bond is not in accordance with our 
 English practice, my answer is that in all this story 
 Shakespeare merely follows Ser Giovanni's Pccorone 
 (Day IV, Novel I), as I have shown at length in Is 
 there a Shakespeare Problem, ? (p. 90 ct seq.), and it 
 appears to me futile to attempt to base upon this 
 comedy any argument as to the dramatist's knowledge 
 of law or the want of it. 
 
 Take another of Mr. Devecmon's cases — a very 
 
 interesting and instructive one, as it seems to me. 
 
 Queen Katherine, in Henry VIII (Act II, Sc. IV), says 
 
 to Wolsey : — 
 
 I do believe, 
 Induced by potent circumstances, that 
 You are my enemy, and make my challenge, 
 You shall not be my judge, etc. 
 
 Whereupon, says the learned Mr. Devecmon — and Mr. 
 Eobertson, of course, blindly follows his "ally" — "To 
 ' challenge ' is to object or except to those who are 
 returned to act as jurors, either individually or collec- 
 tively as a body. The judge was not subject to 
 challenge." This, therefore, is another instance of 
 " bad law " on Shakespeare's part. 
 
 Now, here I thought it was sufficient to reply that the 
 word "challenge" was constantly used in the sense of 
 " objection "; and that, even though the poet might have 
 had the legal significance in his mind, it certainly does 
 not argue the absence of legal training on his part that 
 Katherine should apply, by a very natm-al analogy, to 
 one of the two Cardinals who were to act as judges in 
 her case (but subject to the supreme authority of the 
 Pope, the real judge), a term which in strict legal usage 
 is properly applicable only to a juror. I further com- 
 mented on the curious idea that a dramatist cannot be a 
 lawyer unless he makes his ladies and laymen speak in 
 the language that a trained lawyer would employ.
 
 28 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 
 
 But a correspondent, learned in ecclesiastical law, has 
 pointed out to me that there is much more to be said. 
 The question of Katherine's divorce was, of course, not 
 tried in one of the Temporal Courts, but in an Ecclesiastical 
 Court ; and here an objection might be taken by the 
 defendant on the ground that the judge was a " suspect " 
 person {index jjotest ut suspechis recusari), if he were 
 akin to the plaintifi' {consanguineiis illius qui litteras 
 impetravit) , or if he had previously acted as counsel in 
 the case {in eodem negotio advocati officio functus), or if 
 he were an enemy of the defendant, or for some other 
 just cause. 
 
 Katherine, therefore, acted strictly within her rights 
 in challenging Wolsey (" challenge " here standing for 
 " recMsa re ") because she believed him her enemy. But 
 in excepting to, or " challenging," the judge as suspectus 
 the defendant was bound to state his reasons before him 
 {coram eodem), and then the judge and the defendant 
 each chose an arbiter, which two select a third, and 
 these three decide the validity of the objection, the 
 verdict of the majority prevailing. 
 
 "Wolsey denies the accusation, tells the Queen to put 
 such notions away from her, and will not admit the 
 objection. This was provided for in the Canon Law : 
 quod si iusiam recusationis causam noluit admittere dele- 
 gatus a tali gravamine licite potidt ad nostram 
 
 audientiam ap%)ellare. x\greeably with this Katherine 
 makes her appeal : — 
 
 I do refuse you for my judge, and here, 
 Before you all, appeal unto the Pope 
 To bring my whole cause 'fore his holiness, 
 And to be judged by him. 
 
 Katherine, it seems, follows the correct procedure 
 throughout, except that, perhaps, the more regular course 
 would have been to let her proctors act for her in making 
 her challenge and raising her appeal. 
 
 " The word ' recusare '," writes my correspondent, 
 " means to ' challenge ' or object to, or lodge a protest 
 against, in legal use, and as the process recusandi ludicem 
 is practically the same as challenging a juror in temporal
 
 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 29 
 
 cases, it is natural to translate the word by ' challenge.' 
 In any case, I question whether there ever were technical 
 vernacular terms for the Latin technical terms in use in 
 the Church Courts. There is no doubt that the author 
 of this part of King Henry VIII, whoever he was, was 
 acquainted with the correct procedure of the ecclesiastical 
 courts, and has stated it accurately in this scene, and, 
 therefore, that this passage cannot be advanced as an 
 instance of Shakespeare's lack of legal knowledge. On 
 the contrary, it would seem to have been exceptional — 
 above even Mr. Devecmon's ! " ^ 
 
 One could hardly have a more instructive example 
 than the above of the dangers that lie in wait not only 
 for the layman, but for the lawyer himself, unless he be 
 equipped with all-round legal training, when he essays to 
 criticize Shakespeare's use of legal terms. In any view, 
 I venture to say that to base a case for Shakespeare's 
 ignorance of law on the use by Queen Katherine of the 
 word " challenge " was absurd; but here it is demonstrated 
 by one w'ho has knowledge of the old Canon Law that 
 this passage of Henry VIII really raises an inference to 
 the very contrary effect.^ 
 
 Sir Sidney Lee, in his new edition of A Life of Shake- 
 speare^^ refers us to Mr. Charles Allen's " Notes on the 
 Bacon-Shakespeare Question " (Boston, 1900), as showing 
 " the true state of the case " with regard to the question 
 of Shakespeare's knowledge of law, which he says has 
 been " greatly exaggerated." It is sufKcient to say here 
 that this author not only falls into the blunder concern- 
 ing Shylock's "single bond" (p. 132), but actually cites 
 Shakespeare's use of the word "statutes" in Love's 
 Labour's Lost (I, i, 15) as an example of our great poet's 
 ignorance : — 
 
 You three, Biron, Dumain, and Longaville, 
 Have sworn for three years' term to live with me 
 
 1 Ample antljority for this can be found in the Corpus Juris Canonici. 
 See the Decretals of Gregory IX, which I would quote in extenso did space 
 permit. 
 
 '■2 I must express my oblifjation to Mr. Cuthbert Atchley, of Clifton, for 
 calling my attention to the Canon Law in this matter, and providing me 
 with many references. ^ P. 43 note, and p. 655.
 
 30 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 
 
 My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes 
 That are recorded iu this schedule here. 
 
 Whereupon this sapient critic observes : " a statute 
 
 imports a legislative act The word seems to be used 
 
 inaccurately for vows or resolves." Could stupidity 
 and ignorance go further? This learned gentleman had, 
 it seems, never heard of the " statutes " of a College or 
 of a Cathedral — to say nothing of "statutes merchant" 
 and "statutes staple"! Yet it is to such a witness as 
 this that Sir Sidney Lee appeals by way of settling the 
 question of Shakespeare's knowledge of law ! 
 
 Mr. Devecmon had, previously, taken the same ridi- 
 culous objection. " A statute is an Act of the legislature." 
 Shakespeare, therefore, was ignorant of law ! This is 
 too much even for Mr. Eobertson, who opines that his 
 " ally is in the wrong for once " here. Sir Sidney Lee, 
 by the way, says of recent sceptical writers, with regard 
 to the " Stratfordian authorship," that " they have been 
 for the most part lawyers who lack the required literary 
 training to give their work on the subject any genuine 
 authority." (Work cited, p. 655.) But what of " literary " 
 men who lack the required legal training to give their 
 opinion on the subject of Shakespeare's law " any genuine 
 authority " '? Sir Sidney appears to imagine that the 
 " literary " man untrained in law is quite competent to 
 pronounce on this matter.^ 
 
 I now come to deal with Mr. Robertson's wonderful 
 discovery concerning the word "purchase." Hitherto it 
 has been supposed by lawyers that there is a special legal 
 sense of that word ; and critics have noted that Shake- 
 speare has on several occasions, as they fondly imagined, 
 made use of the word in that special legal sense. Mr. 
 Eobertson, however, now tells us that this is a delusion. 
 There is no " legal " sense of the word. " The philolo- 
 
 l Work cited, p. 128. 
 
 '■^ Let me here "enter a caveat" with regard to this question. When 
 discussing the lefial terms and phrases used by Shakespeare we ought, 
 obviously, to confine ourselves to really " Shakespearean " plays. I should, 
 therefore, rule out Henry VI. Pt. 1, and by far the greater portion of 
 Parts II and III; also Titus Avdronicus. The Tamivq of the Shrew. a,nA 
 parts of other i)lays, such as Tinioii at Athens, Fericles, Henry VIII. and 
 Troilns and Cressida.
 
 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 31 
 
 gical fact is that the sense of ' acquisition,' ' a thing got,' 
 is the fundamental meaning of the word ' purchase,' of 
 which the starting-point is the idea of the chase (Fr. 
 poiirchasser), tlie product of hunting or foraging. It is 
 the idea of buying that is secondary, thougli that is now 
 become the normal force of the word." So far, so good. 
 The only criticism one has to make here is that what 
 Mr. Robertson says, however true, is by no means new.^ 
 But let us see how he proceeds. " That is to say, that the 
 so-called ' legal ' meaning of ' acquisition of lorojierty bij 
 one's personal action as distinct from inheritance ' is the 
 original meaning, and is the likely sense of the word in the 
 whole feudal period."" And he further tells us that this 
 " original and general sense is the ' legal ' " sense.' 
 
 Now, I was at first puzzled to know whence Mr, 
 Robertson takes his definition of " the so-called ' legal ' 
 meaning" of the word " purchase," which he marks as a 
 quotation. I find, however, in the Oxford Dictionary , 
 under the word " purchase," the following : — " (5) Laic. 
 The acquirement of property by one's personal action as 
 distinct from inheritance." So that perhaps I should not 
 be wrong in assuming that Mr. Robertson has taken his 
 definition from that source. Now, the Oxford Dictionary 
 •is generally a pretty safe guide ; but in this instance it 
 is not so, for the definition is obviously inadequate. In 
 the first place, for " property " we ouglit to read " real 
 property," or "land," seeing that the term " purchase," 
 in the "legal" sense, has no application to "personal" 
 property. And, secondly, one may take land by " pur- 
 chase," in the " legal " sense, without any " personal 
 action " of one's own, for " purchaser," in the " legal " 
 sense, includes those who have received land as a gift, 
 or upon whom it has been settled before they were 
 born, and even heirs-at-law, who would otherwise have 
 inherited, if they take by a devise not in accordance with 
 the course of descents. If Mr. Robertson had looked 
 further down in the Oxford Dictionary, under the word 
 
 1 See Shal%esj)eare as a Lawijer, by Franklin Fiske Heard (1883), quoted 
 in Is there a Shakespeare Problem^ at p. 71. 
 •^ The Baconian Heresy, p. 101. 3 ma,^ p. 99.
 
 32 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 
 
 " purchase," supposing he consulted it on this point, he 
 would have found the following quoted from Wharton's 
 Law Lexicon : " An acquisition of land in any lawful 
 manner, other than by descent or the mere act of law, 
 and includes escheat, occupancy, prescription, forfeiture, 
 and alienation "; and under ' purchaser " he would have 
 found this quotation from Blackstone s Commentaries : 
 
 " Tlie first purchaser is he who first acquired the 
 
 estate to his family, whether the same was transferred 
 to him by sale, or by gift, or by any other method, except 
 
 only that of descent If I give land freely to another, 
 
 he is in the eye of the law a purchaser." Or, turning to 
 Williams on Heal Propertu (21st edition, p. 227), he 
 might have read : " The word purchase has in law a 
 meaning more extended than its ordinary sense : it is 
 possession to which a man cometh not by title of descent : 
 a devisee under a will is accordingly a purchaser in law." 
 (See Chapter IX, " On the Descent of an Estate in Fee- 
 Simple.") 
 
 But Mr. Eobertson, I repeat, tells us that this is all 
 a delusion, because there is no " legal " sense of the 
 word purchase ; " the so-called ' legal ' meaning " is just 
 the original meaning. " Equally complete," he writes 
 in the Literary Guide (January, 1916), "is the collapse 
 of the case founded by Mr. Grant White on the use of 
 the word ' purchase,' and adopted by Mr. Greenwood." 
 But the case was not " founded by Mr. Grant White." 
 Malone, himself a lawyer, had noticed the use by Shake- 
 speare of the word "purchase" in the "legal" sense, 
 and gives an example of it from Henry IV, Pt. II, Act iv, 
 
 Sc. V, 1. 200 :— 
 
 For what in me was purchas'd 
 Falls upon thee in a much fairer sort. 
 
 Whereupon, says Malone, " Purchase is here used in its 
 strict legal sense, in contradistinction to an acquisition 
 by descent." (See Bosivell's Malone, vol. ii, p. 108, 
 1821.) 
 
 Again, we have an example in Antony and Cleopatra 
 (Act i. Scene iv), where Lepidus, as Lord Campbell says, 
 " in trying to palliate the bad qualities and misdeeds of
 
 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 33 
 
 Antony, uses the language of a conveyancer's chambers 
 
 in Lincoln's Inn " : — 
 
 His favilts in hiin seem as the spots of heaven, 
 ^lore fiery by night's blackness ; hereditary 
 Rather than purchas''d. 
 
 Now, it is evident that Mr. Eobertson has gone " clean 
 off the rails " ; first, because he has adopted a vs^rong 
 definition of the word " purchase," and, secondly, because 
 he lias attaclied a wrong meaning to the word legal" 
 in a definition given by Mr. Grant White. That critic 
 wrote : " Take tlie word ' purchase,' for instance, which 
 in ordinary use means to acquire by giving value, but 
 applies in law to all legal modes of obtaining property 
 except by inheritance or descent." He would have done 
 better if he had written " modes of obtaining property 
 by any lawful manner" (as in Wharton's Law Lexicon)^ 
 instead of " legal modes," and if he had written " land " 
 instead of " property." Mr. Robertson is greatly per- 
 turbed at the word " legal." He seems to think it begs 
 the question. " There was no more a ' legal ' sense of 
 the tenn ' purchase ' than there was or is of the term 
 ' property ' or ' obtain ' : the law simply discriminated, 
 on legal lines, between right or wrong modes of ' pur- 
 chase.' To pick out cases in the plays in which 
 ' purchase ' means laioftcl acquisition is thus pure 
 mystification.'"' This appears to me to betray a total 
 misapprehension of the point. Nobody, so far as I 
 know, desires " to pick out cases in the plays in which 
 'purchase' means lawful acciuisition." The acquisition 
 must, of course, have been lawful, otherwise it would 
 not be recognized as "purchase"; but the examples 
 " picked out " are those where Shakespeare has used 
 the term "purchase" in an analogous sense to that 
 employed by the lawyer who uses it with reference to 
 land acquired " in any lawful manner other than by 
 descent or the mere act of law." In consequence of his 
 ignorance of this legal use, Mr. Robertson seems to think 
 
 ' See Stephen's Comm.. 8th Etl. i, 383, where the author f^ivcs a quotation 
 I'roia Co. liitt. IS b, instancing certain wi'ongful modes of ac(]uisition, 
 and laying down that tliey are not " purchase." 
 
 '■^ The Baconian Heresy, p. 99. 
 
 D
 
 34 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 
 
 that the above quotations from Henry IV and Antony 
 and Cleopatra can be paralleled by such a passage as 
 this, for instance, from Beaumont and Fletcher : — 
 
 Yet, but consider how this wealth was purchased, 
 
 where he tells us, truly enough, that " purchased " 
 means " acquired," so that, apparently, wherever " pur- 
 chase " occurs in the sense of "acquire" we have a 
 parallel to those two passages cited from Shakespeare. 
 " Mr. White," he writes, " is merely mystifying us in 
 his assertion that the ' legal ' sense of ' purchase ' occurs 
 only once in Beaumont and Fletcher's fifty-four dramas. 
 In its original and general sense, which is the ' legal, 
 
 it occurs twice in one of their plays and it occurs 
 
 repeatedly in others by the same authors." He then 
 proceeds to give us numerous examples of the word in 
 its ordinary sense of to " acquire " ! 
 
 If Mr. Eobertson is right, therefore, the writers of 
 legal text-books need no longer trouble themselves to 
 explain " the legal meaning of the word purchase," for 
 the legal meaning is just the ordinai'y meaning, and if 
 I say that I have " purchased " a sack of potatoes 
 I have used the term just as much, and just as little, 
 in a " legal " sense as that in which Shakespeare uses 
 it in the quotations above set forth. Yet, surely, any 
 reasonable being can see that when the King who has 
 usurped the crown says to the Prince of Wales, who 
 will take it by inheritance — 
 
 for what in me vfas purchas'd 
 Falls upon thee in a much fairer sort, 
 
 he uses the term with a special sense not to be found in 
 the examples paraded by Mr. Robertson as parallels ! 
 
 What, then, is the point of difference '? It is this. 
 When "purchase" is used in the "legal" sense there is 
 always the contrast between acquisition by such means 
 as are recognized by the law as "purchase," and acquisi- 
 tion by "inheritance." Therefore, "purchase," when 
 used in the "legal" sense, must always be used with 
 regard to land, or, as in Henry IV, of a title which 
 descends like land, or metaphorically, as a poet might
 
 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 35 
 
 use it, and as Shakespeare does use it (in Antony and 
 Cleopatra — e.g.), as though he were a lawyer speaking 
 of land — " hereditary rather than purchas'd." Now, 
 potatoes do not descend as land does according to the 
 canons of inheritance, and therefore if I speak of ' pur- 
 chasing " a sack of potatoes I do not use the term in 
 the " legal " sense ; and this remark applies, mutatis 
 mutandis, to Mr. Robertson's instances from Beaumont 
 and Fletcher at p. 100 of his book, such as, to take an 
 
 example- 
 All you shall wear or touch or see is purchased 
 By lawless force. 
 
 The things alluded to here are personal property, and 
 there is no contrast between the acquisition of them by 
 "purchase" and the acquisition of them by descent, for 
 they, like potatoes, do not descend in the manner in 
 which land descends. Therefore, no lawyer would say 
 there is a "legal" use of tlie term here, or that the 
 examples cited are in any way "parallels" to those 
 above quoted from Shakespeare. It is through ignoring 
 this elementary distinction that Mr. Robertson has gone so 
 painfully astray. His " parallels " are, in fact, ridiculous. 
 
 I would just note, in passing, that I do not now stop 
 to inquire whether the use of the word " purchase " by 
 Shakespeare in its " legal " sense is of any importance 
 with reference to the question of Shakespeare's know- 
 ledge of law. I am only concerned with Mr. Robertson's 
 curious contention that the word has no special " legal " 
 sense, as to which I will only say that if he had con- 
 sulted any competent lawyer before raising it he would 
 have been preserved from grievous error.' 
 
 1 Mr. Charles Allen, in his Notes on the Bacon-Shal^esiieare Question 
 (1900) — a work referred to by Sir Sidney Lee. in his last edition of A Life 
 of Shakt'speare, as supporting? the contention that Shakespeare's know- 
 ledt^e of law has been "much exaggerated" — does not Question the fact 
 that; there is a " legal " meaning of the word " purchase," and, after iiuoting 
 the examples from Shakespeare above cited, he remarks: "Instances of 
 a like use of this word by other writers are certainly infrequent." He 
 adds: "The instance in Beaumont and Fletcher, i-eferred to b>' White, 
 was, perhaps, the following passage in The Laws of Candy : — 
 Of my peculiar honors, not derived 
 From successary, but purchased with my blood. 
 Here we have the contrast between inherited honours and honours 
 obtained by purchase. Beaumout, it may be remembered, was a lawyer. 
 See work cited, p. 17.
 
 36 AS EXPONENT OF LAW 
 
 Note to Chapter I. 
 
 Mr, Arthur Underhill, in his article on " Law " in 
 Shakespeare's England (pubhshed since the above was 
 in print), writes that Shakespeare's " knowledge of law 
 was neither profound nor accurate." Mr. Underhill is 
 one of the conveyancing counsel to the High Court of 
 Justice, and his opinion, especially on Conveyancing 
 and Eeal Property Law, is certainly entitled to much 
 respect. He does not, however, give any arguments in 
 support of his pronouncement, with the sole exception 
 that Shakespeare, in AlVs Well that Ends Well, alludes 
 " incorrectly " to the law of Wardship and Marriage. 
 I claim to have shown, however, that there is really no 
 " incorrectness " here on Shakespeare's part (see above, 
 p. 22). Mr. Underhill, further, remarks on Shake- 
 speare's " alhisions " to " fines " and " recoveries," 
 which, he says, " seemed to Lord Campbell to ' infer 
 profound knowledge of the abstruse law of real pro- 
 perty,' " but which " only seem profound and difficult 
 to lawyers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries 
 because they have become archaic and unfamiliar." 
 But whence has Mr. Underhill, who gives no reference, 
 taken the words which he has marked as a quotation '? 
 I cannot find them in Lord Campbell's book, though 
 with regard to the passage in the Comedy of Errors, to 
 which I have referred above, he writes that the jests 
 " show the author to be very familiar with some of the 
 most abstruse proceedings in English jurisprudence " — 
 a very difi'erent thing from the "profound knowledge of 
 the abstruse law of real property." Moreover, allusions 
 cannot " infer " knowledge, though one may infer know- 
 ledge from allusions ! It cannot, by the way, be suggested 
 that " fines " and " recoveries " would have seemed " pro- 
 found and difficult " to Lord Campbell, because they had 
 " become archaic and unfamiliar," seeing that these 
 collusive actions were part of our normal legal procedure 
 for upwards of fifty years of his Lordship's life, not 
 having been abolished till 1833, when he held the office 
 of SoHcitor-General. For the rest, I note that Mr. 
 
 J
 
 NOTE TO CHAPTER I. 37 
 
 Underbill apparently consido'S all the plays published 
 in the Folio as undoubtedly " Shakespearean," alluding 
 to The Taminq of the Shrew and ^ Henry VI as though 
 there were no question as to their authorship. This, as 
 I have already said, appears to me to be a dangerous 
 and uncritical proceeding. Finally, Mr. Underbill refers 
 us to Charles Allen's Notes on the Bacon- Shakespeare 
 Question, a work which, as I have already shown, goes 
 wofully wrong on the matter of Shakespeare's law.
 
 II 
 
 MR. ROBERTSON AS EXPONENT OF 
 THE CLASSICS 
 
 Having now examined Mr. J. M. Robertson's qualifica- 
 tions to ' expose " my incompetence to deal with legal 
 matters, it may be well to consider his title to perform 
 the same kindly office with regard to my ignorance of 
 the classics, since this very erudite critic, who has taken 
 all knowledge for his province, has graciously vouchsafed 
 to give us the benefit of his omniscience in connection 
 with both these departments of learning. Let us turn, 
 therefore, from Mr. Robertson, the exponent of law, to 
 Mr. Robertson, the classical scholar. 
 
 Now, in my book. Is there a Shakespeare Problem ? 
 (p. 7), I drew attention to the fact that, whereas Mr. 
 Robertson arraigns me as a " heretic " with regard to the 
 Shakespearean authorship, he is himself an arch-heretic 
 with regard to a belief which has generally met with 
 acceptance throughout the civilized w^orld since the 
 foundation of Christianity. Since that time it has been 
 generally accepted as a historical fact that Jesus of 
 Nazareth, however much the details of his life may be 
 obscured by the mythology which has gathered around 
 it, really lived, and preached, and was crucified. Mr. 
 Robertson, however, takes another view. He denies the 
 " historicity of Jesus " in toto, and has written a book in 
 support of the thesis that the belief in Jesus as a historical 
 person is a fond thing vainly invented. Whereas, there- 
 fore, I merely venture to cast doubts upon a tradition of 
 some three hundred years' standing, Mr. Robertson 
 impugns a tradition which has been practically un- 
 questioned for more than six times three hundred years. 
 I am not now concerned to consider whether he is right 
 or wrong in so doing. He has, at any rate, this advantage 
 
 38
 
 AS EXPONENT OF THE CLASSICS 39 
 
 over me, that at the present day it seems to be considered 
 a far worse thing to be a heretic in the matter of the 
 
 ' Stratfordian " than in the matter of the Christian 
 Gospel. But, however this may be, I considered it very 
 relevant in view of the fact that Mr. Eobertson had 
 undertaken to instruct us concerning Shakespeare's 
 classical knowledge — or, rather, concerning Shakespeare's 
 ignorance in that matter — to set before my readers a 
 certain passage from his recent book on the subject of 
 the historicity of Jesus. The question under considera- 
 tion concerns the cult of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and 
 the following is the passage referred to : — 
 
 It is not possible from the existing data to connect 
 historically such a cult with its congeners ; but the mere 
 analogy of names and epithets goes far. The mother of 
 Adonis, the slain ' Lord ' of the great Syrian cult, is 
 Myrrha ; and Myrrha in one of her myths is the weep- 
 ing tree from which tlie babe Adonis is born. Again, 
 Hermes, the Greek Logos, has for mother Maia, whose 
 name has further connections with Mary. In one myth 
 Maia is the daughter of Atlas, thus doubling with Maira, 
 who has the same father, and who, having ' died a virgin,' 
 was seen by Odysseus in Hades. Mythologically, Maira 
 is identified with the Dog-Star, which is the star of Isis. 
 Yet again, the name appears in the East as Maya, the 
 Virgin-Mother of Buddha ; and it is remarkable that 
 according to a Jewisli legend the name of the Egyptian 
 princess who found the babe Moses was Merris. The 
 plot is still further thickened by the fact that, as we 
 learn from the monuments, one of the daughters of 
 Ramses II. was named Meri. And as Meri meant 
 
 beloved,' and the name was at times given to men, 
 besides being used in the phrase ' beloved of the gods,' 
 the field of mythic speculation is wide."' 
 
 " And we feel that it is wide indeed," comments Dr. 
 Conybeare, in his book TJie Historical Christ (p. 71), 
 " when, on p. 301, the three Marias mentioned by Mark 
 are equated with the three Moirai or Fates !" 
 
 1 Christianity and Mythology, by J. M. Robertson (Watts ; 1910), p. 297.
 
 40 AS EXPONENT OF THE CLASSICS 
 
 I have styled the above an " amazing passage," ^ and 
 I see no reason to withdraw the epithet, though, according 
 to Mr. Robertson's nomenclature, it falls under the head 
 of "invective." For myself, I believe that this identifi- 
 cation of Mary (or, rather, Miriam, which is the original 
 form of the name) with Myrrha, Maia, Maira, Maya, 
 Merris, and Meri, is sheer rubbish ; and, in any case, I 
 will leave it to any competent scholar to say what he 
 thinks of the equation of "the three Marias" with "the 
 three Moirai " I 
 
 As Dr. Conybeare further writes : "It does not do to 
 argue from superficial resemblances of sound that Maria 
 is the same name as the Greek Moira, or that the name 
 Maia has ' connections with Mary,' or, again, that ' the 
 name {Maria) appears in the East as Maya.' The least 
 acquaintance with Hebrew would have satisfied Mr. 
 Eobertson that the original form of the name he thus 
 conjures with is not Maria, but Miriam, which does not 
 lend itself to his hardy equations. I suspect he is carried 
 away by the parti pris which leaks out in the following 
 passage of his henchman and imitator, Dr. Drews^: ' The 
 
 romantic cult of Jesus must be combated at all costs 
 
 This cannot be done more effectually than by taking its 
 basis in the theory of the historical Jesus from beneath 
 its feet.' " 
 
 Whereupon Dr. Conybeare's comment is : "If 'at all 
 costs ' means at the cost of common-sense and scholar- 
 ship, I cannot agree. I am not disposed, at the invitation 
 of any self-constituted high priest of Rationalism,'^ to 
 derive old Hebrew names from Egyptian, Greek, and 
 Buddhist appellations that happen to show an initial and 
 one or two other letters in common." 
 
 1 J.s there a Shakexpeare Prohleyn •' p. 9. Miiira, I may note in passing, 
 is said by philolof,'ists, such as Merry and Riddell, to be connected withi 
 the root fiap (cf. ixapfj-alpw, to shine, or sparkle). I hardly see the relevancy 
 of the remark that she "died a virgin." Maia. as we all know, was loved 
 by Zeus, and bore him a son. 
 
 '^ Sea The Christ Myth,ini\(i'\. p. 18. Dr. Drews styles himself "Professor 
 of Philosophy in the Techn. Hochschule. Karlsruhe." 
 
 •'* Dr. Conybeare, it may be remembered, is himself a Rationalist. He 
 roundly accuses Mr. Robertson of "childish, all-embracing, and over- 
 whelming credulity," as well as of lack of scholarship, and says that his 
 " temper is that of tVie Bacon-Shakespeareans," in which remark I find no 
 little entertainment.
 
 AS EXPONENT OF THE CLASSICS 41 
 
 And, further: " What, again, liave the three Maries in 
 common with the Greek Moirai except the number three, 
 and a delusive community of sound ?" ' 
 
 Now, why do I quote these passages from Mr. 
 Robertson's book on the question not of the historicity 
 of Shakespeare (which, by the way, nobody denies), but 
 of the historicity of Jesus '? I do so in order to give the 
 reader an opportunity of forming his own opinion botli 
 as to Mr. Robertson's scholarship and as to Mr. Robert- 
 son's judgment, and, therefore, as to his qualifications to 
 guide us in the matter of Shakespeare's (or anybody 
 else's) knowledge of the classics, and of classical mytho- 
 logy. For that purpose I think they are extremely 
 relevant. 
 
 I understand, however, tliat Mr. Robertson's rejoinder 
 here is that Dr. Conybeare, some time subsequently to 
 the publication of his book on Tlie Historical Christ 
 (1914), was guilty of publishing in the United States an 
 extremely unwise letter (to say the least of it) concerning 
 the British position with regard to the war with Germany, 
 and afterwards found himself constrained to make an 
 ignominious recantation. But how this can be construed 
 as a reflection on Dr. Conybeare's scholai'ship I am at a 
 loss to conceive, and still less can I conceive how the 
 incident is in any way relevant to the question of Mr. 
 Robertson's own scholarship, or the lack of it, to be 
 gathered from his own words, as quoted l)y Dr. Conybeare. 
 
 With this preface, I turn to Mr. Robertson's book on 
 The Baconian Heresy, and to his articles in the Literary 
 Guide, for further illumination on this matter. 
 
 I will commence with a typical example of his con- 
 troversial methods. He charges me with using " a i^art 
 of a proposition " of his (in his Montaigne and Shake- 
 speare) " in such a way as to pervert absolutely the nature 
 of the whole"; and, to demonstrate this, he quotes my 
 
 ' The Histnricnl C/u-isf, p. 179. where Dr. Conybeare's cvitici.sni is well 
 worthy of perusal. Another passage onoted l)y him from Mr. Hol>ertson's 
 work is the following' : — "On the hjpotliesis tliat tlie mythical .Joshua, son 
 of Miriam, was an early Hebrew deity, it maj- be tliat one form of the 
 Tammuz cult in pre-Christian times was a worship of a mother and child 
 —Mary and Adonis; that, in short, Maria = Myrrlia, and that Jesus was 
 a name of Adonis " !
 
 42 AS EXPONENT OF THE CLASSICS 
 
 book to the following effect, jumbling together, viore suo, 
 some words on p. 157, with other words, taken without 
 their context, from a later page. This is the supposed 
 quotation, but the italics are Mr. Eobertson's own : — 
 
 " Shakespeare, says Mr. Robertson, was a man of 
 
 little culture and of no learning (p. 166) in his 
 
 Montaigne and SJiakespcare he describes SJiakesjJeare 
 as ' not much cultured, not profound, not deeply 
 passionate' (p. 157)."^ 
 
 Then, says Mr. Robertson in virtuous indignation, if the 
 reader will turn to his book, p. 147, " he will see that the 
 passage cited is a presentment of Shakespeare in tiie first 
 stage of his career," and he proceeds to quote his own 
 words, showing what conditions he postulated, ' in order 
 that such a man as this [my italics] should develop into 
 the Shakespeare of the great tragedies and tragic come- 
 dies." 
 
 Quite so ; but " if the reader will turn " to viy book, at 
 the page referred to, " he will see " that, after quoting 
 Mr. Robertson's description of Shakespeare, as above 
 cited (at p. 157), together with his further words, " a 
 personality which of itself, if under no pressure of pecu- 
 niary need, would not be likely to give the world any 
 serious sign of mental capacity " (!), I continue : " Such, 
 it seems, is Mr. Robertson's conception of the man before 
 he had developed ' into the Shakespeare of the great trage- 
 dies and tragic comedies.' " So that, so far from " per- 
 verting " Mr. Robertson's proposition, by citing a part 
 of it only, I actually supply the very words necessary to 
 show that the first part of the quotation is "a present- 
 ment of Shakespeare in the first stage of his career " ! 
 
 It now appears, therefore, that it is Mr. Robertson 
 himself who is once more indulging in his inveterate 
 habit, of which I have given several examples in my book 
 of quoting " a part " only of a passage in a work which 
 he essays to criticize, " in such a way as to pervert abso- 
 lutely the nature of the whole." Yet he actually allows 
 
 ' Literary Guide, January, 1916, p. 9.
 
 AS EXPONENT OF THE CLASSICS 43 
 
 himself to say that, in the " mood of exasperation" which 
 he attributes to me (is not this just a little silly, or is it 
 but the reflection of his own feelings?), I have " falsified 
 the whole issue " ! 
 
 I wrote of Mr. Robertson that " he denies him [Shake- 
 speare] any vestige of ' classic culture.' " This, says Mr. 
 Robertson, "is quite untrue." Let us see. In his 
 Montaigne and Shakespeare (p. 340) Mr. Robertson writes : 
 " The sonnets not only give no sign of classic culture, but 
 distinctly avow the lack of it." But, more than that, 
 Mr. Robertson has definitely and whole-heartedly sub- 
 scribed to Farmer's verdict as to Shakespeare's entire 
 lack of " classic culture." It is quite true that, when 
 Farmer says Shakespeare only " remembered perhaps 
 enough of his schoolboy learning to put liig, hag, hog 
 into the mouth of Sir Hugh Evans," Mr. Robertson 
 expresses his opinion that this is " certainly much over- 
 strained if meant to be taken otherwise than humor- 
 ously," and he now says I " try desperately to pin " him 
 to what he " had repudiated as humorous extravagance." 
 But this is " quite untrue." I quoted this passage, with 
 his suggestion as to the supposed " humour" in Farmer's 
 hig, hag, hog remark, at length, though I further suggested 
 that a I'eference to the original would show that Farmer 
 was writing in all seriousness. But Farmer also wrote 
 that " his [Shakespeare's] studies were most demon- 
 stratively confined to nature and his own language," and 
 this, says Mr. Robertson, "is justified by the whole 
 context of the essay " (ibid., p. 308). Moreover, Farmer 
 set forth what he called " an irrefragable argument that 
 Shakespeare did not understand tivo very common words 
 in the French and Latin languages " — viz., the French 
 word " clier" and the Latin word " j^raeclarissinms." 
 What rag of " classic culture" is left to Shakespeare by 
 Farmer, and his convinced disciple Mr. Robertson, in 
 view of all this ? But perhaps we only differ as to what 
 is " culture," and what is a " vestige " ! 
 
 Meantime, I note that, in i\Ir. Robertson's opinion, 
 Shakespeare was able to produce the Venus and the 
 Lucrece " with only the intellectual material of a rakish
 
 44 AS EXPONENT OF THE CLASSICS 
 
 Stratford lad's schooling and reading and the culture 
 coming of a few years' association with the primitive 
 English stage and its hangers-on"' — not exactly "classic 
 culture," I apprehend ! 
 
 I will now examine some of Mr. Robertson's supposed 
 proofs of Shakespeare's lack of classical knowledge, and 
 I will leave it to the reader to say whether they amount 
 to evidence of ignorance on the part of Shakespeare, or 
 on the part of his critic. Let me premise, however, 
 that here, as with the question of Shakespeare's alleged 
 knowledge of law, I make no attempt to prove the poet's 
 knowledge of the classics. I am now merely consider- 
 ing Mr. Robertson's qualifications to instruct us upon 
 that point. 
 
 In Loves Labour's Lost (1, 1, 13), Shakespeare writes: — 
 Our Court shall be a little Academe. 
 
 And (of " women's eyes ") : — 
 
 They are the ground, the books, the Academes, 
 Prom whence doth spring the true Promethean fire. 
 
 (IV, 3, 303.) 
 
 Upon this Mr. Robertson writes : " Be it observed 
 that the scansion of the word in Love's Labour's Lost is 
 precisely what a good classical scholar would not do 
 with it." '^ 
 
 Here, therefore, Mr. Robertson undertakes to tell us 
 what " a good classical scholar " would, or would not, 
 do in the matter of the " scansion of the word " Academe. 
 It is a pity he had not consulted a moderately good 
 classical scholar before making this absurd pronounce- 
 ment. There is no possible reason why " a good classical 
 scholar " should not have written " Academe " to scan as 
 in Shakespeare's lines. As Mr. Hunter wrote (and his 
 words are quoted with approval by Dr. Furness), Academe 
 "is no affected word, nor is it thus written for the sake 
 of metre. It was the usual form of academy. When 
 Bolton had devised the scheme for the association of 
 men eminent in literature and art, he called it the 
 Academe Boyal." Tlie Greek original is 'AKaS-r^fMia, or, 
 
 1 Montaiane and Shalcespeare, p. 148. ^ Baconian Heresy, p. 278.
 
 AS EXPONENT OF THE CLASSICS 45 
 
 more correctly, 'AKaS;']fx€ta^ whence Academe (trisyllabic, 
 as in Shakespeare) is quite properly derived. Mr. 
 Eobertson gives references to Tlie Book of Good Manners, 
 1487, and Sandys' Travels, 1610, p. 275. He has taken 
 these from Judge Willis's Baconian Mint (p. 10), and it 
 is a pity he did not also copy the line from Sandys quoted 
 by the learned judge, 
 
 Thy villa, nam'd an Academe, doth host, 
 
 where the "' scansion " is the same as in Shakespeare. 
 
 Mr. Eobertson has the temerity to return to this 
 matter in the Literary Guide (February, 1916), where he 
 writes (p. 27) : " From a laborious argument of his [mine, 
 to wit] , which seems to have set up further hallucinations 
 among his reviewers, I can draw no inference save that 
 he believes that when prose-writers before Shakespeare 
 used the spelling ' Academe ' they pronounced the word 
 ' Acadeem.' " This is a characteristic example of the 
 gentle art of drawing a red herring across the track. 
 The question is, whether we are to infer that the author 
 of Love's Labour s Lost could not have been " a good 
 classical scholar " because he uses the word " Academe " 
 as he does use it, or whether Mr. Robertson's pronounce- 
 ment to that effect does not rather suggest that the critic 
 himself knows nothing at all about classical scholarship ! 
 My so-called " laboured argument " was an exceedingly 
 brief statement, as it well might be, seeing the extreme 
 simplicity of the matter under consideration,^ and I said 
 nothing whatever about the pronunciation of the word 
 "Academe" when used by "prose-writers before Shake- 
 speare," nor am I in the least concerned to inquire." 
 
 Then again, says Mr. Robertson, still trailing the un- 
 savoury fish, " in alleging (on 'authority') that 'Academe ' 
 was the usual spelling he is once more mistaken." I 
 made no such allegation, but I did quote Mr. Hunter, 
 
 ' See Is there a Shakespeare Problem ? p. 115. 
 
 '■^ I do not know, however, what evidence there is that the " prose-writers " 
 did not pronounce the words as the poets pronounced it. In Peacham's 
 Emblems (1642) we have :— 
 
 Thy solitary Academe should be 
 Some shady grove upon the Thames' fair side. 
 Judge Willis quotes " Achademe" from the Book of Good Maimers, I^IST.
 
 46 AS EXPONENT OF THE CLASSICS 
 
 approved by Dr. Furness, to the effect that " Academe 
 was the usual form of academy." I imagine that state- 
 ment rests upon some good evidence, but even if it does 
 not the question with regard to Shakespeare's scholarship, 
 and Mr. Eobertson's want of it, remains entirely un- 
 affected. 
 
 But Mr. Eobertson has yet something more to tell the 
 
 readers of the Literary Guide with regard to this matter : — 
 
 " When he [myself, to wit] informs us that the 
 
 ' classical ' form would have been ' Academy,' he is 
 
 putting as his what was my position." 
 
 This is really charming. After quoting the lines from 
 Loves Labour's Lost, inTconneetion with Mr. Eobertson's 
 portentous pronouncement, I wrote : " What, pray, is 
 wrong here ? The Greek original for Academy (which, 
 were it not for custom, ' a good classical scholar ' would, 
 I suppose, scan as Academy !) is 'aKaS-qjXLa, or, more 
 correctly, 'aKaSvy/xeia." Mr. Eobertson has turned a blind 
 eye to the " note of admiration " in the parenthesis. 
 What is the suggestion here ? Obviously that it would 
 be quite as reasonable to say that a man cannot be " a 
 good classical scholar " because he writes (and pro- 
 nounces) ' Academy," as to make that statement because 
 he writes " Academe " ! Both statements would, of 
 course, be ridiculous. The Latins said " orator," but we 
 do not style a man a bad scholar because, speaking in 
 English, he says " orjitor " ! 
 
 But, says Mr. Eobertson, that the "classical" form 
 should have been " Academy " is " my position " ! Well, 
 what follows from that '? How on earth does it bear out 
 the statement that the word " Academe " shows bad 
 scholarship ? The inference, obviously, is just the other 
 way. Here is yet another " exposure " ! ' 
 
 1 So little, in fact, is the word "Academe," scanned as in Shakespeare, 
 obnoxious to Mr. Kobertson's absurd criticism, that it has been readily 
 adopted by scholars of the present day. Thus Mr. Andrew Lang has given 
 it tlie sanction of his scholarly usage (see Shake^ijeare, Bacon, and the 
 Great Vnknmvn, pp._ 124 and 130); and Mr. Thomas Seccombe. in his 
 Introduction to tlie "Everyman" Lavenaro.teWs us that "Norwich had 
 become at the commencement of the last century a little Academe." 
 Tennyson has : — 
 
 The softer Adams of your Academe. 
 The "scansion" is the same as in Shakespeare !
 
 AS EXPONENT OF THE CLASSICS 47 
 
 Mr. Eobertson should really leave the question of 
 Shakespeare's classical scholarsliip to those who are 
 competent to deal with it. 
 
 Shakespeare wrote in Othello (I, 3, 140) : — 
 
 Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle, 
 
 Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven 
 
 It was my hint to speak. 
 
 Mr. Robertson's comment on the word " antres " is 
 edifying. It runs as follows : " '? An old French word, 
 from antrwn. So all the commentators. But it might 
 have come through the Italian antro. It could not con- 
 ceivably be a new word, tlius introduced in a play ; even 
 scholars would he at a loss to associate it, on tJie sudden, 
 with antnim." ' 
 
 Now, I venture to say that not only " scholars," but 
 anyone who was tolerably well-read in Latin — any intel- 
 ligent schoolboy after a few terms of classical education 
 — would, at once, associate the word "antres" with 
 antrum. But let us hear Mr. Eobertson further : " Its 
 meaning is not absolutely certain, thougii all the com- 
 mentators connect it with Fr. autre, a cave It is just 
 
 possible that the derivation is through Chaucer's entree. 
 In Boece (ii. pr. 2) he renders in Jovis limine by ' in 
 the entree, or in the celere (v.r. seler) of Jupiter.' Else- 
 where he translates both adt/tian and aditnm by ' entree ' 
 (ii, Pr. I ; i, pr. 6), perhaps knowing that adytum primarily 
 meant a cave and confusing the two words." ^ 
 
 All this sounds portentously learned ; but it can hardly 
 be I'egarded as a revelation of wisdom. Chaucer, in his 
 translation of Boetliius (Bk. II, Pr. I, 1. 22, Skeat's ed., 
 1894), renders '' de nostro adijto " by the words " out of 
 my entree" (not "entree," as Mr. Robertson writes), 
 showing that he confounded " adyto " with " aditu" ; for 
 " adijto," as Dr. Skeat remarks, means " sanctuai'y."* 
 He also renders, as Mr. Robertson tells us, " in Jovis 
 limifie " by " in the entree, or in the celere of Jupiter " 
 
 1 The Baconian Hereay, p. 281. My italics. 
 
 2 The italics liere are Mr. Robertson's. 
 
 3 As the New Engl. Diet, says, he confuses adytum with aditus, whence 
 "a sense ' innermost part,' ' sanctuary,' has been erroneously inferred."
 
 48 AS EXPONENT OF THE CLASSICS 
 
 (Bk. II, Pr. II), where the word " celere " {i.e., cellar) 
 was, possibly, suggested to him by the Greek 'ei' Aibs 
 Q^ggt { = '' on the floor of Zeus' abode ").^ But the idea 
 that Shakespeare's " autre," a cave (obviously^from Latin 
 antrum, Greek avrpov), is derived from Chaucer's "entree " 
 (or " entry ") will, I think, hardly commend itself to the 
 instructed reader. 
 
 Chaucer, says Mr. Eobertson, perhaps knew " that 
 adytum primarily meant a cave." This is a remarkable 
 statement, and I have ventured to suggest that he should 
 tell us whence he derived that information. ^ He now 
 vouchsafes to do so. "I will meet his desire,'Mie writes 
 {Literary Guide, February, 1916, p. 27), "to know 
 whence I derived the information that the adytum of an 
 ancient temple was primarily a cave. He wull find it in 
 the Beligion of the Semites of Eobertson Smith (ed. 1889, 
 p. 183), whom I suppose he will admit to have been a 
 competent scholar." 
 
 So Mr. Robertson, who is so contemptuous of " autho- 
 rity " — who so frequently indulges in sneers at my 
 references to "authority" I — whose own authority is 
 usually Mr. Robertson — here, for once, condescends to 
 appeal to the "authority" of "a competent scholar"! 
 That is good, and we may congratulate him upon it. 
 
 But let us look a little further. Mr. Robertson had 
 written, as above quoted, that " adytum primarily meant 
 a cave" — i.e., that that was the primary meaning of the 
 word. He now prudently changes that assertion into 
 the statement that "the adytum of an ancient temple 
 was primarily a cave." But this is not the statement 
 upon which I commented, nor, as I need scarcely say, 
 does Mr. Robertson Smith in any way bear out that 
 original statement. That " competent scholar " writes : 
 " The adytum, or dark inner chamber, found in many 
 
 temples was almost certainly in its origin a cave." 
 
 That is a very different thing from saying that the 
 
 Or did Chaucer, haply, also confuse oBSas with ouoos, a threshold, Latin 
 
 limen .- 
 
 •^ "Entry" is from Latin intrare, or late Latin intrata. 
 ^ See Is there a Shakespeare Problem ' p. 117.
 
 AS EXPONENT OF THE CLASSICS 49 
 
 primary meaning of " adytum " was a cave. It was 
 710^, seeing that adytum = a^vrov^ which merely means 
 the phice "not to he entered," whether a cave or some 
 other form of dark inner chamher." 
 
 Mr. Robertson alludes to Mr. Lang's mistake with 
 regard to the use by Shakespeare, in the Winter's Tale, 
 of the word " Delphos " (which Mr. Lang called " a non- 
 existent word")^ as an example of how a good classical 
 scholar may make blunders in scholarship as well as 
 those less well endowed with classical knowledge. But 
 Mr. Lang's blunder is no I'ellection on his classical 
 scholarship. On the contrary, it was just because he 
 was a good classical scholar that he took exception to 
 the form " Delplios," in ignorance or forgetfulness of 
 the old usage in English, literature. 
 
 Mr. Robertson then goes on to say {Literary Guide, 
 February, 1916, p. 27) with reference to this old usage of 
 the word " Delphos" : " As Mr. Greenwood has discovered 
 with tlie help of friends (/ gave liiiii the case of Florio), it 
 was the normal usage in and before Shakespeare's day 
 and long after." (My italics.) 
 
 Now, it is quite true that that finished scholar, Mr. 
 Austin Smyth, tlie Librarian of the House of Commons 
 (whom, by the way, Mr. Robertson should consult as to 
 "Academe"), first called my attention to Mr. Lang's 
 error with regard to this word, and to the fact that 
 Boyle had actually charged Bentley with pedantry 
 because he used the form " Delphi," and, further, 
 that the scholarly Milton has made use of the word 
 "Delphos" in his Ode to the Nativity;' but Mr. 
 Robertson's assertion that he " gave " me " the case 
 of Florio " is " sheer hallucination " — to employ one of 
 his favourite terms. I iiappen to possess a copy of 
 Florio's translation of Montaigne's Essays, and my 
 own reading therein was quite sufficient (jjace Mr. 
 Robertson, who genially intimates that I have never 
 
 1 Shakespeare, Bacnn, and tlie Great Unknown, p. 4'1. See Is there a 
 Shakespeare Probleiii .' p. IG'2. 
 
 - "With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving." But "Delphos" 
 here may stand for the eponymous hero of Delphi. 
 
 E
 
 50 AS EXPONENT OF THE CLASSICS 
 
 done any reading of the kind) to supply me with 
 several instances of his use of the word "Delphos";' 
 so that I really cannot acknowledge any indebtedness 
 to Mr. Robertson's superior knowledge and kind con- 
 descension in this matter. My own reading also, 
 strange to say, introduced me to the use of the word by 
 Puttenham, in his Arte of English Poetry, and by 
 Lyly in his Midas (if, indeed, that work is by Lyly), 
 and, further, by Sir E. L'Estrange in his Life of ^sop 
 (1669).' 
 
 Mr. Robertson again assails me on account of my 
 reference to Hallam. Hallam, he tells us, made " an 
 ignorant pronouncement," which I have " unteachably 
 adhered to" {Literary Guide, February, 1916, p. 27). This 
 " ignorant pronouncement " is to be found in the Litera- 
 ture of Euro2)e (1839), vol. ii, p. 389 (Part II, ch. iv, 
 sec. 41), where Hallam comments on certain " phrases 
 unintelligible and improper, except in the case of their 
 primitive roots, which occur so copiously in the plays " 
 of Shakespeare, and as to which he says: "I have con- 
 siderable doubt whether any of these expressions would 
 be found in any of the contemporary prose of Elizabeth's 
 reign ; but could authority be produced for Latinisvis so 
 forced, it is still not likely that one loho did not under- 
 stand their proper meaning icould have introduced them 
 into poetry." 
 
 Mr. Robertson omits from my citation from Hallam 
 the words I have put in italics, and upon which I laid some 
 little stress,* but endeavours to fasten upon me the 
 responsibility for the words immediately preceding, which 
 he says I have " adopted " as my own. This he does by 
 a misinterpretation of some words of mine in a footnote. 
 Mr. Robertson had written that " Hallam's qualified 
 
 1 See ie.g.) the essay "Of Custome," Bk. I, ch. xxii, and the essay "Of 
 I'raiers and Orisons," Bk. I, ch. Ivi. 
 
 •^ See Is there a Shakefipeare Froblem ? p. 16.3, and reference to Sir 
 R. L'llstranfie on the "Addenda" page. I must frankly admit that the 
 references to Puttenham and Lyly I obtained through Walter Begley's 
 Jiacon'fi Nova ItesiiKcitaito, vol. i, p. 37. Mr. Begley was under the 
 impression tliat these authors liad made a " classical blunder " bj' using 
 the word " Delphos." 
 
 •' See Is there a Hhnlcespeare Problem? p. 153, and Mr. Robertson's article 
 in tlie Literary Qxiide for February, 1916, p. 27.
 
 AS EXPONENT OF THE CLASSICS 51 
 
 obiter dictum has beeu adopted without scrutiny " by me. 
 I repUed {Is there a ShakesiJeare Problem / p. 153, note 1) 
 that " Hallam's observations ai'e not an obiter dictum, 
 but represent his considered judgment," which I imagine 
 is true. I went on to say that these " observations " 
 
 were not adopted 'without scrutiny' by me," as Mr. 
 Eobertson had alleged, the fact being that they had not 
 been "adopted" by me at all, except to the limited 
 extent indicated in the work above referred to (see pp. 
 lol-lol), and that I had never subscribed to Hallam's 
 
 doubt whether any of these expressions would be found 
 in any of the contemporary prose of Elizabeth's reign." 
 
 That this is so will be at once apparent to any reader 
 who will take the trouble to refer to my book.' There 
 he will find that the only instance that I deal with of the 
 words cited by Hallam is that of the word " continent," 
 used in the meaning of " that which contains," where- 
 upon I write as follows: " On this I pointed out," inter 
 alia, that it had been denied by Mr. Willis, in his 
 Baconian Mint, that this use of the word continent 
 indicates any classical learning, because the word was, 
 as he showed by reference to North's Plutarch and other 
 writers, used, in Shakespeare's time, for ' that which 
 contained,' as opposed to the contents. Thus North 
 writes : ' The continent exceedeth the thing contained.' 
 While freely admitting this, however, I pointed out that 
 it did not altogether dispose of the value of Shakespeare's 
 allusion to rivers ' that have overborne their continents ' 
 as suggestive of classical knowledge, because the point 
 is that Shakespeare uses ' continents of rivers ' in the 
 sense ' banks of rivers,' which is exactly Horace's conti- 
 nente ripd, although Horace is speaking of sea-banks^ 
 and not river banks." 
 
 How after this it can be suggested that I had sub- 
 scribed to Hallam's doubt wiiether the word "continent," 
 so used, " would be found in any of the contemporary 
 
 1 See Is tliere a Shakei^peare Problem ? pp. 1.51-154. 
 
 2 Viz., in The Shakesi}eare Problem Bestated. 
 
 * We should say "shore" when speaking of the sea, but Shakespeare 
 writes of "the wild sea-banks" iMerchcuit of V. 5, 1).
 
 52 AS EXPONENT OF THE CLASSICS 
 
 prose of Elizabeth's reign " I am at a loss to conceive. 
 I did, however, venture to express the opinion that 
 Hallam vi^as right in recognizing " the continente ripd of 
 Horace" in Shakespeare's expression, because ''the con- 
 tinents of rivers" means the containing hanks of rivers, 
 and continens ripa also means the containing hank. In 
 each case it is the hank which is the continent, so that 
 the one expression is the exact equivalent of the other, 
 and to my mind forcibly suggests that the poet was 
 familiar with the Latin original. 
 
 Mr. Eobertson quotes, as an illustration of this use of 
 the word " continent," the following lines from Spenser's 
 Fairie Queen : — 
 
 The carcase with the stream was carried down. 
 But the head fell backward on the continent. 
 
 But inasmuch as I have never disputed, and indeed was 
 perfectly familiar with, this use of the word, the only 
 point of the quotation would seem to be to give another 
 example of what was already admitted.^ 
 
 Yet, in spite of all this, which makes his misinterpre- 
 tation of the w^ords of my footnote so exceedingly obvious, 
 Mr. Eobertson charges me with ignorance of the fact, 
 which has been pointed out again and again by Shake- 
 spearean critics in recent times, that, the words referred 
 to by Hallam are to " be found " in both contemporary 
 prose and contemporary verse "of Elizabeth's reign," 
 and goes on, greatly to his own satisfaction, to inform 
 his readers that "it is the lack of this kind of necessary 
 elementary knowledge that makes Mr. Greenwood's book 
 in these matters worthless." 
 
 Mr. Robertson is fond of dismissing my reasoning as 
 " forensic." His own arguments are, certainly, not very 
 appropriate for a Court of Justice ! 
 
 But now, since I trust I am always ready to acknow- 
 ledge making a mistake, when it is a real and not merely 
 an imputed one, I freely admit that I went wrong when, 
 
 ' I do not tliink, however, that Mr. Robertson's example is well chosen, 
 for, if we may trust the Oxford Dictionary, " continent " here does not 
 mean the containinf? bank, but " the land as opposed to water ; terra 
 jirma." See other instances tiiere cited.
 
 AS EXPONENT OF THE CLASSICS 53 
 
 in my book of eight years ago, I incautiously quoted 
 without comment Mr. W. Theobald's statement to the 
 effect that " the coinage of the new word deracinate (to 
 tear up by the roots) is evidence of his (Shakespeare's) 
 thorough familiarity with the Latin tongue " ; for, 
 although the word " deracinate " certainly comes from 
 a Latin root, it was taken into the English language 
 through the medium of the Frencli. I freely make 
 Mr. Eobertson a present of this admission, and, having 
 done so, I will set beside it a little mistake of his own. 
 
 After discussing the above quotation from Hallam in 
 his Baconian Ileresi/, he goes on to say (p. 255) : " As 
 all English scholars are aware, all words of Latin or 
 French derivation bore in the sixteenth century a closer 
 relation to their source than they do now." He then 
 proceeds to give some illustrations of this, among which 
 I find the following (p. 256) : " ' Confer ' (the ' cf.' of our 
 footnote references) meant for them [writers in Shake- 
 speare's day] , as in Latin, ' compare.' " This is certainly 
 not a fact of which " all English scholars are aware." It 
 is just an error which is hardly indicative of scholarship. 
 When Ben Jonson said that he wrote his verses prefixed 
 to Joshua Sylvester's translation of Du Bartas " before 
 he understood to confer," he did not mean to " compare " 
 but to converse in French so as to understand it. In the 
 same way he wrote : — 
 
 How can I speak of thy great pains but err ? 
 Since they can only judge who can confer. 
 
 — i.e., Jonson, not being able to converse in the French 
 language, felt himself not competent to pronounce upon 
 the merits of the translation. From " confer " in this 
 sense we get the word " conference." But " the cf. of 
 our footnote references " does not stand for the English 
 word "confer," but for the imperative of the Latin verb 
 confer re I 
 
 I come now to a very painful case, where I have to 
 admit that I walked unsuspectingly into a trap which 
 Mr. Eobertson had ingeniously set for me. In a foot- 
 note to his second article in the Literary Guide (February, 
 1916, p. 27) he wrote : " Mr. Greenwood and I know
 
 54 AS EXPONENT OF THE CLASSICS 
 
 a book in which the author printed as Italian the phrase, 
 ' Epur se mouve' " To this I replied {Literary Guide, April, 
 1916): "I know of no such book. In The Shakesijeare 
 Problem Bestated, at p. 222, occur the words, ' E j^io' se 
 miiove ' (' mouve ' is a characteristic invention of Mr. 
 Robertson's). They were incautiously taken by me from 
 Dr. Thomas's Dictionary of Biograyhy , which I happen 
 to possess, and where they are so given. And ' se ' is an 
 error ! Yes, and I passed over these words in the proof ! 
 And what is the inference from that ? Why, that I know 
 very little about Italian. And that is true. Similarly, 
 when I find that Mr. Robertson has passed over ' ki'jtol,' 
 repeated four times on five successive pages, as Greek 
 for ' gardens,' ^ I draw the inference that he knows very 
 little about Greek." 
 
 Now let me say, first, with regard to the word 
 " 7nouve," which I characterized as an "invention" of 
 Mr. Robertson's, that there was, of course, no suggestion 
 here that he had wilfully ascribed to me an error — 
 whether a misprint or otherwise — which I had not, in 
 fact, made. The most malignant critic would not be so 
 foolish as to charge an author with a blunder which 
 a mere reference to the work under consideration would 
 show that he had not, in fact, made ; and, secondly, let 
 me say that I, naturally, was under the impression that 
 the "book" to which Mr. Robertson referred was The 
 Shakespeare Problem Restated, where the words occur 
 as I have quoted them above. My belief, therefore, 
 was that Mr. Robertson had substituted " mouve " for 
 " muove,'" either by a slip of memory or a misreading of 
 the passage to which I alluded, unless the word thus 
 written was a mere lapsus calami on his part. 
 
 Alas ! I had no suspicion of the trap which had been 
 set for me. More than fourteen years ago I published 
 a book called The Faith of an Agnostic, under the pen- 
 name of " George Forester." That book has long been 
 out of print, and I did not know that Mr. Robertson was 
 aware that I was the author of it, or, indeed, that he 
 
 1 The Baconian Heresy, pp. 184, 185, 186, 188.
 
 AS EXPONENT OF THE CLASSICS 55 
 
 had ever read it. He says, as I now understand, that 
 I informed him some years ago that I had written it. If 
 so, I am not concerned to deny the statement, but all 
 recollection of the incident has entirely faded from my 
 memory. I was equally oblivious of the fact that the 
 words ascribed to Galileo were quoted, or misquoted, by 
 me in that book. But I now find, in a footnote at p. 76 
 tliereof, the terrible error which Mr. Robertson had dis- 
 covered, and apparently treasured in his mind for future 
 reference : " E pur se mouve." The words had previously 
 appeared in the text, at p. 55, as " E pur se muove," 
 so that I think nobody will be found to suggest that 
 " mouve " in the footnote is anything but a mere misprint 
 v.'hich had been overlooked. 
 
 When, therefore, I wrote, " I know of no such book," 
 I said what was strictly true. At that time I had no 
 idea of the existence of any book where the words so 
 appeared. 
 
 Such is a plain statement of this case, and my argu- 
 ment is not in the least affected by the fact that I was 
 oblivious of the error which had been passed over in the 
 footnote to a book published by me nearly fifteen years 
 ago. In Dr. J. Thomas's Dictionary of Biography (J. S. 
 Virtue and Co.), in the life of Galileo (vol. i, pt. ii, p. 986) 
 it is said that the great man " whispered to a friend : 
 ' E imr se muove.' " I quoted those words as I found 
 them, which shows, as I have said, that I know very 
 little about Italian, and similarly I am very confident 
 that when Mr. Robertson passes kT^toi four times over 
 on five successive pages as Greek for " gardens," it may 
 fairly and truly be said of him that he knows very little 
 about Greek. I frankly admit my mistake and the infer- 
 ence which fairly arises from it, and I do but apply a 
 parity of reasoning to Mr. Robertson's fourfold, and more 
 flagrant, error. The enginer, it seems, is hoist with his 
 own petar. 
 
 But there is still more cogent evidence than this. 
 When Mr. Robertson launched his brutum fulmcn at my 
 head, in the sliape of his ridiculous tlireat to " expose " 
 me, I replied that happily I was not called upon to
 
 56 AS EXPONENT OF THE CLASSICS 
 
 perform that office in his case, for the simple reason that 
 he is always unconsciously and ingenuously performing it 
 for himself, proprio motu. I have already given some 
 instructive instances of this self-revealing process ; but I 
 now come to one so illuminating that it may stand as the 
 definitive example. 
 
 In The Shakespeare Problem Restated (p. 370 note) I 
 wrote of Shakespeare's Sonn-ets : " I venture to think it 
 highly probable that the author of them was not un- 
 acquainted with Plato's Plicedrus. Haply he had the 
 soul of one not only (fn.Xo(To<pi'ja-avTos dSoAojs, but also 
 
 7rat8epao-T7ycrai'TOS fJiera (f)iXo<To(fjLa<i. But SUch things are 
 
 not easily understood in days when 
 
 Folds of summer-light enclose 
 All that once was Anteros. 
 
 (See ante, p. 82, and see Plat. Phcedrus, 249 A and 255 
 do- 
 Now, what is Mr. Robertson's portentous comment on 
 this ? I must really give it in full : — 
 
 " In the present volume' he [myself, to wit] has 
 attempted to retort on his opponents the charge of 
 lowering the character of the man whom they accept 
 as the playwright. It may suffice in reply to call 
 attention to the pleasing suggestion he made in his 
 first book (p. 370) as to the character of the unnamed 
 moral personage whom he imagines to have been the 
 necessary type. It would be interesting to have his 
 explanation."^ 
 
 Here, as I wrote in the Literary G^iide (April, 1916) : 
 " Mr. Robertson, to use a vulgar expression, ' gives away 
 the whole show,' in a manner which has afforded me no 
 little entertainment." He thinks that by applying to 
 the author of the sonnets the words quoted from Plato I 
 was making a vile suggestion as to his moral character, 
 and he menacingly calls for my explanation ! 
 
 Now, if he had known anything about classical litera- 
 
 ' I.e., Is there a Shakespeare Problem? '- Lit. Guide. Feb. 1916. p. 27.
 
 AS EXPONENT OF THE CLASSICS 57 
 
 turft, anything about Plato — if he had only turned to a 
 translation of the Phcedrus, at the passages to which I 
 made special reference — he would have been aware that 
 the Greek expression whicli I cited, so far from conveying 
 any immoral suggestion, denotes, in the Platonic system, 
 one of the highest forms of psychic existence. ^ 
 
 But I understand Mr. Eobertson has seen something 
 dark and sinister in my reference to " Anteros," and my 
 remark that " such things are not easily understood at 
 the present day." Aye, what is the meaning of that ? 
 I do not tliink there will be many who will, like him, 
 " give themselves away " by putting such a ridiculous 
 question ; but in case there may be any such I will 
 relieve their anxiety by a very simple explanation. 
 
 The word Anteros, in the sense of "love returned" or 
 return-love," occurs nowhere l)ut in Plato or his 
 imitators, though the conception was familiar to the 
 poets.' It occurs in the Phcedrus in the course of a long 
 speech of the Platonic Socrates concerning the soul and 
 its immortality, and the word called up in my mind a 
 very beautiful poem by William Cory (better known to 
 old Etonians as William Johnson), of which I will here 
 quote two stanzas : — 
 
 Naiad, hid beneath the bank 
 
 By the willowy river-side 
 Where Narcissus gently sank. 
 
 Where unmarried Echo died, 
 Unto thy serene repose 
 Waft the stricken Anteros. 
 
 Glide we by, with prow and oar ; 
 
 Ripplo shadows off the wave, 
 And, reflected on the shore, 
 
 Haply play about the grave. 
 Folds of summer-light enclose 
 All that once was Anteros. " 
 
 1 "Only tlio soul of a nhilosoplier. guileless and true, or the soul of a 
 lover wlio is not without, i)liiloso|)hy, may aC(iuiro wings in the third 
 recurring period of a thousand >ears." .Towett's translation of the words 
 quoted by me from P/(fP<?r/(,s, '249 A. See that dialogue as edited by the 
 late Dr. W. H. Thompson (ISfiS), Appendi.x I, p. IfjO. and Grote's Plato, 
 vol. ii, p. '209. 
 
 - See PlKPdrii.i. 255 D. and Dr. Thompson's note. 
 
 ^ See " A Dirge " published in lonica (George Allen ; 1891).
 
 58 AS EXPONENT OF THE CLASSICS 
 
 But what are the things that are so difficult to under- 
 stand in days when Anteros, as the Greeks understood 
 him, has passed away? Well, I can only refer again to 
 su<;h works as Grote's Plato, and would respectfully 
 commend to the reader's attention vol. ii, ch. 24. I will 
 quote only a few words, which are, however, quite 
 inadequate to explain the subject as it presented itself to 
 the Greek in the days of old. " Personal beauty (this is 
 the remarkable doctrine of Plato in the Phceclrus) is the 
 main point of visible resemblance between the world of 
 sense and the world of Ideas : the Idea of Beauty has a 
 brilliant representative of itself among the concrete 
 objects — the Ideas of Justice and Temperance have none. 
 The contemplation of a beautiful youth, and the vehement 
 emotion accompanying it, was the only way of reviving 
 in the soul the Idea of Beauty which it had seen in its 
 antecedent stage of existence." Thus the love of a 
 beautiful youth, almost amounting to worship, might be 
 entertained by the best of men, and cast no reflection 
 whatsoever upon the purity of his moral character. 
 
 But this, I say, is difficult for us to understand at the 
 present day ; and equally difficult, as it seems to me, is it 
 to understand the passionate and adoring terms which 
 we find in Shakespeare's Sonnets — though these are 
 almost works of to-day in comparison with the Plicsdrus 
 of Plato — addressed by the author to a " lovely boy." It 
 is as though " Anteros " had come to life again, for the 
 writer was evidently one etSwAoi' ipwro'i avrepMra e'xwv.^ 
 But to suggest that there is here one jot or tittle of 
 evidence upon Avhich to base an abominable charge 
 
 • I would refer further to the following passage in Grote's Plato (vol. ii, 
 p. 219, 2nd ed.) : "It is by the aspect of visible beauty, as embodied in 
 distinguished youtli. that the faculty of reminiscence is first kindled in 
 minds capable of the effort. It is only the embodiment of beauty, acting 
 as it does powerfully ui)on the most intellectual of our senses, which has 
 sufficient force to kindle up the first act or stage of reminiscence in the 
 mind, leading ultimately to the revival of the Idea of Beauty. The 
 embodiments of justice, wisdom, temperance, etc., in particular men do 
 not strike forcibly on the senses, nor approximate sufficiently to the 
 original Idea, to effect the first stroke of reminiscence in an unprepared 
 mind. It is only the visible n\anifestation of beauty which strikes with 
 sufficient shock at once on the senses and the intellect, to recall in the 
 mind an adumbration of the primitive Idea of Beauty." The whole 
 passage should be consulted. 
 
 ■'• Phcedrus, 255 D.
 
 AS EXPONENT OF THE CLASSICS 59 
 
 against " Shakespeare " is to make a suggestion as pre- 
 posterous as it is disgraceful. Indeed, if any evidence to 
 the contrary were necessary — which it is not — there is 
 one Sonnet which is quite conclusive of the matter, and 
 he who professes to find any such suggestion in what I 
 have written on the Sonnets in TJie Shakesijcarc Problem 
 Restated simply proclaims his own ignorance, and, 
 possibly, also that he is possessed by that unhappy 
 spirit which is prone to see evil where no evil exists. 
 Ho7ii salt qui mal y pense. 
 
 So much, then, for Mr. Robertson's qualifications to 
 lecture us on Shakespeare's classical knowledge, or the 
 want of it. 
 
 Just one word more in this connection. Mr. Robertson 
 is pleased to write that I have altogether surrendered the 
 case for Shakespeare's classical knowledge. This is the 
 charming way in which he puts it, as usual entirely to 
 his own satisfaction and to the satisfaction of those who 
 are content to accept his authority without examining 
 the work of which he professes to give a veracious 
 account : — 
 
 "No less complete in effect, and no less garbled 
 in form, is his surrender of the old ' classical ' case, 
 under a blank-cartridge fire of pretended support " 
 [Literary Guide, January, 1916, p. 10). 
 
 Let us see how this proposition is established — to the 
 satisfaction of Mr. Robertson and his claque. 
 
 " In his first book," writes Mr. Robertson, " Mr. Green- 
 wood expressly assented to the extravagant claim of 
 Professor Collins " — viz., with regai'd to Shakespeare's 
 classical knowledge. 
 
 This is quite untrue, and the very words w'hich Mr. 
 Robertson quotes from The Shakespeare Problem Restated 
 show it to be so. Professor Collins wrote that " Shake- 
 speare could almost certainly read Latin with as much 
 facility as a cultivated Englishman of oiu' time reads 
 French," that he must have been able to read Latin 
 authors "ad scnsxim with facility and pleasure," and, 
 further, that " tiirough the Latin language he had access
 
 60 AS EXPONENT OF THE CLASSICS 
 
 to the Greek classics, and that of the Greek classics in 
 the Latin versions [my italics] he had, in all probability, 
 a remarkably extensive knowledge." * 
 
 Now, in The Shakespeare Prohlevi Restated (p. 87), 
 after remarking that the classical knowledge thus postu- 
 lated for Shakespeare by Professor Collins was very 
 large indeed, I expressed my opinion that he had made 
 out his case, "at any rate to this extent — viz., that the 
 autlior of the Plays and Poems must have had a large 
 knowledge of the Latin language and an extensive 
 acquaintance with Latin authors." So that, instead of 
 ' expressly assenting to the extravagant claim of Pro- 
 fessor Collins," I liad, on the contrary, "expressly" 
 limited my acceptance of it ! 
 
 Then, says Mr. Robertson, after accepting the " extrava- 
 gant claim," I have now entirely thrown it over. 
 
 And where does he stand now ? He has ' no 
 intention of attempting to prove ' that claim." Then 
 follows a quotation from Is there a Shakesjieare Pro- 
 blem ?, which I will slightly amplify. 
 
 After restating Professor Collins's postulates regarding 
 Shakespeare's classical knowledge, I wrote (p. 113) : 
 
 This is a very large claim. Those who desire to see 
 how ably the late Professor Collins endeavoured to make 
 it good may read his Stxidies in Shakespeare (1904). I 
 certainly have no intention of attempting to prove its 
 validity. What I do maintain, however, is that the 
 works show that Shakespeare was not an unlearned man 
 [as Fai-mer's Essay, subscribed to by Mr. Robertson, 
 endeavours to exhibit him] , but, on the contrary, a man 
 of the higliest culture, of wide reading, much learning, 
 and a large familiarity with the classics, whether that 
 familiarity was obtained by reading in the original or by 
 means of translations." 
 
 Now see Mr. Robertson's triumphant comment on 
 tliis : "Thus the whole debate dissolves into forensic 
 farce." (He had already written with regard to the 
 case for Shakespeare's legal knowledge: Our time has 
 been wasted by a forensic mystification." Evidently he 
 thinks that it is quite sufficient to overthrow an argument
 
 AS EXPONENT OF THE CLASSICS 61 
 
 to speak of it as "forensic") "On this proposition it 
 could never have arisen. The use of translations — so 
 obvious in the case of the Plutarch plays — is precisely 
 what was suggested against the 'scholar' theory; and 
 now, furtively adopting tliat counter tiiesis, Mr. Green- 
 wood professes to be supporting his original case ! " 
 
 " Cairns," said Sir Richard Bethell, on a certain 
 occasion in one of the Courts of Chancery — " Cairns, 
 don't you find it rather irksome [laying much stress on 
 the word] to argue with these men?" Well, it is cer- 
 tainly not a little " irksome " to have to meet such 
 arguments as these. Mr. Robertson apparently supposes 
 that " the classics " means the Latin classics only. He 
 ignores the fact that Professor Collins, in the passage 
 which I had quoted from him, speaks of Shakespeare's 
 "extensive knowledge of the Greek classics," which he 
 supposes had been obtained by means of " the Latin 
 versions," if not from the originals. Now, I certainly 
 suppose also, and have always supposed, that Shake- 
 speare must have derived his knowledge of " the Greek 
 classics" by means of translations. As to "the Latin 
 classics," I conceive, and I think Professor Collins has 
 proved, that Shakespeare could read Latin authors in the 
 original, though at the same time, I think, as Professor 
 Collins also thought, there can be no doubt that he 
 referred to translations as well, as in the case of Golding's 
 Ovid, for example. As to North's Plutarch, nobody, of 
 course, has ever doubted that he made free use of that 
 translation. 
 
 All this talk, therefore, of my having surrendered the 
 " classical " case — -I do not say " the old classical case," 
 and I do not know what Mr. Robertson means by that 
 expression, but the "classical'' case within the limits 
 that I have " expressly " laid down — is mere bluff and 
 rhodomontade.
 
 Ill 
 
 ALIA ENORMIA 
 
 I HAVE now considered Mr. Eobertson in his capacity of 
 critic of Shakespeare's legal knowledge, in the course of 
 which inquiry I have, I think, shown pretty conclusively, 
 among other things, that when he commented upon the 
 use by the poet of the legal terms " fine " and " recovery " 
 he w^as quite ignorant of the real meaning of those terms, 
 and that when he denied that there was any " legal " 
 meaning of the word " purchase " he was really quite in 
 the dark as to the use by lawyers of that technical term 
 also. As to his qualifications to instruct us with regard 
 to the question of Shakespeare's knowledge of the classics, 
 I leave what I have written — and, more especially, what 
 he has written — to speak for itself. 
 
 I must now consider a few other matters, lest it should 
 be said that I have left certain charges unanswered, 
 or declined to make those admissions with regard to 
 mistakes of my own which I ought in fairness to 
 make. But iirst I would examine once more the 
 strange case of Mr. Eobertson and the late Professor 
 Max Miiller. 
 
 The late Mr. G. C. Bompas, in his book The Problem 
 of the Shakespeare Plays, cited the autliority of Max 
 Miiller, with regard to Shakespeare's vocabulary, to the 
 effect that the poet in his plays used the large number of 
 15,000 words. Now, upon this statement Mr. Eobertson 
 wu-itos, with much sarcasm, to the following effect : 
 " Max Miiller, Lectures on the Science of Language (6th 
 ed., I, 309), citing — of all authorities — Eenan's Histoire 
 des langues seviitiqiies ! I cannot find the passage in my 
 copy (2nd ed.) of Eenan. Mr. G. C. Bompas {Problem of the 
 
 62
 
 ALIA ENORMIA 63 
 
 Shakespeare Plays, 1902, p. iv) characteristically asserts 
 that the ' estimate ' is Max Miiller's own."' 
 
 According to Mr. Robertson, therefore, Max Miiller did 
 not himself form the estimate that Shakespeare used 
 some 15,000 words in liis plays, but merely took it from 
 Renan's Histoire des langues semitiqaes — " of all authori- 
 ties " ! — and Mr, Bompas makes the " characteristically " 
 false assertion that the estimate is Max Miiller's own. 
 Yet the truth is, as I have shown,'^ that Mr. Bompas was 
 quite right, and the "characteristic" assertion is Mr. 
 Robertson's. 
 
 Max Miiller wrote {Science of Language, 1885, vol. i, 
 pp. 308-9) : " The Hebrew Testament says all that it has 
 to say with 5,642 words ; Milton's works are built up 
 with 8,000'; and Shakespeare, who probably displayed a 
 greater variety of expression than any writer in any 
 language, produced all his plays with about 15,000 
 words." 
 
 Now, here we find the following curious note : " Renan, 
 Histoire, p. 138." Obviously, then, cries Mr. Robertson, 
 this estimate is not Max Miiller's own ; he simply took 
 it, without verification, from Renan's Histoire des langues 
 semitiques — " of all authorities "! 
 
 But surely it might have occurred to this impetuous 
 critic, so eager to score a point against the " heretical " 
 Mr. Bompas, that it w^as in the highest degree improbable 
 that Renan, in his Histoire des langues semitiques, or 
 anyw^here else for the matter of that, would have formed 
 an estimate of Shakespeare's vocabulary, or that Max 
 Miiller should have relied upon his authority for such an 
 estimate ! And when Mr. Robertson searched in vain for 
 the passage in his copy of Renan's book, surely it would 
 have said more for his critical acumen if lie had made 
 further inquiry before committing himself to his sarcastic 
 footnote ! The explanation was really not difficult to 
 discover. It merely required a little further considera- 
 tion of Max Miiller's book, for at p. 307 of that book — • 
 
 1 The Baconian Heresy, p. 517, note 3. 
 2 Is there a Shakespeare Problem' p. 171.
 
 64 ALIA ENORMIA 
 
 but two pages before the occurrence of the strange note, 
 " Eenan, Histoire, p. 138" — -we find the statement, 
 " Hebrew has been reduced to about 500 roots " ; and here 
 we also find, in its proper place, a reference to that same 
 page (138) of the Histoire des langues semitiqiies. Let the 
 reader then turn to that page of Kenan's work, and he 
 will find that Kenan is here dealing with the Hebrew 
 language ; and if he will read on to p. 140, he will find 
 this statement: " on evalue le nombre des racines liehra- 
 ■iques a cinq cents." He will see, further, that Max 
 MtiUer's note, on p. 307, says Leusden counted 5,642 
 Hebrew words in the Old Testament ; and this also he 
 will find is taken from Kenan's Histoire des langues 
 semitiques (1863) at p. 140. 
 
 It is abundantly clear, therefore, that Max Milller 
 refers to Kenan on the Hebrew language only ; that the 
 second reference to the " Histoire, p. 138," has crept in 
 per incuriam ; and that Max Mliller, as might be ex- 
 pected, makes no reference at all to Kenan in support of 
 his statement with regard to the Shakespearean vocabu- 
 lary. Thus it turns out, on examination, that Mr. 
 Kobertson's sneer at Max Miiller and his supposed 
 " authority," and the suggestion that Mr. Bompas is 
 "characteristically" untrustworthy, are based upon his 
 own uncritical error, which a little more care bestowed 
 upon the works referred to would have enabled him to 
 avoid. 
 
 Now, mark the light and airy manner in which Mr. 
 Kobertson affects to dispose of all this. " It is only fair," 
 be says {Literary Guide, February, 1916), to admit " that 
 he [i.e., myself] has made one 'score'- — not against Ms 
 ojpponents — in correcting a wrong reference of Max 
 Miiller's " (my italics). Now, I do not claim to have 
 made a "score" — that is not the term that I should 
 employ in this connection. What I do claim is that I 
 have shown Mr. Kobertson to have been guilty of an 
 inexcusable blunder, whereby he has misled his readers 
 with regai'd to Shakespeare's vocabulary, and done in- 
 justice both to Max Miiller and the late Mr. Bompas. 
 And this Mr. Kobertson dismisses as merely " correcting
 
 ALIA ENORAIIA 65 
 
 a wrong reference of Max Miiller's "—whereas the "wrong 
 reference " was open and palpable to anyone who took 
 the trouble to examine the passage in question with a 
 little critical care. 
 
 But with regard to this same " wrong reference " I 
 made a remark which has given Mr. Eobertson the oppor- 
 tunity of once more indulging in the congenial practice 
 of drawing the red herring across the scent, in order to 
 divert attention from his own error. Commenting on 
 that curious note, " Renan, Histoire, p. 138," which of 
 itself ought to have aroused the suspicions of any 
 thoughtful cntic, I wrote, " ' if^•.sto^•re'— what 'Histoire"? 
 It might be the Histoire d'IsraH." ' Here is Mr. Robert- 
 son's chance to give the go-by to his own blunder by 
 fastening upon one of mine. 
 
 Even in correcting Max Miiller's " wrong reference " 
 he says, Mr. Greenwood " adds a blunder, by supposin.^ 
 an absurd date for the Histoire dii peuple d'IsraH, which 
 title he misquotes and misprints." 
 
 Now, I really do not know at what date Renan's 
 Histoire du peuple d' Israel was published, nor am I 
 concerned to inquire. My statement was that '' His- 
 toirer put baldly thus, might refer to the " Histoire 
 d Israel" or any other ''Histoire," for the matter of 
 that I ought, no doubt, to have written " Histoire die 
 peuple d Israel" I make Mr. Robertson a free present 
 ot that admission. But, as my point was simply that 
 Histoire by itself was sufficient to suggest to any 
 careful critic that the reference was a mere mistake 
 and that this footnote had slipped in by an inadvertence' 
 Mr Robertson's counter-attack here seems to me a singu- 
 larly futile one. His red herring in this case is not 
 I apprehend, sufliciently pungent to divert his readers 
 irom the true scent. 
 
 But Mr. Robertson, having thrown over Max Miiller's 
 estimate of Shakespeare's vocabulary, on the false sup- 
 position that It is based on Renan's autliority, and not 
 on Max Muller's own investigation, brings the great poet, 
 
 1 Is there a Shakespeare Problem ? p. 472.
 
 G6 ALIA ENORMIA 
 
 in this respect also, into harmony with Farmer's theory 
 of a man who did not know the meaning of the simplest 
 words whether in Latin or in French. x\ccordingiy, we 
 find him suggesting " that the playwright was really not 
 a man of supremely large vocabulary /or liis time." ^ 
 
 I now come to matters of personal controversy which 
 will, I fear, be of little or no interest to the general 
 reader. I feel bound to deal with tliem, however, for 
 the reasons which I have already stated. I am consoled 
 by the thought that those who have read to this point — 
 if, indeed, any have had the patience to get so far — are 
 under no obligation to proceed further. 
 
 Mr. Robertson charges me with having made an untrue 
 statement with regard to his treatment of certain argu- 
 ments advanced by Professor Churton Collins with refer- 
 ence to the question of Shakespeare's alleged familiarity 
 with the classics, and, in order that this charge may be 
 fairly stated, I will quote Mr. Robertson's own words : — 
 
 " x\fter citing on pp. 150-151 [of 7s there a ShakesjJeare 
 Problem .?] certain arguments of Professor Churton Collins 
 and others on the question of Shakespeare's classical 
 scholarship, Mr. Greenwood writes (p. 151) : — 
 
 ' Of all these, and numerous other arguments to the same 
 effect, j\Ir. Robertson has really nothing to say — except it be 
 that similar classical allusions may be found in John Taylor, 
 
 the Water Poet Mr. Robertson makes no attempt to deal 
 
 with Professor Collins's arguments here, or indeed at all.' ^ 
 
 " Now, Mr. Greenwood had before him my book on 
 Montaigne mid Shahes'peare (2nd ed.), from which he 
 frequently quotes ; and the reader, on turning to that, 
 will find (1) that I deal (pp. 308-336) with fifteen items 
 of Professor Collins's case (' I think, all that is significant,' 
 were my words), besides devoting eighteen jiciges to him 
 in the introduction ; (2) that I expressly deal with special 
 
 1 The Bacovian Heresy, p. 521. Bly italics. What meaning is to be 
 attaclied to the words "for his time" I confess I do not know. Is it 
 suggested that Elizabethan vocabularies were normally much larger than 
 those of the present day, and that, though Shakespeare's vocabulary may 
 be "supremely large" for the twentietli century, it was not so for the 
 seventeenth century? If this is not the meaning, 1 cannot conceive 
 what is. 
 
 2 The italics are Mr. Robertson's.
 
 ALIA ENOEMIA 67 
 
 points stressed by Mr. Greenwood." " Here, clearly, 
 there can be no question of ' misunderstanding,' no possi- 
 bility of a forensic defence such as Mr. Greenwood is so 
 greatly given to. He has simply suffered from a total 
 lapse of memory " {Literary Guide, January, 1916, p. 9). 
 
 " Forensic," as I have already pointed out, is, seem- 
 ingly, considered by Mr. Robertson a very telling epithet 
 as applied to me, I suppose because 1 was once a prac- 
 tising barrister. But an argument is not necessarily 
 ineffectual because it is suited to the environment of 
 a Court of Justice. The question is whether it be true 
 or false. If it be true, it is no worse for being " forensic." 
 However, let us see how the case stands against me with 
 reference to this particular charge. 
 
 And, first, I must direct attention to the passage 
 purporting to be quoted by Mr. Robertson from my 
 book, at page 151. It will be seen that it commences 
 with the words, " Of all these and numerous other 
 arguments," and concludes with the words, " Mr. 
 Robertson makes no attempt to deal with Professor 
 Collins's arguments here, or, indeed, at all." 
 
 Now, the fact is that there is no such passage in my 
 book. Mr. Robertson has taken some words which 
 occur on page 150, and in the first line of page 151, 
 of that book, and quoted them as following after some 
 words which occur at the bottom of the latter page ! 
 
 It is not usual, so far as I am aware, thus, without 
 notice to the reader, to invert the order of two passages 
 taken from a book under criticism, but, doubtless, Mr. 
 Robertson had some good reason for so doing ; in fact, 
 the words, as thus cited, are much more convenient for 
 his argument. It is an artifice which might, really, 
 almost be called " forensic " ! I am, however, going to 
 take the liberty of considering the two passages in their 
 proper order, and I think it will be found that it is not 
 immaterial to do so. 
 
 Farmer had asserted that in Prospero's famous speech, 
 commencing " Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, 
 and groves " {The Tempest, v, 1), Shakespeare had merely 
 followed Gelding's translation of Ovid's Metamorplwses
 
 68 ALIA ENOEMIA 
 
 (vii, 197-206). Professor Collins, however, brought 
 forward arguments, conclusive as I think, to prove 
 that the poet, although, doubtless, making use of 
 Golding's version, must have worked with the Latin 
 original also before him, for in Prospero's speech we 
 find English equivalents to certain expressions in the 
 original which are altogether ignored in Golding's trans- 
 lation. Now it was with regard to these particular 
 arguments that I wrote : " Mr. Eobertson makes no 
 attempt to deal with Professor Gollins's arguments here, 
 or, indeed, at all " ; and, so far as I am aware, that 
 assertion is strictly true, for I find no attempt made by 
 Mr. Eobertson to deal with these particular arguments 
 either in The Baconian Heresy or in Montaigne and 
 Shakespeare, unless, indeed, I am to be told that he 
 makes such an attempt at p. 309 of the latter work, 
 where he refers to Dr. Maginn's rejoinder to Farmer. 
 Here, after quoting from Golding, " Ye airs and winds, 
 ye elves of hills," etc., he writes : — 
 
 " This is one of the many cases in which Farmer 
 logically and convincingly rebutted the mistaken claims 
 of the commentators ; and Maginn's rejoinder is naught. 
 He can but argue (and in this plea Professor Collins has 
 followed him) that Shakespeare at several points repro- 
 duces some ideas which are in Ovid's lines, but not in 
 Golding's version. Now, tcaiving the possibility that 
 Shakespeare had heard at the Mermaid a discussion of 
 Golding's translation,^ and assuming that he had actually 
 compared it with the original, we should simply have 
 before us a fact in keeping with Jonson's ' small Latin,' 
 not at all a proof that he was familiar with the classics. 
 The classical case has so far broken down."^ 
 
 If any one should call this " an attempt to deal " with 
 Professor Gollins's detailed arguments with reference to 
 this passage, I can only say that we differ as to the 
 meaning of language/ 
 
 • See Is there a Shakespeare Problem / pp. 150, 151. 
 
 2 My italics. "i My italics. 
 
 ^ See Studies in Shakespeare, pv- 36-38. Mr. Robertson here makes the 
 assumption that Shakespeare mif.;ht have compared Golding's translation 
 with the original, and might, therefore, have been able to read the original.
 
 ALIA ENORMIA G9 
 
 Let me now come to tlie passage from my book whicli 
 Ml'. Eobertson has put first in tlie alleged quotation, 
 though, as a fact, it stands after the passage which he 
 has chosen to put last. The two passages are, in fact, 
 distinct (not one, as they are represented by Mr. 
 Robertson), and refer respectively to different argu- 
 ments. If the reader will turn — I admit I can hardly 
 expect liim to do so — to p. 151 of /.s there a Shakespeare 
 Problem ? he will see that I there make reference to (l) 
 Professor CoUins's argument founded on Shakespeare's 
 use of the word " Titania." ' (2) Mr. E. A. Sonnen- 
 schein's proof that Shakesjieare drew upon Seneca's 
 De Cleinentia for Portia's great speech. (3) Some argu- 
 ments of my own founded on the fact that Shakespeare's 
 last two Sonnets are simply adaptations of a Greek 
 epigram of Marianus. 
 
 I then go on to say, as quoted : "Of all these and 
 numerous arguments to the same effect, Mr. Robertson 
 has really nothing to say," &c. Well, I admit my error. 
 I had in mind The Baconian Heresy only when I so 
 wrote. I ought, no doubt, to have turned to Montaigne 
 and Shakespeare, for there (p. 317) Mr. Robertson has, 
 at any rate, something to say as to " Titania "—used by 
 Shakespeare as a proper name, and not as an epithet as 
 in the original Latin — and as to Seneca's De dementia, 
 though I do not think he has anywhere thought it worth 
 while to discuss my suggestions witli reference to Sonnets 
 cliii and cliv. 
 
 To this extent, therefore, I must cry viea culpa, and 
 express regret for the error. But I would point out that 
 Mr. Robertson's topsy-turvy quotation, and his remarks 
 thereon, appear to suggest that when I wrote " Of all 
 these and numerous other arguments to the same effect," 
 I was referring to Professor CoUins's arguments only, 
 which I have now demonstrated is not the fact. 
 
 and to understand it. at least to some extent. Yet lie is a professed follower 
 of Farmer, who, as Professor Collins says (work cited, p. 8), contended "that 
 Sliakespeare had no classical knowledge at all"— that he could not under- 
 stand the simplest Latin words like " praeclarissiiiius " or " praecarissimus," 
 for example. 
 1 See that writer's Studies in Shakespeare, p. 36.
 
 70 ALIA ENOEMIA 
 
 I should be more sorry for my mistake — which, after 
 all, is not, I think, a very serious one — were it not for 
 the manner in which Mr. Eobertson is pleased to deal 
 with it. He knows that some two years since I met 
 with a painful accident, and it seemingly affords him 
 much pleasure to be always harping upon this un- 
 fortunate occurrence with exquisite sarcasm. Thus, with 
 reference to the matter in question, he writes (January, 
 1916) : " On his part, of course, I must treat the lapse as 
 pathological"; and again (February, 1916), concerning 
 another slip to be considered presently : " The patho- 
 logical solution suffices here." I leave it to my readers 
 to judge of the temper, taste, and spirit of one who could 
 so write. 
 
 Mr. Eobertson, in The Baconian Heresy (p. 36), had, 
 by a strange oversight, quoted and criticized as mine 
 some words which I had cited from Professor Churton 
 Collins's Studies in Shakespeare, whereupon I, not 
 unnaturally, took exception to his " negligence " in 
 ascribing to me, as thougli they were part of my argu- 
 ment, words cited by me from Mr. Churton Collins.^ 
 What says Mr. Eobertson as to this ? 
 
 " One real grievance Mr. Greenwood has against 
 me — an accidental ascription to him of a passage he 
 had quoted from Mr. Churton Collins. As to that, 
 I had personally offered him the reparation of insert- 
 ing an erratum slip in the remaining copies of my 
 book, correcting the mistake, and explaining that Mr. 
 Greenwood had only endorsed the cited proposition 
 in several other passages. That proposal he nega- 
 tived [my italics] , as he well might, seeing that he 
 had actually adopted the passage. Yet he treats the 
 matter as an actual misrepresentation." {Literary 
 Guide, February, 1916.) 
 
 It is sufficient here to reprint my reply to this which 
 appeared in the Literary Guide for April, 1916 : — 
 
 " Mr. Eobertson, having by mistake ascribed to 
 
 ' Is there a Shakespeare Problem' pp. 40-41.
 
 ALIA ENORMIA 71 
 
 me a passage which I had quoted from Mr. Churton 
 CoUins, now says that he offered to insert an erratum 
 slip, correcting the mistake — with an addendum of 
 his own — but that I ' negatived that proposal.' 
 Surely tliis latter statement is just a little absurd on 
 the face of it ! Since when has it been the custom 
 for an author whose work has been misquoted by 
 another to be called upon by the offender either to 
 accept or ' negative ' a correction V When Mr. 
 Eobertson found that he had made a mistake (which, 
 by the way, I have never charged as ' misrepresen- 
 tation,' but only as an example of ' haste ' and care- 
 lessness — see Is there a Shakespeare Problem ? p. 41) 
 I should have thought he would have been anxious 
 to correct it for his own sake. He has, however, 
 preferred to let it remain uncorrected. I am not 
 surprised, but the statement that I am in any way 
 responsible for the omission I entirely deny. It has 
 no warrant whatever." 
 
 Now, as a set-off to this mistake of his, Mr. Robertson, 
 not unnaturally, made reference to a blunder of my own. 
 In a note to p. 211 of Is tlicrc a Shakespeare Problem '^ I 
 had stated that the first edition of Mr. Robertson's Mon- 
 taigne and Shakespeare " showed a facsimile of Shake- 
 speare's supposed autograph in the Britisln Museum copy 
 of Florio's translation (of Montaigne's Essays) ; but, as 
 the highest authorities have pronounced the signature an 
 undoubted forgery, it has been wisely suppressed in the 
 second edition." 
 
 Here I regret to say my memory played me false. Mr. 
 Robertson's first edition of Montaigne and Shakespeare 
 did not publish the facsimile referred to. My statement, 
 it will be observed, contained no reflection on Mr. Robert- 
 son ; on the contrary, it rather bears witness to his 
 wisdom in this instance. It would have been natural 
 enough had he published the facsimile of a signature 
 which Sir F. Madden thought to be authentic, and it 
 would have been wise to withch-aw it when pronounced a 
 forgery by Sir E. Maunde Thompson. In truth, however.
 
 72 ALIA ENORMIA 
 
 this facsimile did not appear in Mr. Robertson's book. 
 It was, he says, simply an " hallucination " of mine, for 
 which " the pathological solution " suffices. 
 
 But what are the facts '? Mr. Robertson's first edition 
 of Montaigne and Shakespeare — then called Montaigne 
 and Shakspere — published in 1897, contained the follow- 
 ing statement : " It is quite possible that Shakspere may 
 have seen parts of Florio's translation before 1603, or 
 heard passages fr.om it read, or even that he might have 
 read Montaigne in the original. But as his possession of 
 the translation is made certain by the pireservation of the 
 copy beariny his autogrop)h, and as it is from Florio that 
 he is seen to have copied in the passages where his copy- 
 ing is beyond dispute, it is on Florio's translation that 
 we must pi-oceed " (pp. 12-13 ; my italics). 
 
 It will be seen, therefore, that Mr. Robertson, in his 
 Montaigne and Shakspere, though he had not published 
 a facsimile ot the forged signature, had committed himself 
 to its authenticity, and it is this passage which he has 
 now " wisely suppressed " in his second edition — ^a 
 passage which I should have been well content to quote 
 had it not been for my unfortunate lapse of memory, 
 " pathological " or otherwise. 
 
 It is this error of mine which Mr. Robertson sets side 
 by side with his own " lapse " in attributing to me words 
 which I had quoted from Mr. Churton Collins. He 
 omits to say, however, that immediately I discovered the 
 mistake I caused an erratum page to be inserted in my 
 book (I did not ask Mr. Robertson whether he would 
 accept or " negative " it !), in which I expressed my regret 
 and apologized for tlie slip. I am quite content to leave 
 the comparison of these two cases of error, and the 
 manner in which they were respectively dealt with, to 
 the judgment of my readers. I may add, however, that 
 my own mistake no longer appears in my book, as I had, 
 some time previously to the publication of Mr. Robertson's 
 article in the Literary Guide, arranged for a new issue in 
 which p. 211 has been corrected and reprinted. 
 
 In Is there a Shakespeare Problem ? (pp. 215-217) 
 I commented at some length on the fact that " Sheridan
 
 ALIA ENORMIA 73 
 
 could write immortal plays when he knew little or 
 nothing of the theatre and ' stage technique ' — when 
 he had served no ' apprenticeship ' — and wrote a very 
 bad one when he had long inhaled ' the scent of the 
 footlights'"; and in a footnote I quoted from an article 
 in the English Review for July, 1913, by Mr. Arnold 
 Bennett, wherein he discourses concerning the " enormous 
 amount of vague reverential nonsense " which, he tells us, 
 " is talked about the techni(iue of the stage," making 
 reference to Shakespeare, Sardou, Henri Bernstein, Sir 
 Herbert Tree, Dion Boucicault, and others, but saying 
 no word as to Sheridan. 
 
 What is Mr. Eobertson's criticism on this ? He pro- 
 nounces ex cathedra that in my latest book I have 
 " added worse arguments to bad, as when he argues 
 
 that Sheridan, the son of an actor, knew nothing of 
 stage technique when he began to write plays. As usual, 
 Mr. Greenwood has been hypnotized by an authority, in 
 this case Mr. Bennett, of whom he makes facile misuse" 
 {Literary Guide, February, 1916, p. 27). 
 
 These remarks provide the reader with an excellent 
 measure of ^Ir. Robertson's accuracy. It so happens 
 that all I have written concerning Sheridan in 7s there 
 a Shakespeare Problem ? had previously appeared in an 
 earlier book. In re Shakespeare, which I published in 
 1909, four years before Mr. Arnold Bennett's article 
 above referred to had seen the light. Moreover, as I 
 have already said, there is no word concerning Sheridan 
 in that article. According to Mr. Robertson, therefore, 
 I was hypnotized by an " authority " which I had not 
 seen, on a matter about which that authority says 
 nothing. It is a fair sample of Mr. Eobertson's reckless 
 style of criticism. ' 
 
 But a few more words, and, I am thankful to say, my 
 " heavy task " will be done. 
 
 One who is not habitually as solemn as a judge and 
 as dismal as a mute at a funeral is always at a dis- 
 
 1 Were I liable to be "hypnotized by authority," I hardly think I should 
 be found among "heretics" with regard to the Shakespearean authorship.
 
 74 ALIA ENORMIA 
 
 advantage when brought into controversy with Professor 
 Dryasdust. Anything intended to be jocular — anything 
 in the nature of " chafi' " or hadinage — is always taken 
 by him au pied de la lettre and cm grand serienx. Let 
 me give two examples of this in the present case. 
 
 Mr. Robei-tson, in The Baconian Heresy (pp. 38-39), 
 after remarking that he had spent four and a-half years 
 of his " youthful life " in a Scotch law-office, where, 
 however, he " was immensely more interested in litera- 
 ture than in law," proceeds to say that " in Scotch 
 law they do not, to my recollection, speak of ' caveats,' 
 which word is, therefore, for me simple English, and not 
 'jargon.'" . ,. . . 
 
 My comment upon this was : I note that caveat ' is 
 for Mr. Eobertson ' simple English,' though for most 
 others it is simple Latin." 
 
 Now, I really should have thought it would have been 
 self-evident that this was not a solemn criticism, but 
 the most obvious badinage. " Caveat for me is ' simple 
 English,' " says Mr. Robertson. It seemed so natural 
 to retort, with just a spice of jocularity in the ink : 
 " Well, really, I should myself have said it was ' simple 
 Latin '" ! 
 
 But Mr. Robertson takes it all ait grand serienx. It 
 is a most pedantic criticism this of mine, and " pedantry 
 that miscarries is twice unblest." So he solemnly 
 
 assures his readers that "not only for Bacon but 
 
 for other men, ' caveat ' was an English word in Tudor 
 times, as it has been ever since, even as fiat and veto 
 and exit, and a hundred other words, are English for 
 educated men, though they happen also to be Latin."" 
 How absolute the knave is ! We must speak by the 
 card. 
 
 Here is another illustration. Mr. Robertson writes 
 concerning the word " purchase " : "I will simply clear 
 
 1 Is there a ShaJcespeare Problem :' p. 39. 
 
 2 Literary Guide, February, 1916. I am not concerned to dispute this 
 statement, but it is sometimes rather difficult to say when a Latin word 
 becomes an English word as well. We speak of "a, fieri facias." Is, then. 
 " fieri facias" an English word? "Caveat" is certainly the third person 
 singular of the present subjunctive of the verb cavere. Is it "English" 
 also •?
 
 ALIA ENOEMIA 75 
 
 the matter up by citing many instances of the use of 
 the quasi-' legal ' use of the word in other writers and 
 dramatists " {The Baconian Heresy, p. 99 ; my itahcs). 
 
 Now% there is an old rule, well known to lawyers, 
 which came into existence some time after the passing 
 of the Statute of Uses, that the law will not tolerate 
 " a use upon a use." To one, therefore, who was not 
 born under the sign of Saturn, and who has a tempera- 
 ment unaffected with the dour solemnity of the typical 
 undertaker, or of the ' Scotch law-office," it was most 
 natural, and, indeed, irresistible, to comment here as 
 I did — viz., to "remind Mr. Kobertson that the law 
 does not allow ' a use upon a use,' and that literature 
 might well follow law in this respect ! " 
 
 Mr. Robertson takes this in the most tragic style. Mr. 
 Greenwood, he says, '' portentousltj writes" as above! 
 If he wanted an adverb of adverse criticism, he would 
 have been better advised had he said " flippantly." He 
 might have characterized it as " vacant chaff," but he 
 will take it solemnly as " meant for grain " ! Of course, 
 I recognized that the repetition of the w^ord " use " was 
 a mere slip of the pen, and I had no idea of making any 
 capital out of it further than to say that the uncorrected 
 sentence is one of the indications I have found that Mr. 
 Robertson's " magnum oiius " was put together in haste. 
 And this, I think, is a true criticism, for I understand 
 both author and publisher have boasted that the book 
 was written and published in "record time." But the 
 idea that anything can be intended to be taken in a 
 jocular vein seems to be foreign to Mr. Robertson's 
 nature, so let him who enters into controversy with Pro- 
 fessor Dryasdust beware of jocosity. Should he deviate 
 by one hair's breadth from the lich-path of solemn 
 seriousness, " pedantic " and " portentous " are the 
 mildest epithets that he will bring upon his devoted head. 
 
 Then Mr. Robertson, being misled, as I venture to think, 
 by his imperviousness to anything in the shape of 
 humorous suggestion into supposing that I have been 
 
 seeking to make capital out of the misprints in an oppo- 
 nent's book" (which I should be the last to do, knowing
 
 76 ALIA ENOEMIA 
 
 full well how liable I am myself to make slips and errors),' 
 proceeds, not unnaturally, to unearth an absurd mistake 
 of my own in my first " Shakespearean" book published 
 more than nine years ago. And truly he has a right to 
 hold up to ridicule — I was about to say " make merry 
 over"; but that expression would hardly be appropriate 
 to Mr. Eobertson's peculiar style — what he justly calls 
 my " monumental ' howler ' " in writing " the second 
 foot of a dactyl." I am quite prepared to be pilloried for 
 such an egregious slip, and I only wish I could picture 
 Mr. Eobertson indulging in a good hearty laugh over the 
 ridiculous blunder. It might do him good.'^ 
 
 But it is not only for " howlers " that Mr. Eobertson 
 has been ransacking my books. He has been searching 
 for instances of strong or violent language in order, 
 apparently, that he may justify his own ; and he tells us 
 that in my " first book" and in " the present volume" 
 (viz., Is there a Shakespeare Problem?) he^has lighted 
 upon " such epithets as ' drivel,' ' ridiculous,' ' squalid and 
 illiterate Stratford,' ' ridiculously irrelevant,' ' amazing,' 
 ' ludicrously irrelevant,' ' post-prandial eloquence,' ' pre- 
 posterous,' ' silly,' ' solemn nonsense,' applied to the 
 persons, places, and theses of his [i.e., my] animosity " — 
 to say nothing of the word " absurdity " applied to some 
 of Mr. Eobertson's reasoning at some place in my first 
 book. 
 
 I will not waste much time over this " derangement of 
 epitaphs " ; but a few words may, I think, be said. 
 
 Take the word " drivel." It is certainly an unpleasant 
 "epithet," and the reader has, probably, been led to 
 imagine that I have applied it to Mr. Eobertson. As it 
 happens, however, that is not the fact. In a footnote to 
 be found in The Shakespeare Problem Bestated (1908) 
 I wrote, after commenting upon some Shakespearean 
 theories which seemed to me ridiculous : " Truly the 
 
 1 Mr. Robertson's little slips, however, are not (luite accurately described 
 by him as "niisin-ints." , , . ,■ 
 
 ■•i Were I (lisiKjseil "to make capital" out of I\Ir. llobertson s slips or mis- 
 prints, I nii«ht refer to sucli errors as "in iure rii'i/c" (work cited, p. 8'2), 
 " the ver))s tlDrmior (sic) and morior " (p. I'iO), "suum quique" (p. 171), and 
 "Si tilji non corda fuerant conuubia nostra" (p. '209).
 
 ALIA ENORMIA 77 
 
 Baconians have not a monopoly of drivel." Mr. 
 Robertson, apparently, sees offence in this. I presume 
 he wishes the " epithet " to be strictly limited to " the 
 Baconians." I am sorry that I cannot af,'ree with him. 
 
 But, worse still, I have even described Stratford in the 
 sixteenth century as " squalid and illiterate." Id sane 
 intolerandum. This is laying hands upon the very ark 
 of the covenant. It is not to be endured ! It may be 
 quite true that Stratford was a squalid and illiterate 
 place at the time referred to — -indeed, there is plenty of 
 evidence to that effect ; but, if so, it must not be said. 
 Favete Unguis. It makes Mr. Robertson's blood boil. I 
 might have used such epithets with impunity with regard 
 to Bethlehem or Nazareth, because, of course, Jesus was 
 not a " historical " person. But about Stratford it is 
 rank blasphemy ! 
 
 Then tliere is " post-prandial eloquence." What 
 " f rightfulness " ! Surely worthy of the Huns ! But it 
 so happened that I was speaking of a lady who had 
 made an after-dinner speech about Shakespeare, and 
 published it. She herself says it was an " impromptu 
 speech," and in criticizing some of the statements made 
 therein I speak of the lady's "post-prandial eloquence." 
 I can see no offence here, but Mr. Robertson, so noted 
 for his extremely restrained and temperate and courteous 
 language, apparently includes this expression in tlie 
 " cloud of invective " which he attributes to me. 
 
 Over the other epithets I will not delay. I think they 
 will be found to be abundantly justified by their context. 
 Mr. Robertson, transferring his own feelings to liis 
 opponent, in quite characteristic fashion, refers to them 
 as evidence of my " animosity," and then complains that 
 " the rest of us may not even say ' sheer absurdity ' or 
 ' cavil ' under penalty of having ' ian ' added to our 
 names." 
 
 Now, I do not know that I have ever complained of 
 Mr. Robertson's habitual characterization of my argu- 
 ments as " sheer absurdity," or of his equally habitual 
 
 1 See Is there a Shakespeare Problem ? Appendix C.
 
 78 ALIA ENORMIA 
 
 designation of any criticism of mine as a " cavil " — an 
 " epithet " of which he is so enamom-ed that he repeats 
 it thrice on two successive pages (pp. 564-65). I 
 have not complained — far from it — of such delightful 
 pleasantries as his reference to that " amazing argu- 
 ment " of mine, which he will " leave standing in its 
 naked absurdity " — an argument which is but " a tissue 
 of error and paralogism." I have recognized such things 
 as just "pretty Fanny's way " — as the habitual style of 
 this very gentle perfect knight ; a style which is, of 
 course, neither "embittered" not "invalid," and w^iich 
 stands in need of no " pathological " excuse. I have, 
 however, ventured to suggest that an argument is not 
 necessarily " absurd " just because Mr. Robertson 
 chooses to call it so, nor is a serious criticism properly 
 described as a "cavil" just because this refined and 
 sensitive controversialist is so taken wdth the word 
 that he scatters it at random over his pages. 
 
 As to Mr. Robertson's complaint with regard to the 
 suffix " ian," I do not quite understand his objection to 
 it. It is applied without offence to greater men than 
 Mr. Robertson. If we may say " Shavian," surely we 
 are at liberty to say " Robertsonian " ! Are we to sup- 
 pose that Mr. Robertson looks upon such an expression 
 as another opprobrious epithet to be classed with what 
 he calls my " invective " ? If not, where is the " penalty " 
 of which he speaks ? 
 
 But Mr. J. M. Robertson's complaint of my epithets 
 surely comes somewhat strangely from Mr. J. M. 
 Robertson ! Quis tulerit Gracchos cle seditione quer- 
 entes ? It was in view of his own unrestrained con- 
 troversial style that I wrote {Is there a Shakcsi^care 
 Problem ? p. 10) : " Here let me say that Mr. Robertson 
 has been so very frank and outspoken in his expression 
 of opinion concerning my views and arguments that he 
 has relieved me of all necessity to mince my words when 
 dealing with his book. If, therefore, my language should 
 be found to be somewhat vigorous at times, he will, I am 
 sure, recognize in it that sincerest form of flattery which 
 consists of imitation."
 
 ALIA ENORMIA 79 
 
 Ml-. Robertson, having styled my argument " the most 
 consummate paralogism in the literature of biography," 
 is now pleased to speak of my " indignation " over his 
 use of such a term; and he once more, with that exquisite 
 good taste of his, assures his readers that " the patholo- 
 gical solution " is sufficient to account for it. Yet, in 
 truth and in fact, as he well knows, I have never written 
 or spoken a word to justify the imputation to me of such 
 a feeling as '' indignation " — save the mark ! — -on account 
 of this characteristic pronouncement of his. That is just 
 one of his " many inventions," and " paralogism " is just 
 one of those long and imposing words which are dear to 
 his heart because they give such an air of erudition to 
 his writings — a word suggestive of scientific learning ; a 
 word to " tickle the groundlings " withal. Most critics 
 would be content to speak of my arguments as " falla- 
 cious," if they so regarded them. But that, of course, 
 would not do for Mr. Robertson. He must needs have a 
 fine impressive "dictionary" word, such as " paralogism "! 
 I should be the last to complain of such a word, so 
 applied, nor have I ever done so. I have merely smiled. 
 
 But ohe, iam satis. " Time is our tedious song should 
 here have ending," and I will conclude this booklet as I 
 concluded my second article in the Literary Chi id e : — 
 
 I now leave the Right Honourable gentleman to 
 chew the cud of his ' exposure ' — whether of me or of 
 himself I leave it to my readers to say. Notwithstanding 
 the extreme bitterness and irritation with which he 
 writes, I feel grateful to him for giving me this oppor- 
 tunity of demonstrating (l) how entirely unsubstantial 
 are the charges which he has brought against me, and 
 (2) how wholly imaginary are his pretensions to instruct 
 us on any question of Shakespeare's legal or classical 
 knowledge. The cobbler should, really, stick to his last."
 
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