sciolist's temerity of indulgence in the terms of an unfamiliar
art. No legal solecisms will be found. The abstrusest elements of
the common law are impressed into a disciplined service. Over and
over again, where such knowledge is unexampled in writers unlearned
in the law, Shakespeare appears in perfect possession of it. In
the law of real property, its rules of tenure and descents, its
entails, its fines and recoveries, their vouchers and double
vouchers, in the procedure of the Courts, the method of bringing
writs and arrests, the nature of actions, the rules of pleading,
the law of escapes and of contempt of court, in the principles of
evidence, both technical and philosophical, in the distinction
between the temporal and spiritual tribunals, in the law of
attainder and forfeiture, in the requisites of a valid marriage, in
the presumption of legitimacy, in the learning of the law of
prerogative, in the inalienable character of the Crown, this
mastership appears with surprising authority."

To all this testimony (and there is much more which I have not
cited) may now be added that of a great lawyer of our own times,
viz.: Sir James Plaisted Wilde, Q.C. created a Baron of the
Exchequer in 1860, promoted to the post of Judge-Ordinary and Judge
of the Courts of Probate and Divorce in 1863, and better known to
the world as Lord Penzance, to which dignity he was raised in 1869.
Lord Penzance, as all lawyers know, and as the late Mr. Inderwick,
K.C., has testified, was one of the first legal authorities of his
day, famous for his "remarkable grasp of legal principles," and
"endowed by nature with a remarkable facility for marshalling
facts, and for a clear expression of his views."

Lord Penzance speaks of Shakespeare's "perfect familiarity with not