It is altogether characteristic of Mr. Churton Collins that he,
nevertheless, adopts this exploded myth. "That Shakespeare was in
early life employed as a clerk in an attorney's office, may be
correct. At Stratford there was by royal charter a Court of Record
sitting every fortnight, with six attorneys, beside the town clerk,
belonging to it, and it is certainly not straining probability to
suppose that the young Shakespeare may have had employment in one
of them. There is, it is true, no tradition to this effect, but
such traditions as we have about Shakespeare's occupation between
the time of leaving school and going to London are so loose and
baseless that no confidence can be placed in them. It is, to say
the least, more probable that he was in an attorney's office than
that he was a butcher killing calves 'in a high style,' and making
speeches over them."

This is a charming specimen of Stratfordian argument. There is, as
we have seen, a very old tradition that Shakespeare was a butcher's
apprentice. John Dowdall, who made a tour in Warwickshire in 1693,
testifies to it as coming from the old clerk who showed him over
the church, and it is unhesitatingly accepted as true by Mr.
Halliwell-Phillipps. (Vol I, p. 11, and see Vol. II, p. 71, 72.)
Mr. Sidney Lee sees nothing improbable in it, and it is supported
by Aubrey, who must have written his account some time before 1680,
when his manuscript was completed. Of the attorney's clerk
hypothesis, on the other hand, there is not the faintest vestige of
a tradition. It has been evolved out of the fertile imaginations
of embarrassed Stratfordians, seeking for some explanation of the
Stratford rustic's marvellous acquaintance with law and legal terms
and legal life. But Mr. Churton Collins has not the least