Shakspere's Law—The Case of Shylock [pp. 83-87]

1886.] Sliakspere's Law- Tihe Case of Sliylock. 8;
but the small wooden crosses and piles of After assisting in putting "Dutchy"into
stones beside them, marking the graves, in- irons in the guard-house for mutiny, and
dicated that it had not always been as peace- turning over our prisoners to the command ful as it looked then. ing officer of that post, I rested a few days,
We finally crossed the Sierra de Teres, and and went back to the Mexican line with oth came out into a broad valley, and two days er scouts going to Mexico, and began anew
after camped near the town of Fronteras, my wanderings over the dusty plains and
where we were objects of great curiosity and rugged mountains of Arizona and New Mex visited by almost the entire population. Af- ico.
ter several days of marching over an inter- I did not return to Crawford's command,
estingcountry, wearrived at Fort Bowie, Ari- and never again saw him. A few months
zona, to learn that we had been reported later his tragic death at the hands of the
massacred by the Indians, our prisoners re- Mexicans put an end to an honorable and usecaptured, and that a party had been sent af- ful life, and deprived us of the services of a
ter us. conscientious officer and a just commander.
Robert Hanna.
SHAKSPERE'S LAW-THE CASE OF SHYLOCK.
A LETTER T'O LAWRENCE BARRETT.
SHAKSPERE'S legal knowledge, or rather scene presents a plaintiff, a defendant, and a
the accuracy of his expressions, whenever he judge-characters essential to litigation unalludes to legal subjects, has often been re- der any system of procedure-there is no remarked, and is one of the arguments urged semblance in the proceedings on the stage
in support of the conjecture that the plays to anything that could possibly occur in an
published under his name were really the English court, or any court administering
work of Lord Bacon. The suggestion is that English law. No jury is impanelled to deno man who had not received alegal educa- termine the facts, no witnesses called by
tion could have been so uniformly accurate either side; on the contrary, when the court
in the use of technical language, and in his opens, the Duke who presides is already fully
casual references to legal principles, maxims informed of the facts, and has even communiof jurisprudence, and modes of procedure in cated them, in writing, to Bellario, a learned
court. Others account for this familiarity doctor of Padua, and invited him to come
with the subject by supposing he spent a and render judgment in the case. After his
a s he. eome here today."