Rose entered the proceedings upon record in the following pithy lines : Mr. Leach Made a speech Angry, neat, but wrong; Mr. Hart, On the other part. Was heavy, dull, and long; Mr. Parker Made the case darker Which was dark enough without : Mr. Cook cited his book, And the Chancellor said: " 1 doubt." The heirs of Sir Thomas Talbot began a suit for property in Gloucester in the reign of Edward IV. and finally compounded it in that of James I. after a continued litigation of 1 20 years. Nor was this an exceptional instance. Richard, Earl of Warwick, mar ried Elizabeth Berkely, and a suit for the lordship was instituted in 1 609. For the next fifty years resort was had with varying success to arms and to law, when hostilities ceased and the law was allowed to take its course for 190 years and the suit was then decided. The case of Hales v. Petit — which ap pears among the records of Trinity term, 3 Elizabeth, Rot. 921 — throws much light up on the construction of Act V. in Hamlet, and I am confident that a careful perusal of the report will compel the conviction that the idea for Scene 1 was obtained from this case. The play was written shortly after, the case was tried, the resemblance is palpable, all the circumstances are conclusive and the colloquy between the grave-diggers bears a ludicrous similarity to the arguments of the counsel and was probably intended as satire or burlesque. Sir James Hales died the death of Ophelia, and, according to the old English law, sui cide was a felony, subjecting the offender to a forfeiture of his possessions. At the coro ner's inquest " it was presented that the afore said Hales, not having God before his eyes, but seduced by the arts of the devil, volun tarily entered into the said river and himself
therein feloniously drowned." In Hamlet the clown asks, " Is she to have a Christian burial that seeks her own salvation?" The second clown replies, "The coroner hath set on her and finds it Christian burial. For here lies the point. If I drown myself wit tingly it argues an act, and an act hath three branches : it is to act, to do, and to perform, argal, she drowned herself wittingly." A similar train of reasoning brings the lawyers to the conclusion that Sir James Hales drowned himself wittingly. " Sir James Hales was dead, and how came he to his death? " It may be answered by drowning. And who drowned him? Sir James Hales. So that Sir James Hales being alive, caused Sir James Hales to die; argal the act of the living man was the death of the dead man. The cause of the death is the act done in the party's lifetime. And Walsh said that the act con sists of three branches : " To imagine, to re solve, and to perform." From similar postulates the clown draws the absurd conclusion " Argal, he that is not guilty of his death shortens not his own life," and very gravely assures us " this is coroner's-quest law." Depend upon it, that scene is not a mere meaningless bandying of wit but had a local bearing and signification which was appreciated by those for whom it was written. It is difficult to decide which is the most ludicrous, the absurd subtile finesse of the lawyers, in the report, or the blundering satire and wit of the clown in the play. I trust I shall be acquitted of com plicity in Donnelly's plot to disenthrone the bard of Avon, but the circumstantial evi dence favors the pretensions of the lawyerphilosopher, and its weight cannot be dissi pated by pleading the universality of the Shakesperean genius. Genius reveals fun damental truth, but does not impart particu lar facts. The legal knowledge evinced in this as well as his other plays and the accu rate use of technical terminology could only come from proficiency in the science. The evidence of the old reports compels the con
