Some Virginia Lawyers of the Past and Present. was not even a tyro in the science of juris prudence." GORDON: " I challenge your proof." Green : " He showed utter ignorance of the simplest maxims of law in the decision of the case in re Shylock." Gordon : " Who ever heard it called, in re Shylock." GREEN : " I know no other way to cite it, but I affirm the de cision was utterly ab surd. Youadmitthat when A grants any thing to B the law implies with it the grant to all that is necessary to the en joyment of the thing granted. Therefore when Antonio grant ed to Shylock a pound of flesh to be taken from about his heart, the law implied that so much blood was granted with the flesh as must be shed in order to gain legal possession of the pound of flesh grant ed. But Mrs. Justice Portia held that he could not take the JAMES W. flesh because blood would be shed in doing so, which blood was not granted, contrary to the simplest maxims of the horn-books of the law. Hence I say, Shakespeare knew nothing of law." At this point Mr. Hollyday interposed : "But, Mr. Green, may not the decision be vindicated on the old case of Collins against Beauton. This was not a case of grant. It was an executory, not an executed contract. A contract to take flesh and blood from the heart of a man, involved his life; it was a contract against law and for crime. It was void, and could not be enforced."
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Green (with all the gravity of a barrister in the appellate court) : "The point of Mr. Hollyday is very ingenious. I will look to see if the authorities sustain it. But, General, if well taken, it leaves my contention un touched, for as Mrs. Justice Portia based her decision on the ground I objected to, and did not assign as a reason for it that offered by William Hollyday, I insist that Shakspeare may have decided rightly, but for a wrong reason, and therefore was no lawyer." Long after the dra matic scene at the Virginia court house had been enacted, and after the actors had passed away for ever, an able German writer, Dr. Rudolph von Ihring, wrote a book entitled "The Struggle of Law" and makes one of his leading cases, that of ' in re Shylock." The critical reason ing of the learned German jurist, the result of profound study of the case, was BOULDIN. only a report of the off-hand debate between Gordon, Green and Hollyday, at Orange county court house. As counsel for John Brown and his fellow marauders, who attacked Harper's Ferry, Va., in 1859, Mr. Green prepared an elabo rate appeal from the decision of Judge Richard Parker, which condemned them to die. " In it," says Mr. Tucker, who was then attorney-general of Virginia and op posed to Mr. Green, " the doctrines of the law of treason were discussed with fullness of learning." In 1876, the Court of Appeals of Virginia
