are communicated by word and action to the children and leave lasting impressions on the memory of the young. The many difficulties of his father were, no doubt, the objects of much anxious interest on the part of William. While in Stratford the boy carefully watched the several proceedings and noted the various steps taken. Perhaps, he accompanied his father on visits to the attorney and there heard the consultations. In all probability he attended the trials of the cases and marked the conduct of court, counsel and parties. The poor opinion of the administration of justice which he after wards expressed was here formed and never altered. When at London the circumstances of each new step in John Shakespeare's march to insolvency were communicated to William either by letters of friends in Stratford, or visitors from that place. What the poet in this way saw and heard became indelibly fixed in his recollection, and in ensuing years these necessities of his youth supplied the needs of his dramas. In addition to all this it must be noted that Shakespeare's own experience at law was considerable. He was interested in sev eral real estate deals and appears both as plaintiff and defendant on the court records of the period. The spirit of the times was also favorable to the diffusion of legal knowledge. The Elizabethan era witnessed a revival in all branches of learning and the impetus given to law studies was as pronounced as that which appeared in other departments of mental effort. The age of Shakespeare quickened into activity the body of juris prudence, and infused life and spirit into the profession of the law. In 1577, Pulton published his "Abstract of the Penal Statutes " and two years later appeared Theloal's " Digest of Original Writs." Brooke had previously, in 1568, written an " Abridgment of the Law," which was supplemented, in 1572, by Rastall's
"Terms of the Law." Besides these, there was given to the world of letters " Kitchen on Courts" (1580) " Crompton on the Office and Authority of a Justice of the Peace" (1583). Rastall's " Entries " (1596) and " Marwood on Forest Law " (1596). The first volume bearing the title of "Reports " was printed in the very year of Shakespeare's arrival in London. The publication consisted of the notes of cases made by Chief Justice Dyer, collected after his death and issued by his executor. Plowden's Commentaries antedated Dyer's work by fourteen years and are, in their es sence and scope, a set of reports containing for the most part decisions of the court with the contentions of counsel. During the last year of Elizabeth's reign, and for more than a decade thereafter, Sir Edward Coke shed the light of his legal genius which neither change or time can dim or destroy. After Plowden we find Anderson, Moore, Leonard, Owen, Noy, Dalison, Benloe, Hodbolt, Brownlow and Goldesborough forming a succession of reporters in keeping with the superiority that distinguished the time in which they lived. The Shakesperean period saw the books of the lawyer increase from a few scattered volumes to a library of size and dignity. Judges edited their notes with such citations and reflections that the volumes produced are text books as well as reports. Lawyers prepared for the press reviews of cases and decisions and thus aroused inquiry and dis cussion. Legal principles were proclaimed and established, and the theory of the law con sidered and matured. Law had been thereto fore, a dry and withered skeleton of forms and precedents; it began then to assume the aspect of a living and acting science. An upheaval so marked and general was felt not only by courts and lawyers, but its rumblings and echoes reached, with more or less intensity, all portions of society. Shake speare both heard and felt it, as some refer ences in his works indicate.
