out the land, and beliefs and ceremonies, which its believers asserted to be as old as the apostles, were forbidden as crimes.

Hooker, anticipating Locke, had declared that all governments exist by the consent of the governed, "without which consent there were no reason that one should take on him to be lord or judge over another." Bacon, thinking that "the knowledge whereof the world is now possessed, especially that of nature, extendeth not to the magnitude of works," had declared that there should be "one method of cultivating the sciences and another of discovering them," and by this fiat liberated experimental philosophy into the limitless fields in which it has since worked. There never was a time when so many causes confederated to stimulate the human mind to the exhibition of its greatest powers in all departments, and the result was that the soldier became a historian, the divine a statesman, the statesman a philosopher, and the lawyer the first of poets.

THE LAW

IN

SHAKESPEARE.

No. 1.

Now the condition.

This king of Naples, being an enemy
To me inveterate, hearkens my brother's suit;
Which was, that he, in lieu o' the premises,
Of homage, and I know not how much tribute,
Should presently extirpate me and mine
Out of the dukedom; and confer fair Milan,
With all the honours, on my brother.

The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2.

Premises. That part in the beginning of a deed in which are set forth the names of the parties, and in which are recited such deeds, agreements, or matters of fact as are necessary to explain the reasons upon which the contract then entered into is founded. (Bouv. Law Dict.)

(See No. 178.)

The words seem to be used here with legal exactness, and the meaning is that in lieu of the prem

ises, which are agreements for homage and tribute which the king was bound to render to Prospero, he should extirpate the latter from his dukedom and confer Milan upon the brother.

Homage. (See Nos. 124, 273.)

No. 2.

Ay, ay; and she hath offer'd to the doom
Which, unreversed, stands in effectual force,
A sea of melting pearl, which some call tears,
Those at her father's churlish feet she tender'd.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 3, Scene 1.

Doom. Judgment, judicial sentence. (John

son; Webster.)

(See Nos. 22, 249.)

This is the primary meaning. (See "doomster,"

Heart of Mid-Lothian, c. 24.)

The word "unre

versed" is, in its connection with the word "doom,” used in a strictly judicial sense.

Tendered. (See No. 289.)

No. 3.

Besides, her intercession chafed him so,
When she for thy repeal was suppliant.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 3, Scene 1.

Repeal. Recall from exile. (Johnson.) (See Nos. 130, 205.)

Valentine had been banished and the supplications of Sylvia were for his "repeal." Byron has used the word in the same sense:

that deep gulf without repeal.”

The Prophecy of Dante, Canto 1.

Shal. Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star-Chamber matter of it; if he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, Esquire.

Slen. In the county of Gloster, justice of peace, and Coram. Shal. Ay, cousin Slender, and Custalorum.

Slen. Ay, and Rato-lorum too; and a gentleman born, master parson; who writes himself Armigero; in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation, Armigero.

The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 1, Scene 1.

Justice Shallow threatens to have Falstaff punished for contempt, and this was, as in the chancery, a mode of procedure in the Star Chamber. (3 Bl. Comm. marg. p. 444.) It punished any disrespect to any acts of state, or to the person of statesmen. (Clarendon.) Also for scandalous reports of persons in power. (1 Hallam's Const. Hist. 67.)

Coram. In presence of; before. (Bouv. Law Dict.)

Shakespeare here shows his exact knowledge by playing upon a technical word, for Slender undoubtedly means that Shallow is a justice of the quorum, another legal word applicable to justices of