the person acting is determined, while the objective truth or falsehood itself is unaffected thereby. The whole course of sacred history has given evidence to the great importance of truth, and imposed as a duty upon every man. Profane history has also contributed many illustrations, both in ancient and modern times, which are doubtless familiar to every reader. The duty of truthfulness is recognized by every nation, whether civilized or barbarian, equally so within the Arctic circle and at the torrid zone; and if, under the deep darkness of a refined system of idolatry, lying is made a trade, and is constantly inflicted upon the Feringhees by the devoted Hindoo, the exception only proves the rule,-truthfulness is a universal duty of man.

The utility of this moral duty is evident if we contemplate its influence upon society. In our domestic relations it plays a conspicuous part. Suppose the father could not believe the son, the mother had no confidence in the word of her daughter, brothers in their intercourse with sisters found only deceit and lying, what would become of the family circle? how long would the endearments of the family hearth enchant us? In commerce, truth is the chief element of a nation's success; and in proportion to the degree of truthfulness possessed by any class of traders, other things being equal, success is always in favour of truth. In fact, it cannot be otherwise; a person once deceived does not buy again from the deceiver. So universal is the instinct planted in the nature of man, that, once deceived, he always fears and avoids the deceiver. The politician is relied upon and becomes popular, truly popular, only so far as he makes his sincerity or truthfulness palpable to his fellow-citizens. The physician is esteemed according to the sincerity or truthfulness of his efforts to heal his patient, which is the profession he makes. This leads us to consider whether, from the nature of his profession or any peculiarities of his position, the professional counsel is relieved of this universal obligation to speak and act truly.

We are of opinion that counsel is not justified in speaking or acting a lie to save his client from punishment when guilty, and we proceed to show our reasons for this belief. We have shown that it is the duty of all men, as men, to speak and act truly; therefore his humanity does not relieve the counsel from this obligation, and if he is relieved, he must derive the privilege of exemption from his office. The duty of counsel is evidently to prevent a wrong, having the sanction of a court of justice, being inflicted upon plaintiff or defendant, accuser or accused; but we have now to do with his relation to the accused only. The function of counsel, as now in question, is to protect the accused, when innocent, from all punishment; and when guilty, from undue punishment. In the latter case, we submit that he steps beyond his province as counsel, and becomes an accomplice after the fact, if, being cognizant of the accuser's guilt, he makes effort to prove him innocent; especially is the moral turpitude of counsel manifest when it is considered that he, being

conscious of his client's guilt, represents and tries to prove to a court of justice that he is innocent.

In accordance with these views of the question at issue are the doctrines laid down by that great man, Jeremy Bentham, for he speaks of it as "among the expedients that have been contrived for selling impunity to such criminals as have wherewithal to purchase it." And he thus illustrates this way of defending a known criminal: "A man has committed a theft; another man, who, without a licence, knowing what he has done, has assisted him in making his escape, is punished as an accomplice. But the law (that is, the judges, by whom in this behalf the law has been made) have contrived to grant to their connections, acting in the character of advocates, a licence for this purpose. What the non-advocate is hanged for, the advocate is paid for, and admired."-Vol. vi. 350.

But it is not the function of counsel to defend the guilty from due punishment for his guilt. Every citizen in a rightly constituted commonwealth is in duty bound to assist in the free exercise of the laws; and, as a corollary to this duty, he is also under obligation to prevent every criminal escaping that punishment the law inflicts upon him for his crime. Not only is the law of England explicit upon this subject, but common sense and the dictates of morality confirm its propriety. The position of counsel cannot alter his responsibility as a citizen in this respect, because the general duty owing to society is paramount to that existing between himself and his client. It is a maxim of morals and law that the general law, or public duty, is more powerful and of stronger obligation than the private duty; especially is this maxim applicable when the private duty is owing to him who has broken the law, and respects that breach of the law only.

Above and beyond all arguments of a purely political or civil nature, we have to look at the moral and religious aspect of this question. What is there in the profession of an advocate to invest him with power to set aside the great command of God, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour"? What right has he to defy the prohibition of the Almighty, the puny worm to rise up in defiance of Omnipotence? The attempt at justification is surely the most ridiculous for its absurdity, yet most blasphemous for its impiety, that the mind of man can well conceive.

For the present we conclude, with the hope soon again to resume our argument, feeling assured we shall ever have an approving auditory in the readers of our magazine while advocating truthfulness under every circumstance, at all times, and upon all subjects. Magna est veritas, et prævalebit. L'OUVRIER.

The Essayist.

SHAKESPERE FACTS, FANCIES, FORGERIES, AND

FABRICATIONS.

III.-EARLY MANHOOD.

Bright metals on a sullen errand

Will show more goodly, and attract more eyes

Than that which hath no foil to set it off."-Henry IV.

"LET me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment," are the words with which Shakespere commences his 116th Sonnet, and they appear to have embodied the thought uppermost in his mind, not long after he had companioned in intimate associateship with "sweete Anne" Hathaway, whom he early began to address as "My all-the-world." As he walked with her in the hours of "black Vesper's pageants," how keenly and kindly would he express himself on the enduringness of his affection :—

Love's not time's fool;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out, even to the edge of doom."

And while he so speaks, do not

"A thousand blushing apparitions start
Into her face,"

and tell us a secret that she dare not utter?

Whatever engaged the youthhood of Shakespere after leaving school-law, trade, or pedagogism-it is pretty clear that he must have made a good use of his eyes in noticing the tints in the sky, the flowered earth, the love-inspiring beauty of the river-threaded meadows, and the changeful variances of the seasons. Nor is it at all improbable that he sauntered, in slouched hat, into the taverns along the road, and lounged about travelled highways, or sped over the downs with dog at heel, and at night took a shot at a deer. These were the common amusements of his day. But we can never think of him as an idler, nor can we imagine him viciously bent on a breach of the law. With Anne Hathaway to occupy his thoughts and time with her influence to keep him right-we cannot picture 'him as a wildling and a worldling, nor believe him to have been a

culprit, exposed to penalty and ignominy. Before his marriage, that would be unlikely; after it, still more improbable. The germ of the deer-stealing myth is palpable, but that it grew is just as plain. Aubrey (1680), the earliest writer of his life, says nothing about it. Rowe (1707) first relates it, with some circumstantiality. The Rev. Richard Davies, Rector of Sapperton and Archdeacon of Lichfield (1701), is more particular in his narrative still, though he makes mistakes regarding known facts, which he might easily have avoided, and therefore shows his incompetency as a reporter. Capel (1768) brings an increase to the tradition; and in 1778, a confirmation of Capel's news comes from Oldys. Rowe says the ante-Lucy ballad was "lost." Capel and Oldys recover one verse of it, and Malone gets and prints the entire poem, but believes "that the whole is a forgery.' In this opinion most critics now coincide.

We believe Shakespere took his sport like a man, not like a vagabond; and we are the more inclined to think this, because we know that a true attachment is the best safeguard to a young man's character.

Our next earliest definite notice of Shakespere refers to

1582, and is Shakespere's marriage-bond. It was found by Sir Thomas Philips in the Worcester registry, in 1836. It bears date 28th November, 1582, and in it Fulk Sandells and John Richardson, farmers, of Stratford, become bound in £40, "that William Shagspere, one thone partie, and Anne Hathwey, of Stratford, in the dioces of Worcester, maiden, may lawfully solemnize marriage together," "with once asking of the bannes."

This document, besides the signatures of the bondsmen, bears the seal of R. H. (Richard Hathaway ?) so that it seems probable that responsible friends on both sides had agreed to the match. We may believe, as was the custom of his age, that some time before he "was affianced to her by oath, and the nuptial appointed; between which time of the contract and limit of the solemnity,"

"Before the perfect ceremony of Love's rite,"

they had deported themselves, as the registers of Stratford in his time will prove to have been often the case, as married persons, esteeming the troth-plight and betrothal as equivalent to moral though destitute of legal sanction; for though we know not where the marriage ceremony was performed, we learn in the Stratford register that,

66

1583, May 26th, Susanna, daughter to William Shakspere," was baptized as a child begotten in wedlock. Shakespere was then little above nineteen, and his wife a little over twenty-six.

It is only reasonable to presume that, prior to friends consenting to this union, and the occurrence of the marriage, Shakespere had some independent means of support. What these were, we have no means of now ascertaining; but we know (or at least infer), that he was resident in Stratford parish in

1585, for in that year, "February 2, Hamnet and Judith, sonne and daughter to William Shakespere," were baptized. Before he has attained his majority, he has a family about him, and it needed no impulse from any Justice Shallow, no poaching notoriety or danger, to prompt a first-class mind like his to act in a kind and manly spirit, and "being inclined naturally to poetry and acting," as Aubrey says, to take his way to London, where, probably, his townsmen, if not his relatives, were at that time successfully getting on, and so become " an actor at one of the playhouses," and show that he could, as well as "did, act exceedingly well." Aubrey tells us, too, that he began early to make essays at dramatic poetry, which at that time was very low, and his plays took well. In the desire to drive hunger from the home of his children, we find a motive; and in his conscious possession of superior power, we perceive an occasioning cause for his removal from the "circumscription and confine" of Stratford to the city on "the banks of the Thames." When a given sufficient, efficient cause is given, there is no principle of logic which necessitates the search for a greater or more unusual one. We need not invent miracles to account for every-day oc

currences.

Did Shakespere go alone to London? and did he there forget a father's love, a husband's duty? If the sonnets be in aught autobiographical, I would suggest that those numbered 50, 39, 36, 2729, 44-49, 61, and 97, should be read as here arranged, as a reply. So read, we fancy that they will help to unthread the maze into which commentators have got themselves when they write as follows, viz. :

-

"Another section of Shakespere's history is composed by that romantic chain of adventure which is supposed to be hidden beneath the obscure allusions of the Sonnets. There was, we are told, a friend and patron of the poet, a youth of high birth and personal accomplishments; there was also a dark-haired lady, whom the poet loved, but over whose relations towards him there is thrown a veil of mystery, allowing us to see little except the feeling of the parties-that their love was guilt. The female, introduced to the youthful friend, transferred her passion to him. The poet, at first shaken to his inmost soul, recognized at length, in the double treachery, a judicial visitation, punishing his own offence. He cast off the faithless woman for ever, but received the repenting friend again to his heart. That something not very unlike this did really happen, we firmly believe. The supposition that the most specific of the sonnets were written by Shakespere for a friend or friends, is too absurd to be listened to for a moment."*

Beautiful tissue-paper romance, vanish! Is there truth in man, and that man Shakespere? Then read, seriatim, that splendid justificatory series of sonnets, 109-121, beginning,—

Oh, never say that I was false of heart," &c.,

and if there be self-reference in them at all, the calumny shall wither faster and more surely than the gourd of Jonah.

Edinburgh Review, July, 1840, p. 466.