"The terms of our estate may not endure
Hazard so near us," etc.—Ib. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Among the most important passages cited by both our authors is one that every reader of Shakespeare will recollect, when it is mentioned to him,—Hamlet's speech over the skull in the grave-digging scene. But although this speech is remarkable for the number of law-terms used in it, only one of them seems to evince any recondite knowledge of the law. This is the word "statutes," in the following sentence:—
"This fellow might be in's time a buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries." Act v. Sc. 1.
The general reader supposes, we believe, and very naturally, that here "statutes" means laws, Acts of Parliament concerning real estate. But, as Mr. Rushton remarks, (Malone having explained the term before him,) "The statutes referred to by Hamlet are, doubtless, statutes merchant and statutes staple." And "a statute merchant (so called from the 13th Edward I., De mercatoribus) was a bond acknowledged before one of the clerks of the statutes merchant, and the mayor, etc., etc. A statute staple, properly so called, was a bond of record, acknowledged before the mayor of the staple," etc., etc.
Here we again have a law-term apparently so out of the ken of an unprofessional writer, that it would seem to favor the Attorney and Solicitor theory. But let us see if the knowledge which its use implies was confined to Shakespeare among the dramatists of his time.
In Fletcher's "Noble Gentleman," a comedy, first performed in 1625, we find a lady, sorely pushed for ready cash, crying out,—
"Take up at any use: give bond, or land,
Or mighty statutes, able by their strength
To tie up my Samson, were he now alive."
Act i. Sc. 1.
And in Middleton's "Family of Love," (where, by the way, the Free-Love folk of our own day may find their peculiar notions set forth and made the basis of the action, though the play was printed two hundred and fifty years ago,) we find a female free-loveyer thus teaching a mercantile brother of the family, that, although she has a sisterly disregard for some worldly restraints, she yet keeps an eye on the main chance:—
"Tut, you are master Dryfab, the merchant; your skill is greater in cony-skins and woolpacks than in gentlemen. His lands be in statutes: you merchants were wont to be merchant staplers; but now gentlemen have gotten up the trade; for there is not one gentleman amongst twenty but his lands be engaged in twenty statutes staple."