And with it we submit the following points, and ask a decision in our favor. First, That they, the said Middleton and Rowley, have furnished, in the use of the phrase "lawful prize," in this passage, very distinct proof that they were acquainted with Admiralty law. Second, That, in the use of the other phrases, "board," and especially "down goes her topsail," they have furnished yet stronger evidence that they had been sailors on board armed vessels, and that the trope indicates, that, had not the vessel or lady in question lowered her topsail or top-knot, she would then and there have been put mercilessly to the sword. But what shall we think of the acumen and the judgment of a Chief Justice, a man of letters, and a man of the world, who brings forward such passages as the following as part of the evidence bearing upon the question of Shakespeare's legal acquirements?-- "Come; fear not you; _good counsellors lack no clients._" _Measure for Measure_. Act i. Sc. 2. "One that _before the judgement_ carries poor souls to hell." _Comedy of Errors_. Act iv. Sc. 2. "Well, Time is the old _Justice_ that examines all such offenders,--and let Time try." _As You Like It_. Act iv. Sc. 1. "And that old common _arbitrator_, Time." _Troilus and Cressida_. Act iv. Sc. 5. "No cock of mine; you crow too like a _craven_." _Taming of the Shrew_. Act ii. Sc. 1. "Bestial oblivion or some _craven_ scruple." _Hamlet_. Act iv. Sc. 4. By which last line, according to Lord Campbell, (p. 55,) "Shakespeare shows that he was acquainted with _the law for regulating 'trials by battle_'"! But to proceed with the passages quoted in evidence:-- "Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made _parchment_? that parchment, being _scribbled o'er_, should undo a man? Some say, the bee stings: but I say, 'tis the bee's _wax_; for I did but _seal_ once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since."--2 _Henry VI_. Act vi. Sc. 2. Upon citing which, his Lordship exclaims,-- "Surely Shakespeare must have been employed to write _deeds_ on _parchment_ in _courthand_, and to apply the _wax_ to them in the form of _seals_. One does not understand how he should, on any other theory of his bringing-up, have been acquainted _with these details_"! One does not; but we submit to the court, that, if two were to lay their heads together after the manner of Sydney Smith's vestrymen, they might bring it about.