The second is the following Sonnet, (No. 46,) not only the language, but the very fundamental conceit of which, it will be seen, is purely legal:-- "Mine Eye and Heart are at a mortal war How to divide the conquest of thy sight; Mine Eye my Heart thy picture's sight would _bar_, My Heart mine Eye the freedom of that right. My Heart doth _plead_ that thou in him dost lie (A closet never pierc'd with crystal eyes); But the _defendant_ doth that _plea_ deny, And says in him thy fair appearance lies. To 'cide this title is _impanelled_ A _quest_ of thoughts, all tenants to the Heart, And by their _verdict_ is determined The clear Eye's _moiety_, and the dear Heart's part; As thus: Mine Eye's due is thine outward part, And my Heart's right, thine inward love of heart." It would seem, indeed, as if passages like these must be received as evidence that Shakespeare had more familiarity with legal phraseology, if not a greater knowledge of it, than could have been acquired except by habitual use in the course of professional occupation. But let us see if he is peculiar even in this crowding of many law-terms into a single brief passage. We turn to the very play open at our hand, from which we have quoted before, (and which, by the way, we have not selected as exceptional in this regard,) "The Miseries of Enforced Marriage," and find the following passage in Act V.:-- "_Doctor_. Now, Sir, from this your _oath and bond,_ Faith's pledge and _seal_ of conscience, you have run, Broken all _contracts_, and _forfeiture_ Justice hath now in _suit_ against your soul: Angels are made the _jurors_, who are _witnesses_ Unto the _oath_ you took; and God himself, Maker of marriage, He that hath _seal'd the deed_, As a firm _lease_ unto you during life, _Sits now as Judge_ of your transgression: The world _informs against you_ with this voice.-- If such sins reign, what mortals can rejoice? _Scarborow_. What then ensues to me? _Doctor_. A heavy _doom_, whose _execution's_ Now _served upon_ your conscience," etc. p. 91, D.O.P., Ed. 1825. Indeed, the hunting of a metaphor or a conceit into the ground is a fault characteristic of Elizabethan literature, and one from which Shakespeare's boldness, no less than his genius, was required to save him; and we have seen already how common was the figurative use of law-phrases among the poets and dramatists of his period. Hamlet's speech and the Forty-sixth Sonnet cannot, therefore, be accepted as evidence of his attorneyship, except in so far as they and like passages may be regarded as giving some support to the opinion that Shakespeare was but one of many in his time who abandoned law for letters.