Stories of violence and cruelty serve not our purpose unless they illustrate some point, and I shall but refer to two other cases. Major Strangeways was arraigned in 1658 (under the Commonwealth be it noted) for the murder of his brother-in-law. In presence of the coroner's jury he was made to take the corpse by the hand and touch its wounds, for it was supposed that, if he were guilty, these would bleed afresh. There was no bleeding, but this availed him nothing, and he was put on his trial at the Old Bailey in due course. He refused to plead, and made no secret of his motive; he foresaw conviction, and desired to prevent the forfeiture of his estate. He was ordered to undergo the _peine forte et dure_. The press was put on him angle-wise; it was enough to hurt, but not to kill, so the bystanders benevolently added their weight, and in ten minutes all was over. The dead body was then displayed to the public. Again, in 1726, a man named Burnworth was arraigned at Kingston for murder. At first he refused to plead, but after being pressed for an hour and three-quarters with four hundredweight of iron, he yielded. He was carried back to the dock, said he was not guilty, and was tried, convicted, and hanged. There was at least one case in the reign of George II.--but enough of such horrors. A PASSAGE IN SHAKESPEARE FINES AND RECOVERIES "Is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dust? Will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures?" Thus the Prince of Denmark moralising in the graveyard scene in Hamlet over the skull of a supposed lawyer: with more to the same effect, all showing that Shakespeare had a knowledge of law terms remarkable in a layman, and that he used them with curious precision. In the huge body of Shakespearian literature there are special works (one by Lord Chancellor Campbell) on the fact, which has been used to buttress up the Baconian authorship theory (indeed, it is the only positive fact at all in point). Again, it has been conjectured that the dramatist spent some time in a lawyer's office, and that phrases from the deeds he engrossed stuck in his memory. It is far more likely that, being the man of his age he was, he would read in and round the law as well as much else for its own sake, and that fines and recoveries were so odd in themselves, and so excellently illustrative of English history and procedure, that they fairly took his mighty fancy.