Experts of unchallengeable authority have testified definitely as to only one of Shakespeare's multifarious craft-equipments, so far as my recollections of Shakespeare-Bacon talk abide with me--his law-equipment.I do not remember that Wellington or Napoleon ever examined Shakespeare's battles and sieges and strategies, and then decided and established for good and all that they were militarily flawless; I do not remember that any Nelson, or Drake, or Cook ever examined his seamanship and said it showed profound and accurate familiarity with that art; I don't remember that any king or prince or duke has ever testified that Shakespeare was letter-perfect in his handling of royal court-manners and the talk and manners of aristocracies; Idon't remember that any illustrious Latinist or Grecian or Frenchman or Spaniard or Italian has proclaimed him a past-master in those languages; I don't remember--well, I don't remember that there is TESTIMONY--great testimony--imposing testimony--unanswerable and unattackable testimony as to any of Shakespeare's hundred specialties, except one--the law.
Other things change, with time, and the student cannot trace back with certainty the changes that various trades and their processes and technicalities have undergone in the long stretch of a century or two and find out what their processes and technicalities were in those early days, but with the law it is different: it is mile-stoned and documented all the way back, and the master of that wonderful trade, that complex and intricate trade, that awe-compelling trade, has competent ways of knowing whether Shakespeare-law is good law or not; and whether his law-court procedure is correct or not, and whether his legal shop-talk is the shop-talk of a veteran practitioner or only a machine-made counterfeit of it gathered from books and from occasional loiterings in Westminster.
Richard H.Dana served two years before the mast, and had every experience that falls to the lot of the sailor before the mast of our day.His sailor-talk flows from his pen with the sure touch and the ease and confidence of a person who has LIVEDwhat he is talking about, not gathered it from books and random listenings.Hear him:
Having hove short, cast off the gaskets, and made the bunt of each sail fast by the jigger, with a man on each yard, at the word the whole canvas of the ship was loosed, and with the greatest rapidity possible everything was sheeted home and hoisted up, the anchor tripped and cat-headed, and the ship under headway.
Again:
The royal yards were all crossed at once, and royals and sky-sails set, and, as we had the wind free, the booms were run out, and all were aloft, active as cats, laying out on the yards and booms, reeving the studding-sail gear; and sail after sail the captain piled upon her, until she was covered with canvas, her sails looking like a great white cloud resting upon a black speck.
Once more.A race in the Pacific:
Our antagonist was in her best trim.Being clear of the point, the breeze became stiff, and the royal-masts bent under our sails, but we would not take them in until we saw three boys spring into the rigging of the CALIFORNIA; then they were all furled at once, but with orders to our boys to stay aloft at the top-gallant mast-heads and loose them again at the word.It was my duty to furl the fore-royal; and while standing by to loose it again, I had a fine view of the scene.From where I stood, the two vessels seemed nothing but spars and sails, while their narrow decks, far below, slanting over by the force of the wind aloft, appeared hardly capable of supporting the great fabrics raised upon them.The CALIFORNIA was to windward of us, and had every advantage; yet, while the breeze was stiff we held our own.
As soon as it began to slacken she ranged a little ahead, and the order was given to loose the royals.In an instant the gaskets were off and the bunt dropped."Sheet home the fore-royal!"--"Weather sheet's home!"--"Lee sheet's home!"--"Hoist away, sir!"is bawled from aloft."Overhaul your clew-lines!" shouts the mate."Aye-aye, sir, all clear!"--"Taut leech! belay! Well the lee brace; haul taut to windward!" and the royals are set.
What would the captain of any sailing-vessel of our time say to that? He would say, "The man that wrote that didn't learn his trade out of a book, he has BEEN there!" But would this same captain be competent to sit in judgment upon Shakespeare's seamanship--considering the changes in ships and ship-talk that have necessarily taken place, unrecorded, unremembered, and lost to history in the last three hundred years? It is my conviction that Shakespeare's sailor-talk would be Choctaw to him.For instance--from "The Tempest":
MASTER.Boatswain!
BOATSWAIN.Here, master; what cheer?
MASTER.Good, speak to the mariners: fall to 't, yarely, or we run ourselves to ground; bestir, bestir!
(ENTER MARINERS.)
BOATSWAIN.Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts!
yare, yare! Take in the topsail.Tend to the master's whistle.
...Down with the topmast! yare! lower, lower! Bring her to try wi' the main course....Lay her a-hold, a-hold! Set her two courses.Off to sea again; lay her off.
That will do, for the present; let us yare a little, now, for a change.
If a man should write a book and in it make one of his characters say, "Here, devil, empty the quoins into the standing galley and the imposing-stone into the hell-box; assemble the comps around the frisket and let them jeff for takes and be quick about it," I should recognize a mistake or two in the phrasing, and would know that the writer was only a printer theoretically, not practically.
