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A Vision of Legal Shadows
By James Williams
A case at chambers left for my opinion
Had taxed my brain until the noon of night,
I read old law, and loathed the long dominion
Of fiction over right.
I had consulted Coke and Cruise and Chitty,
The works where ancient learning reigns supreme,
Until exhausted nature, moved with pity,
Sent me a bookman's dream.
Six figures, all gigantic as Gargantua,
Floated before my eyes, and all the six
Were shades like those that once the bard of Mantua
Saw by the shore of Styx.
The first was one with countenance imperious,
His toga dim with centuries of dust;
"My name," quoth he, "is Aulus and Agerius,[B]
My voice is hoarse with rust.
"Yet once I played my part in law proceedings,
And writers wrote of one they never saw,
I gave their point to formulę and pleadings,
I lived but in the law."
The second had a countenance perfidious;
What wonder? Prętors launched their formulę
In vain against Numerius Negidius,
And not a whit cared he.
With voice of high contempt he greeted Aulus;
"In interdicts thou wast mine enemy,
Once passed no day that students did not call us
As parties, me and thee.
"On paper I was plaintiff or defendant,
On paper thou wast evermore the same;
We lived apart, a life that was transcendant,
For it was but a name.
"I hate thee, Aulus, hate thee," low he muttered,
"It was by thee that I was always tricked,
My unsubstantial bread I ate unbuttered
In dread of interdict.
"And yet 'twas but the sentiment I hated:
Like thee I ne'er was drunk e'en vi or clam,[C]
With wine that was no wine my thirst was sated.
Like thee I was a sham."
Two country hinds in 'broidered smocks next followed,
Each trundled him a cart-wheel by the spokes,
Oblivion now their names hath well-nigh swallowed,
For they were Stiles and Nokes.
They spake no word, for speech to them was grievous,
With bovine eyes they supplicated me;
"We wot not what ye will, but prithee leave us,
Unlettered folk are we."
"Go," said I, "simple ones, and break your fallows,
Crush autumn apples in the cider press,
Law, gaffer Stiles, thy humble name still hallows,
Contracted to J. S."
Another pair of later time succeeded,
With buckles on their shoes and silken hose,
A garb that told it was to them who heeded
John Doe's and Richard Roe's.
"Ah me! I was a casual ejector,[D]
In the brave days of old," I heard one say;
"I knew Elizabeth, the Lord Protector
I spake with yesterday."
To whom in contradiction snarled the other,
"There was no living blood our veins to fill.
Both you and I were nought but shadows, brother,
And we are shadows still."
Room for a lady, room, as at Megiddo
The hosts made way for passage of the king,
For from the darkness crept there forth a widow
In weeds and wedding ring.
"I am the widow, I, whereof the singers
Of Scotland sang, their cruel words so smote
My tender heart, that ofttimes itched my fingers
To take them by the throat.
"He scoffed at me, dour bachelor of Glasgow,[E]
If I existed not for him, the knave,
'Twas all his fault who let some bonnie lass go
Unwedded to her grave."
Extra Info:
[B] Aulus Agerius and Numerius Negidius are names continually occurring in the Roman institutional writers as typical names of parties to legal process, corresponding very much to the John Stiles and John Nokes of the older English law-books, and the Amr and Zaid of Mohammedan law. John Stiles was frequently contracted to J. S.
[C] Vi and clam were part of the form of the interdict, which was a mode of procedure by which the prętor settled the right of possession of landed property.
[D] The casual ejector was John Doe, who was, like Richard Roe, an entirely imaginary person, of much importance in the old action of ejectment abolished in 1852.
[E] The allusion is to the "Advocates' Widows Fund," subscribed to by all members of the Scottish bar, married or unmarried. The non-existent widow of the unmarried advocate has been a frequent subject of legal verse. See "The Bachelor's Dream," by John Rankine, (Journal of Jurisprudence, vol. xxii. p. 155), "My Widow," by David Crichton (id. vol. xxiv. p. 51).
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