Pleading for a lover's fee,

Shall we their fond pageant see?

Lord, what fools these mortals be."1

Demetrius is here placed in the attitude of a lawyer pleading for his fee. In law, the fee is usually a recompense for the pleading. In other words, a reward given to the counselor or attorney, for the execution of his office or by way of recompense for his professional services.2 Fees differ from costs, in that the former are a recompense for the services rendered, while the latter are but an indemnity for money expended or laid out.3

1 Midsummer Night's Dream, Act III, Scene II.

2 Cowel, Bouvier.

9 Wheat. 262.

According to Halliwell-Phillipps, the phrase had the specific meaning of "three kisses." Rolfe's Midsummer Night's Dream, p. 182, notes.

The grasping quality of some attorneys is referred to, in All's Well That Ends Well (Act II, Scene II), as follows: "Clo. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney."

now

Richard tells Anne, in King Richard III: "Glo. thy beauty is propos'd my fee, My proud heart sues and prompts my tongue to speak." (Act I, Scene II.)

On promising to circulate the false rumor of his brother's bastardy, Buckingham tells Gloster, in King Richard III: "Buck. Doubt not, my lord; I'll play the orator, As if the golden fee, for which I plead, Were for myself." (Act III, Scene V.)

Ulysses said, in Troilus and Cressida, that "supple knees feed arrogance, and are the proud man's fees." (Act III, Scene III.) In the dialogue between Mercutio and Romeo, in Romeo and Juliet, in his reference to Queen Mab, Mercutio, after describing her state, said: "And in this state she gallops, night by night, Through lovers' brains and then they dream of love; O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees." (Act I, Scene IV.)

Tamora, in Titus Andronicus, considers the rape of Lavinia, as the fee due her sons, when she denies her interference to save her, in these words:

"Tam. So should I rob my sweet sons of their fee:

No, let them satisfy their lust on thee." (Act II, Scene III.)

Sec. 57. Parent's consent to child's marriage.—

"Ege. Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough; I beg the law, the law upon his head.—

They would have stolen away, they would, Demetrius,

Thereby to have defeated you and me:

You, of your wife; and me of my consent;
Of my consent that she should be your wife."1

In everything that relates to the domestic relations the English common law has a great superiority over the law of ancient Greece and Rome. Under the law of ancient Greece and Rome, the parental power continued not only during the child's minority, but during its entire life. The child could not marry without the consent of the parent; whatever he acquired, he acquired for the benefit of the parent, and, in fact, the child was regarded by the

The Fool, in King Lear, speaks of the "breath of an unfee'd lawyer." (Act I, Scene IV.)

Lucrece, in her complaint to Opportunity, which accomplished her ruin, said:

"When truth and virtue have to do with thee,

A thousand crosses keep them from thy aid:

They buy thy help, but Sin ne'er gives a fee." (911, 913.)

In Venus and Adonis, the following occurs:

"Good night,

quoth she; and, ere he says, 'Adieu,' The honey fee of parting tender'd is." (537, 538.)

The Poet concludes, on Venus lost plea to Adonis:

"But all in vain; good queen, it will not 'be:

(607, 609.)

She hath assay'd as much as may be proved; Her pleading hath deserved a greater fee." Referring to Southampton's freedom from the Tower, the CXX Sonnet proceeds:

"But that your trespass now becomes a fée;

Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me." (13, 14.)

1 Midsummer Night's Dream, Act IV, Scene II.

2 St. John's History of Manners & Customs of Ancient Greece, 120-125; Voyage du Anarcharis en Grece, iii, c. 26; Taylor's Elements of Civil Law, 395, 403.

law, rather as property of the parent, than in the light of a rational human being.1

In ecclesiastic law, in England, the want of the parent's consent to the marriage of a child was impedimentum impeditivum, or such an impediment as threw an obstruction in the way of the celebration of the marriage, but it was not an impedimentum dirimens, or such an impedimen as would avoid a marriage once solemnized. At common law, in England, the marriage of infants even, provided they had arrived at years of consent, was held to be valid, as great mischiefs were found to grow out of the rule that marriages could be avoided, when solemnized without the consent of the parent.3

But in presenting the rule obtaining in ancient Greece, the Poet was right in making the consent of the parent essential to a valid marriage of the child, so Egeus had a right to claim that his consent was essential to the marriage of his daughter.

Sec. 58. Limitation of municipal law.

"Lys.

Our intent was, to be gone from Athens, where we might be,

Without the peril of the Athenian law."4

The Old Athenian, in Timon of Athens, in refusing his consent to the marriage of his daughter to Lucillius, unless he brought a proper marriage portion, said: "Old. Ath. If in her marriage my consent be missing, I call the Gods to witness, I will choose mine heir from forth the beggars of the world, and dispossess her all." (Act I, Scene I.)

Simonides, in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, emphasizes the necessity for his consent to his daughter's marriage, with Pericles, when he said:

"Sim....

Will you, not having my consent, bestow,
Your love and your affections on a stranger?"

12 Kent's Comm. (12th ed.), 205.

21 Bishop's Mar. & Div. (4th ed.), 293.

3 Ante idem.

(Act II, Scene V.)

'Midsummer Night's Dream, Act IV, Scene I.

The Poet here recognizes that the validity of a rule of municipal law depends upon its being enforced within the limits of the municipality where it is invoked. The rule of law invoked against Lysander and Hermia, was a rule of municipal law, as distinguished from international law. The former laws apply only to particular municipalities or districts, while the latter obtain, even among different states or nations.1

11 Bl. Comm 44.

78a. Slander dependent upon hearer's attitude.

Sec. 59. Term-Subscribing to oath.

"King. You three, Biron, Dumain and Longaville,
Have sworn for three years' term to live with me,
My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes,
That are recorded in this schedule here:

Your oaths are past and now subscribe your names;
That his own hand may strike his honor down,
That violates the smallest branch herein:

If you are arm'd to do, as sworn to do,
Subscribe to your deep oath and keep it too."

As an oath can only be administered by some one authorized to administer oaths, and the form of taking the oath is not here presented, the Poet purposely accounts for this absence by saying that the oaths have already been

'Love's Labour's Lost, Act I, Scene I.

2 McLean, Cr. Cases, 135.