forfait, if he come not
within ij. moneths."--_Termes de la Ley_, 1595, fol. 144.

The object of the writ was to prevent the abuse of spiritual power. Now,
here is a law-term quite out of the common, which is used by Shakespeare
with a well-deployed knowledge of the power of the writ of which it is
the name. Must we, therefore, suppose that Shakespeare had obtained his
knowledge of the purpose and the power of this writ in the course
of professional reading or practice? If we looked no farther than
Shakespeare's page, such a supposition might seem to be warranted.
But if we turn to Michael Drayton's "Legend of Great Cromwell," first
published, we believe, in 1607, but certainly some years before "Henry
VIII." was written, and the subject of which figures in that play, we
find these lines,--

"This Me to urge the _Premunire_ wonne,
Ordain'd in matters dangerous and hie;
In t' which the heedlesse Prelacie were runne
That back into the Papacie did fie."

Ed. 1619, p. 382.

Here is the very phrase in question, used with a knowledge of its
meaning and of the functions of the writ hardly less remarkable than
that evinced in the passage from "Henry VIII.," though expressed in
a different manner, owing chiefly to the fact that Drayton wrote a
didactic poem and Shakespeare a drama. But Drayton is not known to have
been an attorney's clerk, nor has he been suspected, from his writings,
or any other cause, to have had any knowledge of the law. Both he and
Shakespeare, however, read the Chronicles. Reading men perused Hall's
and Holinshed's huge black-letter folios in Queen Elizabeth's time with
as much interest as they do Macaulay's or Prescott's elegant octavos in
the reign of her successor, Victoria. Shakespeare drew again and again
upon the former for the material of his historical plays; and in writing
"Henry VIII.," he adopted often the very language of the Chronicler. The
well-known description of Wolsey, which he puts into the mouth of Queen
Katherine,--

"He was a man
Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking
Himself with princes; one that by suggestion
Tith'd all the kingdom: Simony was fair play:
His own opinion was his law: I' the presence
He would say untruths; and be ever double,
Both in his words and meaning; He was never,
But where he meant to ruin, pitiful:
His promises were, as he then was, mighty;
But his performance, as he is now, nothing:
Of his own body he was ill, and gave