Items related to Miscellaneous papers and legal instruments under the...
Miscellaneous papers and legal instruments under the hand and seal of William Shakespeare; including the tragedy of King Lear, and a small fragment of ... of Samuel Ireland, of Norfolk street ... - Softcover
Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1796 Excerpt: ...indorsable over, nor could an action at law be maintained on them.,: To this last observation, I take no exception. I do not contend that the memorandums in the Shakspeare MSS were legal or transferable securities. All I contend for is, that there can be no decisive proof that this form of acknowledgement of a debt, or a promise to repay it, might not have been used at that time, notwithstanding what is said to disprove or invalidate it, either by Mr. Malone himself, or by his ingenious friend: But the two authorities clash with each other, and according to all the rules of strict reasoning, f-as as well as of strict evidence, arc mutually destructive of the several proofs they adduce. In the elaborate history of promissory notes, which is thrown into the lumber of an appendix, instead of framing a connected system of argument in his text, it is laid down as a fort of axiom, that in the period on.which we are occupied, it was essential to every instrument of this-kind, that it should contain a clause to express the sealing of the paper. For instance. "In witness whereof I set to my "scale, &c." It is observable that this is also taken from HensloWe's-Register. Now in the bill of debt, which Mr. Malone himself has exhibited, there is no such clause as this inserted, nor does it appear that the instrument was sealed by the party, who was bound by it. Here then arc two contradictory authorities. The ingenious friend fays that every instrument must haye been sealed, and that, none existed without it. The critic himself produces a specimen, where there is no clause re lative to sealing at all; and what is very remarkable, both of them seem to have been, exploring the fame. records » and each produces a specimen, which falsifies and invali...
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