"That Shakespeare was in early life employed as a clerk in an attorney's office, may be correct.

At Stratford there was by royal charter a Court of Record sitting every fortnight, with six attorneys, beside the town clerk, belonging to it, and it is certainly not straining probability to suppose that the young Shakespeare may have had employment in one of them.

There is, it is true, no tradition to this effect, but such traditions as we have about Shakespeare's occupation between the time of leaving school and going to London are so loose and baseless that no confidence can be placed in them.

It is, to say the least, more probable that he was in an attorney's office than that he was a butcher killing calves 'in a high style,' and making speeches over them." This is a charming specimen of Stratfordian argument.

There is, as we have seen, a very old tradition that Shakespeare was a butcher's apprentice.