[Footnote 1:  Swinburne, A Treatise of Spousals, 1686, p. 236.  In England the offspring were, nevertheless, illegitimate.]

The results entailed by sponsalia de futuro were less serious.  Although no spousals of the same nature could be entered into with a third person during the existence of the contract, yet it could be dissolved by mutual consent, and was dissolved by subsequent sponsalia in praesenti, or matrimony.  But such spousals could be converted into valid matrimony by the cohabitation of the parties; and this, instead of being looked upon as reprehensible, seems to have been treated as a laudable action, and to be by all means encouraged.[1] In addition to this, completion of a contract for marriage de futuro confirmed by oath, if such a contract were not indeed indissoluble, as was thought by some, could at any rate be enforced against an unwilling party.  But there were some reasons that justified the dissolution of sponsalia of either description.  Affinity was one of these; and—­what is to the purpose here, in England before the Reformation, and in those parts of the continent unaffected by it—­the entrance into a religious order was another.  Here, then, we have a full explanation of Camiola’s conduct.  She is in possession of evidence of a contract of marriage between herself and Bertoldo, which, whether in praesenti or in futuro, being confirmed by oath, she can force upon him, and which will invalidate his proposed marriage with the duchess.  Having established her right, she takes the only step that can with certainty free both herself and Bertoldo from the bond they had created, by retiring into a nunnery.

[Footnote 1:  Swinburne, p. 227.]

This explanation renders the action of the play clear, and at the same time shows that Shakspere in his conduct with regard to his marriage may have been behaving in the most honourable and praiseworthy manner; as the bond, with the date of which the date of the birth of his first child is compared, is for the purpose of exonerating the ecclesiastics from any liability for performing the ecclesiastical ceremony, which was not at all a necessary preliminary to a valid marriage, so far as the husband and wife were concerned, although it was essential to render issue of the marriage legitimate.

6.  These are instances of the deceptions that are likely to arise from the two fertile sources that have been specified.  There can be no doubt that the existence of errors arising from the former source—­misapprehension of the meaning of words—­is very generally admitted, and effectual remedies have been supplied by modern scholars for those who will make use of them.  Errors arising from the latter source are not so entirely recognized, or so securely guarded against.  But what has just been said surely shows that it is of no use reading a writer of a past age with merely modern conceptions; and, therefore, that