p. 89.

former designs. A clock and a good memory will preserve the unities of time and place, or detect their violation; but for the preservation of the far more important unity of dramatic interest, it is better to trust to Shakespeare.

"Have hent
'hentan,'' to seize.'

SCENE VI.

taken possession of: from the A. S.

ACT FIFTH.

SCENE I.

"Enter, severally" :— The folio directs, "Enter at several doors," all entrances being made from doors on Shakespeare's stage, from want of scenery. In the folio, too, Friar Peter and Isabella are not directed to enter until just as the former says "Now is your time; " but though the play-wright was obliged thus to conform to the limited space on which his characters appeared, we know, from the foregoing Scene, that the poet had in his mind's eye the arrangement indicated in this stage direction.

yield forth to you public thanks": - The folio has yield you forth to an evident transposition. The Duke yielded Angelo forth to no public thanks; but he gave him his own thanks publicly. See the first two lines of his next speech.

characts":— characters, outward seeming.

"As e'er I heard": 'As' for 'that': the construction being, 'Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense the intervening line being

that e'er I heard in madness'

interjectional.

for inequality

for apparent inconsistency; as

we say that one part of a story does not square with another.

66

the false seems true : Which' is understood; but some suppose that "seems true is a compound word for vraisemblable, true-seeming.'

"How he refell'd me" :- refuted me.

That is, as

"O, that it were as like, as it is true": likely to be believed.' The Duke, throwing doubt upon her assertion, says, ironically, "This is most likely [to be true];" and she, knowing it to be virtually true, and wishing it to be so received, replies, "O, that it were as like, [to be believed] as it is true!" Of course, whether it were all actually true or not, she could not wish that it were at all likely to be true.'

p. 93.

p. 94.

p. 95.

p. 97.

p. 98.

p. 100.

p. 101.

p. 102.

p. 104.

with ripened time": The last syllable of this word is not contracted in the folio: it was pronounced ripened, not ri-pen-ed: hitherto the editors have contracted it.

"This " a good friar" :- The apostrophe marks the

elision of 'is;' as in "What'fool" for what a fool.' Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act I. Sc. 2.

66

let her shew her face":- The folio has "your," an easy misprint for her,' when h had a bow below the line like y, and o could scarcely be distinguished from e. informal women ill regulated, distracted See Note on "make of him a formal man again." Comedy of Errors, Act V. Sc. 1.

women.

"And punish them [un]to your height of pleasure." The folio has "to an error, as the rhythm shows. "Cucullus non facit monachum ” : — The cowl does not make the monk.

"Nor here provincial":

of this province, and sub

ject to its civil or ecclesiastical authorities.

forfeits in a barber's shop":- It is only of late in America, that the fashion of lounging in a barber's shop has entirely gone out; and Dr. Kenrick states, in his Suffolk Words, that, in 1750, he saw a metrical list of forfeits in a barber's shop to be enforced against those who meddled with the razors or surgical instruments; for barbers were surgeons of old. We may well believe that these forfeits were "as much in mock as mark."

"Hark how the villain would glose now how he would smooth over his treasonable abuses. The folio has "close," an evident misprint, as the Duke shows no intention to close the discussion,- yet hitherto retained.

rash remonstrance" :— used in its radical sense of 'showing again.' It is only of comparatively late years that this word has come to mean expostulation.'

by confiscation"

The folio has “ confutation,"

which was corrected in the second folio a change that hardly merits notice.

If any woman's wrong'd":

woman.

In the folio, " any

p. 107.

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS.

(135)

The Comedie of Errors occupies sixteen pages in the folio of 1623, viz., from p. 85 to p. 100 inclusive, in the division of Comedies. It is there divided into Acts, but not into Scenes. At the head of the first, third, fourth, and fifth Acts, however, "Scena Prima" appears. appears. There is no list of Dramatis Perso

næ, which was first supplied by Rowe.

(134)

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS.

INTRODUCTION.

THE

HERE is no doubt that The Comedy of Errors is an imitation of the Menæchmi of Plautus; but the question whether the imitation was direct or indirect has not been decided. We know, from the Record of the Revels at Court, that a play called The History of Error was in existence in the year 1576-7; for among the entries for that year is the following:

"The Historie of Error, shewn at Hampton Court on New yeres daie at night, enacted by the children of Pawles."

Malone, who first directed attention to this memorandum, also pointed out a passage in the Gesta Grayorum a contemporary record of the festivities at Gray's Inn, published in 1688 — which shows that "a Comedy of Errors, like to Plautus his Menechmus, was played by the players" during the Christmas Revels at that venerable Inn of Court in December, 1594. In 1595 there was published in London a free translation of the Menæchmi.* Finally, Meres gives us evidence that Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors was written at least as early as 1597. These are all the facts on record from which we can determine the origin of this comedy or the date of its production; but as the old History of Error is entirely lost, and as we do not know whether the play at Gray's Inn was Shakespeare's Comedy or the older History, we are unable to decide from these data whether Shake

*"A pleasant and fine Conceited Comœdie, taken out of the most excellent wittie Poet Plautus: Chosen purposely from out the rest, as least harmefull, and yet most delightfull. Written in English by W. W.- London, Printed by Tho. Creede, and are to be sold by William Barley, at his shop in Gratious streete. 1595." 4to.

This W. W. is supposed by Anthony Wood, in his Athena Oxonienses, to have been William Warner, the author of Albion's England, a sort of chronicle in verse, first published at London in 1586. 4to.