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This drama was scarcely known on the stage for the last century, till Mr. Hull, in 1779, then deputy manager of Covent Garden theatre, curtailed, and made other judicious alterations and arrangements, by which it was rendered attractive for some nights, and afterwards placed upon the list of plays that are generally performed during every season.

In representing the pair of twin brothers on the stage, their dress is the chief part of their likeness one to the other. Thus, representation gives an additional improbability; yet it is necessary that the audience should not see with the supposed eyes of the persons of the drama, for, unless the audience could distinguish one brother, from another, which their companions on the stage pretend not to do, the audience themselves would be dupes to the similarity of appearance, instead of laughing at the dupes engaged in the scene.

In most of the old comedies, there is seemingly a great deal of humour designed in the beating of servants-this is a resource for mirth, of which modern authors are deprived, because the custom is abolished, except in the West Indies; and, even there, not considered of humorous tendency. As far as the usage was ever known to produce comic effect, this play may boast of being comical.

It is suggested by a critic, that the following lines, being a translation from Plautus, in 1595, might have given to Shakspeare the general plan upon which he founded this drama.

"Two twinne borne sonnes a Sicell merchant had, "Menechmus one, and Sosicles the other; "The first his father lost, a little lad;

"The grandsire namde the latter like his brother: "This (growne a man) long travell took to seeke "His brother, and to Epidamnum came, "Where th' other dwelt inricht, and him so like, "That citizens there take him for the same: "Father, wife, neighbours, each mistaking either, "Much pleasant error, ere they meet togither."

DRAMATIS PERSONA,

DUKE OF Ephesus

ÆGEON

ANTIPHOLIS OF SYRACUSE ANTIPHOLIS OF EPHESUS

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE DROMIO OF EPHESUS

ANGELO

FIRST MERCHANT SECOND MERCHANT DOCTOR PINCH BALTHAZAR

MESSENGER

EXECUTIONER

Mr. Cresswell.
Mr. Murray.
Mr. Pope.

Mr. C. Kemble.

Mr. Munden.
Mr. Blanchard.
Mr. Claremont.
Mr. Jefferies.

Mr. Thompson.
Mr. Simmons.
Mr. Atkins.

Mr. Truman.

Mr. T. Blanchard.

Mr. Reeves.

Mrs. Humphries.

Mrs. Gibbs.
Miss Norton.

Miss Bolton.

Miss Waddy.

GAOLER

ABBESS

ADRIANA

LUCIANA

HERMIA

LESBIA

BRIDGET

Miss Leserve.

ATTENDANTS, &c.

SCENE.-Ephesus.

THE

COMEDY OF ERRORS.

ACT THE FIRST.

SCENE I.

A Hall.

DUKE, ÆGEON, Two OFFICERS, GAOLER, Four GUARDS, and ATTENDANTS, discovered.

Egeon. Proceed, Salinus, to procure my fall,
And terminate, by this, thy rig'rous doom,
Ægeon's life and miseries together.

Duke. Merchant of Syracuse, plead no more.
The enmity and discord, which, of late,
Sprung from the ranc'rous outrage of your duke,
To merchants, our well-dealing countrymen,
(Who, wanting gilders to redeem their lives,
Have seal'd his rig'rous statutes with their blood)
Excludes all pity from our threat'ning looks.
For, since the mortal and intestine jars,
"Twixt thy seditious countrymen and us,
It hath, in solemn synods, been decreed,

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