is possible. A comedy would scarcely allow even the two Antipholuses; because, although there have been instances of almost indistinguishable likeness in two persons, yet these are mere individual accidents, casus ludentis naturæ, and the verum will not excuse the inverisimile. But farce dares add the two Dromios, and is justified in so doing by the laws of its end and constitution. In a word, farces commence in a postulate, which must be granted."

This postulate granted, it is impossible to imagine any dramatic action to be managed with more skill than that of the Comedy of Errors. Hazlitt has pronounced a censure upon the play which is in reality a commendation: "The curiosity excited is certainly very considerable, though not of the most pleasing kind. We are teased as with a riddle, which, notwithstanding, we try to solve." To excite the curiosity, by presenting a riddle which we should try to solve, was precisely what Plautus and Shakspere intended to do. Our poet has made the riddle more complex by the introduction of the two Dromios, and has therefore increased the excitement of our curiosity. But whether this excitement be pleasing or annoying, and whether the riddle amuse or tease us, entirely depends upon the degree of attention which the reader or spectator of the farce is disposed to bestow upon it. ·Hazlitt adds, “In reading the play, from the sameness of the names of the two Antipholuses and the two Dromios, as well as from their being constantly taken for each other by those who see them, it is difficult, without a painful effort of attention, to keep the characters distinct in the mind. And again, on the stage, either the complete similarity of their persons and dress must produce the same perplexity whenever they first enter, or the identity of appearance which the story supposes will be destroyed. We still, however, having a clue to the difficulty, can tell which is which, merely from the contradictions which arise, as soon as the different parties begin to speak; and we are indemnified for the perplex

B

ity and blunders into which we are thrown, by seeing others thrown into greater and almost inextricable ones." Hazlitt has here, almost undesignedly, pointed out the source of the pleasure which, with an "effort of attention "—not a “painful effort," we think-a reader or spectator of the Comedy of Errors is sure to receive from this drama. We have “a clue to the difficulty;" we know more than the actors in the drama; we may be a little perplexed, but the deep perplexity of the characters is a constantly increasing triumph to us. We have never seen the play; but one who has thus describes the effect: "Until I saw it on the stage (not mangled into an opera), I had not imagined the extent of the mistakes, the drollery of them, their unabated continuance, till, at the end of the fourth act, they reached their climax, with the assistance of Dr. Pinch, when the audience in their laughter rolled about like waves.' Mr. Brown adds, with great truth, “To the strange contrast of grave astonishment among the actors with their laughable situations in the eyes of the spectators, who are let into the secret, is to be ascribed the irresistible effect." The spectators, the readers, have the clue, are let into the secret, by the story of the first scene. Nothing can be more beautifully managed, or is altogether more Shakespearian, than the narrative of Ægeon; and that narrative is so clear and so impressive that the reader never forgets it amidst all the errors and perplexities which follow. The Duke, who, like the reader or spectator, has heard the narrative, instantly sees the real state of things when the denouement is approaching:

66

Why, here begins his morning story right.”

The reader or spectator has seen it all along-certainly by an effort of attention, for without the effort the characters would be confounded like the vain shadows of a morning

*Shakespeare's Autobiographical Poems, etc., by Charles Armitage

Brown.

dream; and, having seen it, it is impossible, we think, that the constant readiness of the reader or spectator to solve the riddle should be other than pleasurable. It appears to us that every one of an audience of the Comedy of Errors, who keeps his eyes open, will, after he has become a little familiar with the persons of the two Antipholuses and the two Dromios, find out some clue by which he can detect a difference between each, even without "the practical contradictions which arise, as soon as the different parties begin to speak." Schlegel says, "In such pieces we must always presuppose, to give an appearance of truth to the senses at least, that the parts by which the misunderstandings are occasioned are played with masks; and this the poet, no doubt, observed." Whether masks, properly so called, were used in Shakspere's time in the representation of this play, we have some doubt. But, unquestionably, each pair of persons selected to play the twins must be of the same height -with such general resemblances of the features as may be made to appear identical by the colour and false hair of the tiring-room-and be dressed with apparently perfect similarity. But let every care be observed to make the deception perfect, and yet the observing spectator will detect a difference between each; some peculiarity of the voice, some "trick o' the eye," some dissimilarity in gait, some minute variation in dress. We once knew two adult twin-brothers who might have played the Dromios without the least aids from the arts of the theatre. They were each stout, their stature was the same, each had a sort of shuffle in his walk, the voice of each was rough and unmusical, and they each dressed without any manifest peculiarity. One of them had long been a resident in the country town where we lived within a few doors of him, and saw him daily; the other came from a distant county to stay with our neighbour. Great was the perplexity. It was perfectly impossible to distinguish between them, at first, when they were apart;

and we well remember walking some distance with the stranger, mistaking him for his brother, and not discovering the mistake (which he humoured) till we saw his total ignorance of the locality. But after seeing this Dromio erraticus a few times the perplexity was at an end. There was a difference which was palpable, though not exactly to be defined. If the features were alike, their expression was somewhat varied; if their figures were the same, the one was somewhat more erect than the other; if their voices were similar, the one had a different mode of accentuation from the other; if they each wore a blue coat with brass buttons, the one was decidedly more slovenly than the other in his general appearance. If we had known them at all intimately, we probably should have ceased to think that the outward points of identity were even greater than the points of difference. We should have, moreover, learned the difference of their characters. It appears to us, then, that as this farce of real life was very soon at an end, when we had become a little familiar with the peculiarities in the persons of these twinbrothers, so the spectator of the Comedy of Errors will very soon detect the differences of the Dromios and Antipholuses; and that, while his curiosity is kept alive by the effort of attention which is necessary for this detection, the riddle will not only not tease him, but its perpetual solution will afford him the utmost satisfaction.

But has not Shakspere himself furnished a clue to the understanding of the Errors, by his marvellous skill in the delineation of character? Some one has said that if our poet's dramas were printed without the names of the persons represented being attached to the individual speeches, we should know who is speaking by his wonderful discrimination in assigning to every character appropriate modes of thought and expression. It appears to us that this is unquestionably the case with the characters of each of the twin-brothers in the Comedy of Errors.

The Dromio of Syracuse is described by his master as

"A trusty villain, sir; that very oft,

When I am dull with care and melancholy,
Lightens my humour with his merry jests."

But the wandering Antipholus herein describes himself: he

66

is a prey to care and melancholy." He has a holy purpose

to execute, which he has for years pursued without success:
"He that commends me to mine own content
Commends me to the thing I cannot get

I to the world am like a drop of water
That in the ocean seeks another drop."

Sedate, gentle, loving, the Antipholus of Syracuse is one of Shakspere's amiable creations. He beats his slave according to the custom of slave-beating; but he laughs with him and is kind to him almost at the same moment. He is an enthusiast, for he falls in love with Luciana in the midst of his perplexities, and his lips utter some of the most exquisite poetry:

"O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,
To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears;

Sing, syren, for thyself, and I will dote:

Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs."

But he is accustomed to habits of self-command, and he resolves to tear himself away even from the syren:

"But, lest myself be guilty to self-wrong,

I'll stop mine ears against the mermaid's song."

As his perplexities increase, he ceases to be angry with his slave:

"The fellow is distract and so am I ;

And here we wander in illusions:

Some blessed power deliver us from hence."

Unlike the Menæchmus Sosicles of Plautus, he refuses to dine with the courtesan.

He is firm yet courageous when assaulted by the Merchant. When the errors are clearing