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North, as when Signy changes forms with the witch-wife, and visits her brother Sigmund in this disguise, or when Sigurd lies by Brynhild in the outward form of Gunnar, in the Volsunga Saga. Tragic, too, is the exchange in the Roman de Merlin, when Uther Pendragon, in the form of Ulfin, her husband, wins the love of Ygerne, and so becomes the father of King Arthur. But confusions of identity lend themselves more easily to comedy. The magical or miraculous element is discarded, and the persons are "doubles" merely because they are twins, and are naturally like each other. This is the donnée of the Menæchmi, the play of Plautus from which Shakespeare borrows most directly. How much he took, and how much he gave, can only be estimated after studying a brief sketch of the Menæchmi.

A merchant of Syracuse (to abridge the prologue of the Latin play) had twin sons, so like that the mother who bore them could not tell one from the other. When the boys were seven years old, the father took one of them, Menæchmus, on board ship, with much merchandise, to Tarentum, and left the other twin at home with the mother. There were games at Tarentum when they arrived, and the father lost his boy in the crowd. A merchant of Epidamnus picked the child up, and carried him home thither. The father died, news of these events reached Syracuse, and the grandfather of the remaining twin called the child by the name of the lost brother, Menæchmus. The merchant of Epidamnus, being childless, adopted his Menæchmus, endowed him with all his wealth, saw him married, and died. The Syracusan twin, in the Roman comedy, visits Epidamnus in search of his brother, and all the comic perplexities arise, as each is taken for the other brother.

The play of Plautus, after the usual prologue, begins with a scene in which the Epidamnian Menæchmus, speaking to himself in the presence of his parasite Peniculus, rehearses a discourse to his jealous wife: Whenever I go out you ask me where I am going, what business calls me.... I have married a spy, not a wife; I have spoiled you by kindness, and presents of slaves, wool, purple, gold. Now I'll try the other tack-I'll seek a lady friend; I'll dine out." And he sends his parasite to a lady named Erotion with

presents which he has taken from his wife's wardrobe and jewel-case. It is plain that the wife of Menæchmus has toogood reason to be jealous of her rival, Erotion. "How I detest my wife when I see you!" he cries to Erotion, when she comes on the stage. "Spoils of hers for you, my rose," he says, offering his gifts. She gives her cook orders to provide dinner for herself, Menæchmus, and the parasite, who "eats for ten." In the second act comes Menæchmus of Syracuse, landed from his ship in Epidamnus, with his slave Messenio, who gives him a very bad account of manners and morals in Epidamnus. Erotion's cook now enters, and in the Syracusan Menæchmus recognizes and addresses the Menæchmus of Epidamnus, asking "where his parasite is." Menæchmus, who, of course, never saw the man before, tells him he must be mad, and bids him buy a pig to sacrifice for his cure. Orestes, in the Eumenides, says that he had been purified of his matricidal guilt in the blood of swine; the same expiatory sacrifice was sovran for insanity. The cook maintains that Menæchmus is the lunatic. Erotion bustles about her partie fine, and she too recognizes and invites the wrong Menæchmus. "She is drunk or mad," says that hero; but she tells him his name, his father's name, his native country, and everything else which she has learned from Menæchmus of Epidamnus. In real life, of course, the Syracusan Menæchmus would have said, "Why, you take me for my brother," and there the comedy would have ended. But Menæchmus of Syracuse, finding a pretty and hospitable lady, makes up his mind to dine with her, and see the adventure out. Minore nusquam bene fui dispendio, he remarks. Peniculus, the parasite of the other Menæchmus, meets him, and charges him with giving his wife's robes and jewels to Erotion. More confusion! Then Erotion's maid bids him take the bracelet which the Epidamnian Menæchmus had given her (his wife's bracelet) to the jeweller's to be repaired. Still more surprises for the Syracusan Menæchmus. He leaves these suspicious quarters, when the wife of Epidamnian Menæchmus enters, upbraiding her husband with stealing her property and carrying it to Erotion. The Epidamnian Menæchmus enters: he has been detained by affairs. He has a scene with his angry wife, and goes to Erotion, who at

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tacks him about the bracelet (which she has now given to his twin-brother), and Erotion is as angry as his wedded wife. The wife next assails the wrong Menæch mus. She will be a widow for him, and he replies that she may be "till kingdom come"-usque dum regnum obtinebit Jupiter. Her father enters, is appealed to by her, and tells her, as he has often done before, that she must not play the spy on her husband, nor watch his comings and goings. Her husband is a good husband, treats her generously; his amusements are no affair of hers. These were Roman ideas. "But he has given her property to another." "That's bad, if it is true." The old man asks Menæchmus of Syracuse if he has really done this. He denies it by the head of Jupiter, and both men accuse each other of lunacy. Menæchmus even enters into the humor of the scene by affecting to be mad; he invokes Bacchus-Evoe, evoe, Bromie!-and begins to rave. At last the old man brings a physician to his supposed son-in-law, and there is an amusing scene in which the mad-doctor interrogates his patient. "Do you sleep well? Do you drink white wine or claret?" In the end the twins meet, explain themselves, and go home together, the Epidamnian Menæchmus arranging for an auction of his goods and the sale of his jealous wife, if any one will buy her."

This is a curt analysis of the Roman comedy, and if it be obscure as "a fair page of algebra," the résumé is lucid in comparison with a résumé of Shakespeare's piece, where there is a double set of twins. Now in what way did Shakespeare obtain his knowledge of Plautus and the germ of his farce? Was there an older English play on the matter which he may have recast and accommodated? Mr. Halliwell points out that as early as 1576-7 The History of Errors (miswritten "of Terrors") was shown at Hampton Court on New-Year's Day. The "Children of Paul's" acted it, and the pieces played by these school-boys were usually taken from classical sources. Shake speare may at least have glanced through this old History of Errors. As to the original source, Plautus, if Shakespeare did attend Stratford Grammar-school (which we cannot demonstrate-Nash talks of his

country learning"), and if that school was conducted like others of its kind, he may well have studied Plautus in

the sixth form. Mr. Baynes has proved as much in his essays on the school learning of Shakespeare. He undeniably had "a little Latin"; and what seemed little in Ben Jonson's learned eyes would be amply enough for Shakespeare's purpose. But it is a curious and perhaps noteworthy coincidence that while the Comedy of Errors was certainly acted at Grey's Inn in December, 1594, an English prose version of its Latin original, the Menæchmi, was published perhaps before that date. This old and lively paraphrase bears, it is true, the year 1595, but booksellers have a way of anticipating time, that their books may be longer new. Thus Shakespeare may have seen the translation, in proof at least, or even in MS., before he wrote his own comedy. The translation is entitled

MEN ECHMI

A Pleasant and fine conceited Comedie taken out of the most wittie Poet, Plautus.

Chos

en purposely out of the rest, as least harmful, and yet most delightful. Written in English by William) W(arner). T. Creede. London, 1595. 4°.

The British Museum has a copy of this very rare quarto, and Mr. Halliwell has reprinted it in his large Shakespeare. The translator tells us in his preface that he had diverse of the pretty comedies Englished for the use and delight of his private friends, who, in Plautus's own words, are not able to understand them.” No doubt the translations were handed about in manuscript, as was the manner of that and later times, and it is perfectly possible that Shakespeare may thus have gained his knowledge of the Menæchmi. Recent paradoxical writers about Shakespeare deny him any scholarship. For my own part, I believe he could spell out Plautus in the original; but even if he could not, it has been shown that a translation was not out of his reach. The Elizabethan age was much richer in translations than the sciolists who stir up controversy about Shakespeare and Bacon suppose. The style of the version by William Warner is, like that of B. R.'s contemporary Herodotus, almost too colloquial and idiomatic. "Bralling foole and mad-brained scold as ye are," is Menæchmus's address to his wife, "I mean to dine this day with a sweet friend of mine." Again, Would every man could tame his shrew as well as I doe mine!" he remarks, after he has taken the