ALL the critics agree that the Comedy of Errors, though first printed in the folio of 1623, is one of the earliest of the plays. It is mentioned by Meres (see M. N. D. p. 9), and is probably the "Comedy of Errors, like to Plautus his Menechmus," which, according to the Gesta Grayorum, was "played by the players" at Gray's Inn, one night in December, 1594. The pun in iii. 2. 121 on France "making war against her heir" would seem to show that the play was written between August, 1589, when the civil war about the succession of Henry IV. began, and July, 1593, when it ended.* Furnivall makes the date 1589, Collier "before 1590," Chalmers, Drake, Delius, and Stokes 1591, Malone 1592, Fleay (Introd. to Shakespearian Study) "circa 1594" (in the earlier Manual, 1592). The Comedy of Errors is the shortest of all the plays, having, according to Fleay (Manual, p. 259), only 1770 lines ("Globe" ed.), while Hamlet, the longest (not Antony and Cleopatra, as he states), has 3929, Richard III. 3599, etc. The next shortest is Macbeth with 1993, and the next Two Gentlemen of Verona with 2060. The present play, in Fleay's opinion, "we have only in its acting form, probably much abridged ;" but of course this is a mere conjecture. II. THE SOURCES OF THE PLOT. "The general idea of this play," as Singer remarks, “is taken from the Menæchmi of Plautus, but the plot is entirely recast, and rendered much more diverting by the variety and quick succession of the incidents. To the twin brothers of Plautus are added twin servants, and though this increases the improbability, yet, as Schlegel observes, 'when once we have lent ourselves to the first, which certainly borders on the incredible, we should not probably be disposed to cavil about the second; and if the spectator is to be en * A writer in the North British Review, April, 1870, attempts to show that events in French history of earlier date are alluded to. Henry of Navarre, he says, became heir to the throne on the death of the Duke of Anjou in 1584, and remained so until he became king on the murder of Henry III., Aug. 2, 1589. tertained with mere perplexities, they cannot be too much varied.'" On the question whether the poet drew his plot directly from the Latin of Plautus or from some earlier dramatization of the story (it is pretty certain that the play was written before he could have seen Warner's translation of the Menæchmi), see the quotation from Verplanck below. Knight also believes that Shakespeare may have read Plautus in the original, and Hudson (in his “ Harvard" ed.) takes the same ground. 66 III. CRITICAL COMMENTS ON THE PLAY. [From Drake's "Shakespeare and his Times." *] This drama of Shakespeare's is much more varied, rich, and interesting in its incidents than the Menæchmi of Plautus; and while, in rigid adherence to the unities of action, time, and place, our poet rivals the Roman play, he has contrived to insinuate the necessary previous information for the spectator, in a manner infinitely more pleasing and artful than that adopted by the Latin bard; for whilst Plautus has chosen to convey it through the medium of a prologue, Shakespeare has rendered it at once natural and pathetic by placing it in the mouth of Egeon, the father of the twinbrothers. In a play, of which the plot is so intricate, occupied in a great measure by mere personal mistakes and their whimsical results, no elaborate development of character can be expected; yet is the portrait of Ægeon touched with a discriminative hand, and the pressure of age and misfortune is so painted as to throw a solemn, dignified, and impressive tone of colouring over this part of the fable, contrasting well with the lighter scenes which immediately follow-a mode of relief which is again resorted to at the close of the drama, *Shakespeare and his Times, by Nathan Drake, M. D. (London, 1817), vol. ii. p. 288. |