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Menæchmum civem credunt omnes advenam:

Eumque appellant, meretrix, uxor, et socer,
li se cognoscunt fratres postremo invicem.

The translator W. W. calls the brothers, Menæchmus Sosicles, and Menæchmus the Traveller. Whencesoever Shakspere adopted erraticus and surreptus (which either he or his editors have mis-spelt) 'hese distinctions were soon dropt, and throughout the rest of the entries the twins are styled of Syracuse or Ephesus.

See this translation of the Menæchmi, among six old Plays on which Shakspere founded, &c. published by S. Leacroft, Charing-Cross.

At Stationers-Hall, Nov. 15, 1613: "A booke called Two Twinnes," was entered by Geo. Norton. Such a play indeed, by W. Rider, was published in 4to. 1655. And Langbaine suspects it to be much older than the date annexed; otherwise the Twins might have been regarded as Shakspere's Comedy of Errors, under another title. STEEVENS.

Page 5. Comedy of Errors.] I suspect this and all other plays where much rhime is used, and especially long hobbling verses, to have been among Shakspere's more early productions. BLACKSTONE.

A play with this title was exhihited at Gray's-Inn, in December 1594; but it was probably a translation from Plautus." After such sports, a Comedy of Errors (like to Plautus his Menechmus) was played by the players so that night was begun, and continued to the end in nothing but confusion and errors. Whereupon

Whereupon it was ever afterwards called The Night of Errors." Gesta Grayorum, 1688. The Registers of Gray's-Inn have been examined, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the play above mentioned was our author's;—but they afforded no information on the subject. MALONE.

Line 34. Was wrought by nature, not by vile offence.] All his hearers understood that the punishment he was about to undergo was in consequence of no private crime, but of the publick enmity between two states, to one of which he belonged; but it was a general superstition amongst the ancients, that every great and sudden misfortune was the vengeance of heaven pursuing men for their secret offences. Hence the sentiment put into the mouth of the speaker was proper. By my past life (says he), which I am going to relate, the world may understand, that my present death is according to the ordinary course of Providence [wrought by nature] and not the effects of divine vengeance overtaking me for my crimes [not by vile offence.] WARBURTON.

133. Roaming clean through the bounds of Asia.] In the northern parts of England this word is still used instead of quite, fully, perfectly, completely. So, in Julius Cæsar:

selves."

"Clean from the purpose of the things themSTEEVENS. 157. wend,] i. e. go. See catch-word Al

phabet.

A iij

222.

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For she will score your fault upon my pate.] Perhaps before writing was a general accomplishment, a kind of rough reckoning concerning wares issued out of a shop, was kept by chalk on a post, till it could be entered on the books of a trader. So, Kitely, the merchant, making his jealous inquiries concerning the familiarities used to his wife, Cob

answers :

if I saw any body to be kiss'd, unless they would have kiss'd the post in the middle of the warehouse," &c. STEEVENS.

224. Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your clock.] The only authentick ancient copy of this play reads "your cook." Mr. Pope, I believe, made the change. MALONE.

237. -that merry sconce of yours,] Sconce is head. So in Hamlet, act v. “—why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce ?”

-o'er-raught-] That is over-reached.

254.

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STEEVENS.

JOHNSON.

"We o'er-raught on the way."

STEEVENS.

255. They say, this town is full of cozenage ;] This was the character the ancients gave of it. WARBURTON. 257. Dark-working sorcerers, that change the mind,

Soul-killing witches, that deform the body; ] Per

haps

haps the epithets have been misplaced, and the lines should be read thus:

Soul-killing sorcerers, that change the mind,

Dark-working witches, that deform the body;] By soul-killing I understand destroying the rational faculties by such means as make men fancy themselves beasts. JOHNSON.

Witches or sorcerers themselves, as well as those who employed them, were supposed to forfeit their souls by making use of a forbidden agency. In that sense they may be said to destroy the souls of others as well as their own. STEEVENS. 260. liberties of sin:] Sir T. Hanmer reads, ibertines; which, as the author has been enumerating not acts but persons, seems right.

JOHNSON.

ACT II.

Line

14.

ADR. There's none but asses will be bridled so. Luc. Why head-strong liberty is lash'd with woe.] Should it not rather be leash'd, i. e. coupled, like a head-strong hound?

The high opinion I must necessarily entertain of the learned Lady's judgment, who furnished this observation, has taught me to be diffident of my own, which I am now to offer.

The meaning of this passage may be, that those who refuse the bridle must bear the lash; and that woe is

the punishment of head-strong liberty. It may be ob. served, however, that the seamen still use lash in the same sense as leash; as does Greene in his Mamillia, 1593: "Thou didst counsel me to beware of love, and I was before in the lash." Again, in George Whetstone's Castle of Delight, 1576: “Yet both in lashe at length this Cressid leaves." Lace was the old English word for a cord, from which verbs have been derived very differently modelled by the chances of pronunciation. So, in Promos and Cassandra, 1578: "To thee, Cassandra, which dost hold my free

dom in a lace."

When the mariner, however, lashes his guns, the sportsman leashes his dogs, the female laces her clothes, they all perform one act of fastening with a lace or cord. Of the same original is the word windlass, or more properly windłace, an engine, by which a lace or cord is wound upon a barrel.

To lace likewise signified to bestow correction with a cord, or rope's end. So in the Second Part of Decker's Honest Whore, 1630:

-the lazy lowne

"Gets here hard hands, or lac'd correction." Again, in The Two angry Women of Abingdon, 1599: "So, now my back has room to reach; I do not love to be laced in, when I go to lace a rascal."

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