Duke. With all my heart, I'll gossip at this feast.

[Exeunt the DUKE, Abbess, ÆGEON, Courtezan, Sec. Merchant, ANGELO, and Attendants. Dro. S. Master, shall I go fetch your stuff from shipboard? Ant. E. Dromio, what stuff of mine hast thou embark'd? Dro. S. Your goods that lay at host, sir, in the Centaur. Ant. S. He speaks to me. I am your master, Dromio : Come, go with us; we'll look to that anon :

Embrace thy brother there; rejoice with him.

[Exeunt ANT. S. and ANT. E., ADR. and LUC.

Dro. S. There is a fat friend at your master's house, That kitchen'd me for you to-day at dinner :

She now shall be my sister, not my wife.

Dro. E. Methinks you are my glass, and not my

I see by you I am a sweet-faced youth.
Will you walk in to see their gossiping?

Dro. S. Not I, sir; you are my elder.

Dro. E. That's a question: how shall we try it?

brother:

Dro. S. We'll draw cuts for the senior: till then lead

thou first.

Dro. E. Nay, then, thus :

We came into the world like brother and brother ;

And now let's go hand in hand, not one before another.

[Exeunt.

CRITICAL NOTES.

ACT I., SCENE I.

Page 80. Nay, more, if any born at Ephesus
Be seen at Syracusian marts and fairs;
Again, if any Syracusian born

Come to the bay of Ephesus, &c. - Here, in the second line, the original reads " seene at any Syracusian"; any being inserted by mistake from the occurrence of the same word just above and just below. Pope's correction.

P. 8o. To quit the penalty and ransom him. — The original repeats the to before ransom. Corrected in the second folio.

And by me too, had not our hap been bad. -The first folio omits too, which was supplied in the second.

P. 81. And the great care of goods at random left.-The original has "And he great care of goods." Corrected by Theobald.

P. 81. That very hour, and in the self-same inn,

A meaner woman was delivered

Of such a burden. -The original reads "A meane woman," leaving a gap in the verse; which gap the second folio filled by inserting poor. This can hardly be right, as in the next line but one we have "their parents were exceeding poor." Walker says, "Read 'A meaner woman'; one of a lower rank than my wife."

The sailors sought for safety by our boat, &c.—So Walker, and rightly, I have no doubt. The old copies, " And this it was."

149

P. 83. We were encounter'd by a mighty rock;

Which being violently borne upon,

Our hopeful ship was splitted in the midst.—The original has "Our helpful ship," which can hardly be right. Rowe changed helpful to helpless, which is evidently much better. Hopeful was proposed by Mr. Swynfen Jervis, and certainly accords well with the context. the second line, the first folio has "borne up"; the second, "borne up upon."

-

In

P. 83. At length, the other ship had seized on us. - So Hanmer; the old copies, "another ship." The correction is prompted, and indeed fairly required by the context.

P. 83. Thus by misfortune was my life prolong'd. - The old text has That instead of Thus, which is Hanmer's reading. The original also has misfortunes. Corrected by Dyce.

P. 84. What hath befall'n of them and thee.-So the second folio; the first, "What have befalne of them and they."

To seek thy life by beneficial help. - So Pope, followed by Theobald, Hanmer, White, and Dyce, and approved by Walker. Of course the meaning is, “seek to save thy life." The old copies read “To seek thy help by beneficial help"; which is palpably wrong. reads "To seek thy hope," &c.

66

P. 85. Beg thou, or borrow, to make up the sum,

And live; if not, then thou art doom'd to die..

Staunton

Jailer, now take him to thy custody. - The original has "if no";

a stark error," says Dyce. In the last line, now, wanting in the old copies, is supplied by Hanmer and Collier's second folio. Walker proposes "Go, jailer, take,” &c. I am not sure but Capell's reading, "So, jailer, take," &c., is the best of all.

ACT II., SCENE 1.

P. 90. Look, when I serve him so, he takes it ill. So the second folio; the first, "he takes it thus"; a manifest error.

P. 90. Men, more divine, the masters of all these,

Lords of all the wide world, &c. - Instead of Men, masters, and Lords, the original has Man, Master, and Lord; a reading which, I believe, no modern editor retains. The last line of the speech but one corrects the error.

See

P. 91. How if your husband start some other hare? - So Johnson proposed to read. The original has "some otherwhere." foot-note 2.

P. 94. I see the jewel best enamelled

Will lose his beauty; and though gold bides still

The triers' touch, yet often-touching will

Wear gold and so a man, that hath a name,

By falsehood and corruption doth it shame. — This passage is so crowded with errors in the original, that nothing will do but to quote the old reading literatim :

I see the Jewell best enameled

Will lose his beautie: yet the gold bides still
That others touch, and often touching will,
Where gold and no man that hath a name,
By falsehood and corruption doth it shame.

Much labour and ingenuity have been spent by divers editors in trying to bring some sort of order and sense out of this confusion and nonsense. I have combined the results of their several labours according to my best judgment. Probably there will never be a full agreement as to how the errors should be corrected. The change of "That others touch" to "The triers' touch" is Singer's. Heath proposed the reading, "and so a man."

"will jest upon"; probably, as Dyce observes, from the occurrence of

jest a little before and a little after. The happy correction, for such I deem it, is Dyce's; who notes upon the passage thus: "The second line so obviously leads to the correction which I have now made, that I wonder how it escaped the commentators." See foot-notes I and 2.

P. 98. Nay, not sure, in a thing falling. The old copies read "in a thing falsing." Falling was proposed by Heath, and is adopted by White, who shows conclusively, I think, that falsing has no coherence with the context; and asks, as he well may, "in what possible sense is the hair falsing?"

P. 98. The one, to save the money that he spends in trimming. — So Rowe and Dyce. The original has trying, which Pope changed to tiring. As Dromio is speaking of the hair, trimming is evidently more suitable.

P. 98. Namely, no time to recover hair lost by nature. second folio; the first, "namely in no time," &c.

P. 99. How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it,

That thou art thus estrangèd from thyself? - So Rowe and Collier's second folio. The original reads "That thou art then estranged."

P. 99. I am possess'd with an adulterate blot;

My blood is mingled with the grime of lust.-The old copies read "the crime of lust." The word blot, in the preceding line, makes, as Warburton remarks, strongly in favour of grime, which means stain or smut; and Dyce, who adopts grime, notes that "our early printers often confounded the letters c and g at the beginning of words."

P. 99. I live unstain'd, thou undishonoured. - So Hanmer. The original has "I live distain'd," which gives just the opposite of the sense required. It seems needful to remark, here, that the form of the letter v was very often used for u in the Poet's time. Dyce notes that "the manuscript had vnstain'd, and the original compositor mistook the initial for d." He adds, "The proneness of printers to blunder in words beginning with is very remarkable." And he quotes from various old plays, showing how daunt got misprinted for vaunt, times for vines, sin for vein, due for vice, bones for vaines, that is, veins, and oil for veil.