Alafs! poor women, make us but believe, (13)
Being compact of credit, that you love us;
Tho' others have the arm, fhew us the fleeve :
We in your motion turn, and you may move us.
Then, gentle brother, get you in again;

Comfort my fifter, cheer her, call her wife;
'Tis holy fport to be a little vain,

When the fweet breath of flattery conquers ftrife.
S. Ant. Sweet miftrefs, (what your name is elfe, I know
Nor by what wonder you do hit of mine:) [not;
Lefs in your knowledge and your grace you fhow not
Than our earth's wonder, more than earth divine.
Teach me, dear creature, how to think and fpeak;
Lay open to my earthy grofs conceit,
Smother'd in errors, feeble, fhallow, weak,
The foulded meaning of your words deceit ;
Against my foul's pure truth why labour you,
To make it wander in an unknown field?
Are you a God? would you create me new?
Transform me then, and to your pow'r I'll yield.
But if that I am I, then, well I know,
Your weeping fifter is no wife of mine;
Nor to her bed no homage do I owe;

Far more, far more, to you do I decline:

editors have of love in buildings growing ruinate? Surely, they did not dream of love made under an old wall? Our Poet meant no more than this. Shall thy love-fprings rot, even in the spring of love? and shall thy love grow ruinous, ev'n while 'tis but building up? The next corruption is by an accident at prefs, as I take it; this fcene for 52 lines fucceffively is ftrictly in alternate rhymes: and this measure is never broken, but in the fecond, and fourth, lines of thefe two couplets. 'Tis certain, I think, a monofyllable dropt from the tail of the 2d verfe, and I have ventur'd to fupply it by, I hope, a probable conjecture.

(13) Alas! poor Women, make us not believe, &c ] From the whole tenour of the context it is evident, that this negative (not,) got place. in the first copies inftead of but. And these two monofyllables have by mistake reciprocally difpoffefs'd one another in many other paffages of our Author's works. Nothing can be more plain than the Poet's fenfe in this paffage. Women, fays be, are fo ealy of faith, that only make them believe you love them, and they'll take the bare profeffion, for the fubftance and reality.

Oh,

Oh, train me not, fweet mermaid, with thy note,
To drown me in thy fifter's flood of tears;
Sing, Siren, for thyself, and I will dote;

Spread o'er the filver waves thy golden hairs,
And as a bed I'll take thee, and there lie:
And in that glorious fuppofition think,
He gains by death, that hath fuch means to die;
Let love, being light, be drowned if the fink.
Luc. What, are you mad, that you do reafon fo N
S. Ant. Not mad, but mated; how, I do not know.
Luc. It is a fault that fpringeth from your eye.
S. Ant. For gazing on your beams, fair fun, being by.
Luc. Gaze where you fhould, and that will clear your
fight..

S. Ant. As good to wink, fweet love, as look on night.
Luc. Why call you me, love? call my fifter fo.
S. Ant. Thy fifter's fifter.

Luc. That's my fifter.

S. Ant. No;

It is thyself, mine own felf's better part:
Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart,
My food, my fortune, and my fweet hope's aim,
My fole earth's heaven, and my heaven's claim.
Luc. All this my fifter is, or else should be.

S. Ant. Call thyfelf fifter, fweet; for I mean thee &
Thee will I love, and with thee lead my life;
Thou haft no hufband yet, nor I no wife.

Give me thy hand.

Luc. Oh, foft, Sir, hold you ftill; I'll fetch my fifter, to get her good will.

Enter Dromio of Syracufe.

[Exit Luc.

S. Ant. Why, how now, Dromis, where run'ft thou fo fast?

S. Dro. Do you know me, Sir? am I Dromio? am I your man? am I myself?

S. Ant. Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself.

S. Dro. I am an ass, I am a woman's man and befides myfelf.

S. Auto

S. Ant. What woman's man? and how befides thy felf.

S. Dro. Marry, Sir, befides myself, I am due to a woman; one that claims me, one that haunts me, one that will have me.

S. Ant. What claim lays fhe to thee?

S. Dra. Marry, Sir, fuch claim as you would lay to your horfe; and fhe would have me as a beaft: not that I being a beaft, she would have me; but that she, being a very beaftly creature, lays claim to me.

S. Ant. What is she?

S. Dro. A very reverent body; ay, fuch a one as a man may not fpeak of, without he fay, Sir reverence: I have but lean luck in the match; and yet is the a wond'rous fat marriage.

S. Ant. How doft thou mean, a fat marriage?

S. Dro. Marry, Sir, fhe's the kitchen-wench, and all greafe; and I know not what use to put her to, but to make a lump of her, and run from her by her own light. I warrant, her rags, and the tallow in them, will burn a Poland winter: if the lives 'till doomsday, she'll burn a week longer than the whole world.

S. Ant. What complexion is fhe of?

S. Dro. Swart, like my fhoe, but her face nothing like fo clean kept; for why? fhe fweats, a man may go over-fhoes in the grime of it.

S. Ant. That's a fault, that water will mend.

S. Dro. No, Sir, 'tis in grain; Noah's flood could not do it.

S. Ant. (14) What's her name?

S. Dro. Nell, Sir;-but her name and three quarters (that is, an ell and three quarters) will not measure her from hip to hip.

(14) What's ber name?

S. Dro. Nell; Sir; but her name is three quarters; that is, an ell and three quarters, &c.] This paffage has hitherto lain as perplext and unintelligible, as it is now eafy, and truly humorous. If a conundrum be reftor'd, in setting it right, who can help it? There are enough befides in our Author, and Ben Johnson, to countenance that current vice of the times when this play appear'd. Nor is Mr. Pope, in the abaftity of his taste, to brifle up at me for the revival of this witticism, fince I owe the correction to the fagacity of the ingenious Dr. Thirlby.

S.Ant

S. Ant. Then fhe bears fome breadth?

S. Dro. No longer from head to foot, than from hip to hip; fhe is fpherical, like a globe: I could find out countries in her.

S. Ant. In what part of her body ftands Ireland?

S. Dro. Marry, Sir, in her buttocks; I found it out by the bogs.

S. Ant. Where Scotland?

S. Dro. I found it out by the barrennefs, hard in the palm of her hand.

(15) S. Ant. Where France?

S. Dro. In her forehead; arm'd and reverted, making war against her heir.

S. Ant. Where England?

S. Dro. I look'd for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no whitenefs in them; but I guess, it stood in her chin, by the falt rheum that ran between France and it. S. Ant. Where Spain?

(15) S. Ant. Where France?

S. Dro. In ber forebead; arm'd and reverted, making war against her hair.] All the other countries, mention'd in this defcription, are in Dromio's replies fatirically characteriz'd: but here, as the editors have order'd it, no remark is made upon France; nor any reason given, why it should be in her forehead: but only the kitchen-wench's high forehead is rallied, as pushing back her bair. Thus all the modern editions; but the firft folio reads- -making war against ber heir. And I am very apt to think, this laft is the true reading; and that an equivoque, as the French call it, a double meaning is defign'd in the Poet's allufion: and therefore I have replaced it in the text. If my

conjecture be of any weight, we may be able from it pretty precisely S to fix the date of this play's appearance. I am not afham'd to trust it to judgment, & valeat quantum valere poteft. In 1589, Henry IIId of France being tab'd and dying of his wound, was fuceeded by Henry IVth of Navarre, whom he appointed his fucceffor; but whofe claim the states of France refifted, on account of his being a proteftant. This, I take it, is what he means, by France making war against her beir. Now as, in 1591, Queen Elizabeth fent over 4000 men, under the conduct of the Earl of Effex, to the affiftance of this Henry of Navarre; it feems to me very probable, that during this expedition being on foot, this Comedy made its appearance. And it was the finest address imaginable in the Poet, to throw fuch an oblique fneer at France, for oppofing the fucceffion of that heir, whofe claim his Royal Miftrefs the Queen, had fent over a force to establish, and oblige them to acknowledge.

S. Dro.

S. Dro. Faith, I fawitnot, but I felt it hot in her breath. S. Ant. Where America, the Indies.

S. Dro. Oh, Sir, upon her nofe, all o'er embellish'd with rubies, carbuncles, faphires; declining their rich afpect to the hot breath of Spain, who fent whole armadoes of carracts to be ballast at her nose.

S. Ant. Where ftood Belgia, the Netherlands? S. Dro. Oh, Sir, I did not look fo low. To conclude, this drudge, or diviner, laid claim to me, call'd me Dromio, fwore I was affur'd to her, told me what privy marks I had about me, as the marks of my fhoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart on my left arm, that I, amaz'd, ran from her as a witch. And, I think, if my breast had not been made of faith, and my heart of steel, she had transform'd me to a curtaldog, and made me turn i'th' wheel.

S. Ant. Go, hie thee presently; post to the road; And if the wind blow any way from shore, I will not harbour in this town to-night. If any bark put forth, come to the mart; Where I will walk, 'till thou return to me: If every one knows us, and we know none, "Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack and be gone. S. Dro. As from a bear a man would run for life, So fly I from her that would be my wife. [Exit. S, Ant. There's none but witches do inhabit here; And therefore 'tis high time that I were hence: She, that doth call me hufband, even my foul Doth for a wife abhor. But her fair fifter, Poffeft with fuch a gentle fovereign grace, Of fuch enchanting prefence and difcourfe, Hath almoft made me traitor to myself: But left myself be guilty of felf-wrong, I'll ftop mine ears against the mermaid's fong.

Enter Angelo, with a Chain.

Ang. Mafter Antipholis,

S. Ant. Ay, that's my name.

Ang. I know it well, Sir; lo, here is the chain;

I