Act I. Scene I.

Ege. The children thus dispos'd, my wife and I, Fixing our eyes on whom our care was fix'd, Fasten' ourselves at either end the mast; And floating straight, obedient to the stream, Were carried towards Corinth, as we thought.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

Solinus, Duke of Ephesus.
Egeon, a Merchant of Syracuse.

Ti D

Balth

Luviunu, ner Disier.

Luce, her Servant.

A Courtezan.

Gaoler, Officers, and other Attendants.

SCENE, Ephesus.

Act I. Scene I.

Æge. The children thus dispos'd, my wife and I, Fixing our eyes on whom our care was fix'd, Fasten'd ourselves at either end the mast; And floating straight, obedient to the stream, Were carried towards Corinth, as we thought.

OBSERVATIONS

ON

THE FABLE AND COMPOSITION

OF

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS.

SHAKSPEARE certainly took the general plan of this comedy from a translation of the Menæchmi of Plautus, by W. W. i. e. (according to Wood) William Warner, in 1595, whose version of the acrostical argument is as follows:

"Two twinne-borne sonnes, a Sicill marchant had, "Menechmus one, and Sosicles the other;

"The first his father lost a little lad,

"The grandsire namde the latter like his brother:
“This (growne a man) long travell tooke to seeke
"His brother, and to Epidamnum came,

"Where th' other dwelt inricht, and him so like,
"That citizens there take him for the same:

"Father, wife, neighbours, each mistaking either, "Much pleasant error, ere, they meet togither." Perhaps the last of these lines suggested to Shakspeare the title for his piece.

In this comedy we find more intricacy of plot than distinction of character; and our attention is less forcibly engaged, because we can guess in great measure how the denouement will be brought about. Yet the poet seems unwilling to part with the subject, even in the last (and unnecessary) scene, where the same mistakes are continued, till their power of affording entertainment is entirely lost. STEEVENS.

VOL. III.

b