OBSERVATIONS.

COMEDY OF ERRORS.] Shakespeare might have taken the general plan of this comedy from a translation of the Menæchini 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 took 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 Shakespeare the title for his piece.

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

At the beginning of an address Ad Lectorem, prefixed to the errata of Decker's Satiromastix, &c. 1602, is the following passage, which apparently alludes to the title of the comedy before us:

"In steed of the trumpets sounding thrice before the play begin, it shall not be amisse (for him that will read) first to beholde this short Comedy of Errors, and where the greatest enter, to give them instead of a hisse, a gentle correction.' STEEVENS.

I suspect this and all other plays where much rhyme is used, and especially long hobbling verses, to have been among Shakespeare's more early productions. BLACKSTONE.