'Ant. Shall I tell you why?

S. Dro. Ay, Sir, and wherefore; for they fay, ev ery why hath a wherefore.

Ant. Why, firft, for flouting me; and then wherefore, for urging it the fecond time to me. S. Dro. Was there ever any man thus beaten out of feason,

When, in the why, and wherefore, is neither rhyme nor reafon?

Well, Sir, I thank you.

Ant. Thank me, Sir, for what?

S. Dro. Marry, Sir, for this fomething that you gave me for nothing.

Ant. I'll make you amends next, to give you nothing for fomething. But fay, Sir, is it dinnertime?

S. Dro. No, Sir, I think the meat wants that I have.

Ant. In good time, Sir, what's that?
S. Dro. Bafting.

Ant. Well, Sir, then 'twill be dry.

S. Dro. If it be, Sir, I pray you eat none of it.
Ant. Your reafon?

S. Dro. Left it make you choleric, and purchase me another dry-baiting.

Ant. Well, Sir, learn to jeft in good time :: there's a time for all things.

S. Dro. I durft have denied that, before you were fo choleric.

Ant. By what rule, Sir?

S. Dro. Marry, Sir, by a rule as plain as the plain bald pate of father Time himself.

Ant. Let's hear it.

S. Dro. There's no time for a man to recover his

hair, that grows bald by nature.

Ant. May he not do it by fine and recovery?

S. Dro. Yes, to pay a fine for a peruke, and recover the loft hair of another man.

(6) Ant. Why is Time fuch a niggard of hair, being, as it is, fo plentiful an excrement?

S. Dro. Because it is a bleffing that he beftows on beafts; and what he hath fcanted men in hair, he hath given them in wit.

Ant. Why, but there's many a man hath more hair than wit.

S. Dro. Not a man of thofe, but he hath the wit to lofe his hair.

Ant. Why, thou didst conclude hairy men plaindealers without wit.

S. Dro. The plainer dealer, the fooner loft; yet he lofeth it in a kind of jollity.

Ant. For what reason?

S. Dro. For two, and found ones too.
Ant. Nay, not found, I pray you.
S. Dro. Sure ones then.

Ant. Nay, not fure in a thing falfing.
S. Dro. Certain ones then.

Ant. Name them.

S. Dro. The one to fave the money that he fpends in tyring; the other, that at dinner they fhould not drop in his porridge.

(6) Ant. Why is Time fuch a niggard of hair, being, as ie is, fo plentiful an excrement?

S. Dro. Because it is a blessing that he beflows on beafts, and what he hath fcanted them in hair, he hath given them in wit.] Surely this is mock reafoning, and a contradiction in sense. Can hair be fuppofed a bleffing, which Time beflows on beafts peculiarly, and yet that he hath feanted them of it too? I corrected this paffage, as I have now reformed the text, in my Shakespeare Reftored; and Mr l'ope has been pleafed to adopt my correction in his last edition. Mer and Them, I obferve, are very frequently mistaken vice versa for each other, in the old impreffions of our Author.

Ant. You would all this time have proved there is no time for all things.

S. Dro. Marry, and did, Sir; namely, no time to recover hair loft by nature.

Ant. But your reafon was not substantial, why there is no time to recover.

S. Dro. Thus I mend it: Time himself is bald, and therefore to the world's end will have bald followers.

Ant. I knew 'twould be a bald conclufion. But foft! who wafts us yonder?

Enter ADRIANA, and LUCIANA.

Adri. Ay, ay, Antipholis, look strange and frown, Some other mistress hath thy fweet aspects: I am not Adriana, nor thy wife.

The time was once, when thou, unurged, wouldst

VOW

That never words were mufic to thine ear,
That never object pleafing in thine eye,
That never touch well welcome to thy hand,
That never meat fweet-favoured in thy taste,
Unless I fpake, or looked, or touched, or carved.
How comes it now, my husband, oh, how comes it,
That thou art thus eftranged from thyfelf?
Thyfelf I call it, being ftrange to me:
That, undividable, incorporate,

Am better than thy dear felf's better part.
Ah, do not tear away thyself from me:
For know, my love, as eafy may'st thou fall
A drop of water in the breaking gulf,
And take unmingled thence that drop again,
Without addition or diminishing,

As take from me thyfelf, and not me too.
How dearly would it touch thee to the quick,
Should'ft thou but hear I were licentious?

And that this body, confecrate to thee,
By ruffian luft fhould be contaminate?
Would't thou not fpit at me, and spurn at me,
And hurl the name of hufband in my face,
And tear the ftained ikin off my harlot-brow,
And from my falie hand cut the wedding-ring,
And break it with a deep-divorcing vow?

I know thou can't; and therefore, fee thou do it.
I am poffeffed with an adulterate blot;
My blood is mingled with the crime of luft:
For if we two be one, and thou play false,
I do digeft the poifon of thy flesh,
Being ftrumpeted by thy contagion.

Keep then fair league, and truce with thy true bed;
I live dif-stained, thou undishonoured. (7)

Ant. Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not:

In Ephefus I am but two hours old,

As strange unto your town as to your talk.
Who, every word by all my wit being scanned,
Wants wit in all one word to understand.

Luc. Fy, brother, how the world is changed with you!

When were you wont to use my fifter thus?
She fent for you by Dromio home to dinner.
Ant. By Dromio?

S. Dro. By me?

Adr. By thee; and thus thou didst return from him,

That he did buffet thee, and in his blows
Denied my house for his, me for his wife.

(7) I live diftained, thou undisbonoured.] To difiaine, (from the French word, deftaindre) fignifies, to ftain, defile, pollute. But the context requires a fenfe quite oppofite. We muft either read, unstained, or, by adding an hyphen, and giving the prepofition a privative force, read dif-ftained, and then it will mean, unftained, undefiled.

Ant. Did you converfe, Sir, with this gentle

woman?

What is the courfe and drift of your compact ?

S. Dro. I, Sir? I never faw her 'till this time. Ant. Villain, thou lieft; for even her very words Didit thou deliver to me on the mart. ·

S. Dro. I never spoke with her in all my life. Ant. How can fhe thus then call us by our names, Unless it be by inspiration?

Adr. How ill agrees it with your gravity,
To counterfeit thus grofsly with your flave,
Abetting him to thwart me in my mood?
Be it my wrong you are from me exempt,
But wrong not that wrong with a more contempt.
Come, I will faften on this fleeve of thine ;
Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine;
Whose weaknefs, marry'd to thy ftronger ftate,
Makes me with thy ftrength to communicate;
If ought poffefs thee from me, it is drofs,
Ufurping ivy, brier, or idle mofs;

Who, all for want of pruning, with intrufion
Infect thy fap, and live on thy confufion.

Ant. To me the fpeaks; the moves me for her theme;

What, was I married to her in my dream?
Or fleep I now, and think I hear all this?
What error drives our eyes and ears amifs?
Until I know this fure uncertainty,

Ill entertain the favoured fallacy.

Luc. Dromio, go bid the fervants fpread for din

ner.

S. Dro. Oh, for my beads! I cross me for a finThis is the Fairy land: oh, fpight of fpights! [ner. We talk with goblins, cuphs and elvish sprights; (8)

(8) We talk with goblins, owls, and elvish Sprights; They might fancy they talked with goblins and fprights; bu