you why?

If you will jest with me, know my aspect,
And fashion your demeanour to my looks ;
Or I will beat this method in your sconce.

S. Dro. Sconce, call you it ? so you would leave battering, I had rather have it a head ; an you use these blows long, I must get a sconce for my head, and insconce it too, or elle I shall seek my wit in my shoulders: but, I pray, Sir, why am I beaten ?

Ant. thou not know? S. Dro. Nothing, Sir, but that I am beaten. Ant. Shall I tell S. Dro. Ay, Sir, and wherefore ; for, they say, every why hath a wherefore.

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

season, When, in the why, and wherefore, is neither thime nor

reason? Well, Sir, I thank you.

Ant. Thank me, Sir, for what?

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

Ant. I'll make you amends next, to give you nothing for something. But say, Sir, is it dinner-time? 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 'will be dry.
S. Dro. If it be, Sir, I pray you eat none of it.
Ant. Your reason ?

S. Dro. Left it make you cholerick, and purchase me another dry-basting.

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

S. Dro. I durit have deny'd that, before you were lo cholerick

Ant. By what rule, Sir ?
VOL. III.

I

S, Dro.

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.

(4) Ant. Why is Time such a niggard of hair, being, as it is, so plentiful an excrement?

S. Dro. Because it is a blessing that he bestows on beafts; and what he hath scanted 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 those, but he hath the wit to lose his hair.

Ant. Why, thou didit conclude hairy men plain dealers without wit.

S. Dro. The plainer dealer, the sooner loft; yet he loseth 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 sure in a thing falfing.
S. Dro. Certain ones then.
Ant. Name them.

S. Dro. The one to save the money that he spends in tyring; the other, that at dinner they should not drop in his porridge.

(4) Ant. Why is Time such a Niggard of Hair, being, as it is, Jo plentiful an Excrement ?

S. Dro. Because it is a Blessing that he bestows on Beasts, and what he hath Scanted them in hair, he hath given them in Wit.) Surely, this is Mock-reasoning, and a Contradi&tion in Sense. Can Hair be suppos'd a Blesing, which Time bestows on Scafts peculiarly; and yet that he hath soanted them of it too: Men and Them, I observe, are very frequently mistaken vice versa for each other, in the old Impresions of our Author.

Ant.

Ant. You would all this time have prov'd, 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 reason 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, soft ! who wafts us yonder ?

Enter Adriana, and Luciana.
Adri. Ay, ay, Antipholis, look strange and frown,
Some other mistress hath thy sweet aspects :
I am not Adriana, nor thy wife.
The time was once, when thou, unurg'd, wouldst vow,
That never words were mufick to thine ear,
That never object pleasing in thine eye,
That never touch well welcome to thy hand,
That never meat sweet-favour'd' in thy taste,
Unless I spake, or look’d, or touch'd, or carv'd.
How comes it now, my husband, oh, how comes it,
That thou art thus estranged from thy self?
Thy self I call it, being strange to me:
That, undividable, incorporate,
Am better than thy dear self's better part.
Ah, do not tear away thy self from me:
For know, my love, as easie may'st thou fall
A drop of water in the breaking gulph,
And take unmingled thence that

drop again,
Without addition or diminishing,
As take from me thy self; and not me too.
How dearly would it touch thee to the quick,
Should'st thou but hear, I were licentious ?
And that this body, consecrate to thee,
By ruffian luft should be contaminate ?
Would'st thou not spit at me, and spurn at me,
And hurl the name of husband in my face,
And tear the stain’d skin of my harlot-brow,

And from my false hand cut the wedding-ring,
And break it with a deep-divorcing vow?
I know thou can'ft; and therefore, fee, thou do it.
I am possess'd 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 digest the poison of thy flesh,
Being ítrumpeted by thy contagion.
Keep then fair league, and truce with thy true bed;
I live dis-stain'd, thou undishonoured. (5)

Ant. Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not :
In Ephesus I am but two hours old,
As strange unto your town as to your talk.
Who, every word by all my wit being scann'd,
Wants wit in all one word to understand.

Luc. Fie, brother! how the world is chang'd with you;
When were you wont to use my fifter thus ?
She sent for you by Dromio home to dinner.

Ant. By Dromio??
S. Dro. By me?

Adr. By thee; and thus thou didft return from him,
That he did buffet thee ; and in his blows
Deny'd

my.

house for his, me for his wife. Ant. Did you converse, Sir, with this gentlewoman? What is the course and drift of your compact ?

S. Dro. I, Sir? I never saw her 'till this time.

Ant. Villain, thou lieft; for even her very words Didst thou deliver to me on the mart.

S. Dro. I never spoke with her in all my life.

Ant. How can she thus then call by our names, Unless it be by inspiration ?

Adr. How ill agrees it with your gravity, To counterfeit thus grosly with your

slave, (s) 1 live distain'd, thou undishonour'd.) To diftaine (from the French Word, deftaindre) signifies, to stain, defile, pollute. But the context requires a Senle quite opposite. We muft either read, wnstain’d; or, by adding an Hyphen, and giving the Preposition a privative Force, read dif-ftain'd; and then it will mcan, unft ain'd, undefiled.

Abet

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 faiten on this sleeve of thine ;
Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine :
Whose weakness, marry'd to thy stronger state,
Makes me with thy strength to communicate ;
If aught poffefs thee from me, it is dross,
Usurping ivy, brier, or idle moss;
Who, all for want of pruning, with intrusion
Infect thy fap, and live on thy confusion.

Ant. To me she speaks ; she moves me for her theam ,
What, was I marry'd to her in my dreams
Or sleep I now, and think I hear all this ?
What error drives our eyes and ears amiss ?
Until I know this fure uncertainty,
I'll entertain the favour'd fallacy.

Luc. Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner. S. Dro. Oh, for my beads! I cross me for a finner. This is the Fairy land : oh, spight of spights ! We talk with goblins, ouphs, and elvish sprights; (6) If we obey them not, this will ensue, They'll fuck our breath, and pinch us black and blue. Luc. Why prat'ft thou to thy felf, and answer'it

not? (7)
Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot!

S. Dro. I am transformed, master, am not I?
Ant. I think, thou art in mind, and so am I.

S. Dro.

(6) We talk with Goblins, Owls, and elvis Sprights;] They might fancy, they talk'd with Goblins and Sprights; but why with Owls, in the Name of Nonsense? Or could Owls suck their Breath, and pinch them black and blue! I dare say, my Readers will acquiesce in the Juftness of my Emendation here: The Word is common with our Author in other Passages. (7) Why pratst thou to thy self?

Dromio, thou Dromio, snail, thou sug, thou fot.] In the first of these Lines, Mr. Rowe and Mr. Pope have Both, for what Reason I cannot tell, curtail'd the Measure, and dir

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mounted