E. Ant. You'll cry for this, minion, if I beat the door down.

Luce. What needs all that, and a pair of stocks in the town?

Adr. (within) Who is that at the door, that keeps all this noife?

S. Dro. By my troth, your town is troubled with unruly boys.

E. Ant. Are you there, wife? you might have come before.

Adr. Your wife, Sir knave! go, get you from the door.

E. Dro. If you went in pain, mafter, this knave would go fore.

Ang. Here is neither cheer, Sir, nor welcome; we would fain have either.

Bal. In debating which was beft, we shall have part with neither'.

E. Dro. They ftand at the door, mafter; bid them welcome hither.

E. Ant. There's fomething in the wind, that we cannot get in.

E. Dro. You would fay fo, mafter, if your garments were thin.

Your cake here is warm within: you ftand here in the cold:

It would make a man mad as a buck to be fo bought and fold.

E. Ant. Go fetch me fomething, and I'll break ope the gate.

S. Dro. Break any thing here, and I'll break your knave's pate.

3 The reading was thus:

we shall part with neither.] Common sense re

quires us to read,- -we Shall HAVE part with neither.

WARBURTON.

E. Dro.

E. Dro. A man may break a word with you, Sir; aud words are but wind:

Ay, and break it in your face, fo he break it not behind. S. Dro. It feems, thou wanteft breaking; out upon thee, bind!

E. Dro. Here's too much, out upon thee! I pray thee, let me in.

S. Dro. Ay, when fowls have no feathers, and fish have no fin.

E. Ant. Well, I'll break in; go borrow me a crow. E. Dro. A crow without feather, mafter, mean you fo? For a fish without a fin, there's a fowl without a feather; If a crow help us in, firrah, we'll pluck a crow together. E. Ant. Go, get thee gone, fetch me an iron crow. Bal. Have patience, Sir: oh, let it not be fo. Herein you war against your reputation, And draw within the compafs of fufpect Th'unviolated honour of your wife.

Once, this; your long experience of her wifdom,
Her fober virtue, years, and modefty,

Plead on her part fome caufe to you unknown;
And doubt not, Sir, but fhe will well excufe,
Why at this time the doors are barr'd against you.
Be rul'd by me, depart in patience,
And let us to the Tyger ali to dinner;
And about evening come yourfelf alone,)
To know the reafon of this ftrange restraint.
If by ftrong hand you offer to break in,
Now in the ftirring paffage of the day,
A vulgar comment will be made of it;
And that fuppofed by the common rout
Against your yet ungalled-eftimation,
That may with foul intrufion enter in,
And dwell upon your grave when you are dead:

*

>

Suppofed by the common rout.] no need of change: Juppf dis, For fuppofe I once thought it founded on fuppofition, made by might be more commodious to conjecture. fubftitute Supported; but there is VOL. III.

K

For

For flander lives upon fucceffion*;

For ever hous'd, where it once gets poffeffion.

E. Ant. You have prevail'd; I will depart in quiet, And, in defpight of mirth, mean to be merry.

I know a wench of excellent discourse,

Pretty and witty, wild, and, yet too, gentle;

There will we dine: this woman that I mean,
My wife (but, I proteft, without defert,)
Hath oftentimes upbraided me withal;
To her will we to dinner. Get you home,
And fetch the chain; by this, I know, 'tis made;
Bring it, I pray you, to the Porcupine;

For there's the houfe: that chain will I bestow
(Be it for nothing but to fpight my wife)
Upon mine hoftefs there. Good Sir, make hafte :
Since my own doors refufe to entertain me,
I'll knock elsewhere, to fee if they'll disdain me.
Ang. I'll meet you at that place, fome hour, Sir,
hence.

E. Ant. Do fo; this jeft fhall coft me fome expence. [Exeunt.

The Houfe of Antipholis of Ephefus.

Enter Luciana, with Antipholis of Syracufe. Luc. And may it be, that you have quite forgot Ahufband's office? fhall, Antipholis, hate,

*For flander lives upon fucceffion] The line apparently wants two fyllables: what they were cannot now be known. The line may be filled up according to the reader's fancy, as thus:

For lafhing flander lives upon
fucceffion.

• And, in defpight of mirth, -] Mr. Theobald does not know what to make of this; and, therefore,

Even

has put wrath inftead of mirth into the text, in which he is followed by the Oxford Editor. But the old reading is right; and the meaning is, I will be merry, even out of fpite to mirth, which is, now, of all things, the moft unpleafing to me. WARBURT.

5 In former copies, And may it be, that you have quite forgot

An

Even in the fpring of love, thy love-fprings rot?
Shall love, in building, grow fo ruinate,

If you did wed my filter for her wealth,

Then, for her wealth's fake, ufe her with more kindness;

Or if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth ;

Muffle your falfe love with fome fhew of blindness: Let not my fifter read it in your eye;

Be not thy tongue thy own fhame's orator; Look fweet, fpeak fair; become difloyalty: Apparel vice, like virtue's harbinger; Bear a fair prefence, tho' your heart be tainted; Teach fin the carriage of a holy faint; Be fecret falfe: what need fhe be acquainted? What fimple thief brags of his own attaint? 'Tis double wrong, to truant with your bed, And let her read it in thy looks at board: Shame hath a baftard fame, well managed; Ill deeds are double with an evil word: Alas, poor women! make us but believe, 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,

An Hufband's Office? Shall, An- dent at Prefs, as I take it; This

tipholis, Ev'n in the Spring of Love, thy

love-fprings rot? Shall love in Buildings grow fo ruinate?] This Paffage has hitherto labour'd under a double Corruption. What Conceit could our Editors have of Love in Buildings growing ruinate? 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 acci

Scene for Fifty two Lines fucceffively is ftrictly in alternate Rhimes: and this Measure is never broken, but in the Second and Fourth Lines of these two Couplets, 'Tis certain, I think, a Monofyllable dropt from the Tail of the Second Verfe; and I have ventur'd to fupply it by, I hope, a probable Conjecture.

THEOBALD.

Alas, poor Women! make us not believe, &c.] From the whole Tenour of the Context it is evident that this Negative K 2 (not)

Then, gentle brother, get you in again;

Comfort my fifter, chear her, call her wife; 'Tis holy sport to be a little * vain,

When the fweet breath of flattery conquers ftrife. S. Ant. Sweet mistress, (what your name is elfe, I

know not;

Nor by what wonder you do hit on mine :)

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 folding 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.
Oh, train me not, fweet mermaid, with thy note,
To drown me in thy fifter's flood of tears;
Sing, Siren, for thyfelf, 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 fhe fink.
Luc. What, are you mad, that you do reason fo?
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.

another in many other Paffages of our Author's Works. THEO. Vain is light of tongue, not

(t,) got Place in the firft Co-
pies instead of but. And these
two Monotyllables have by Mif-
take reciprocally difpoffets'd one veracious.