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

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

Ant. Doft thou not know?

S. Dro. Nothing, Sir, but that I am beaten.
Ant. Shall I tell you why?

S. Dro. Ay, Sir, and wherefore; for, they say, every why hath a wherefore.

Ant. Why, firft, 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 rhime 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 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 'twill 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-bafting.

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 sa 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, fo plentiful an excrement?

S. Dro. Because it is a bleffing 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 thofe, but he hath the wit to lofe his hair.

Ant. Why, thou didst conclude hairy men plain dealers 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 spends in tyring; the other, that at dinner they should not drop in his porridge.

(4) Ant. Why is Time fuch 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-reafoning, and a Contradiction in Sense. Can Hair be fuppos'd a Bleffing, which Time beftows on Beafts peculiarly; and yet that he hath feanted them of it too? Men and Them, I observe, are very frequently mistaken vice versa for each other, in the old Impreffions 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 subftantial, 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 ftrange and frown, Some other miftrefs hath thy fweet 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 pleafing in thine eye,
That never touch well welcome to thy hand,
That never meat sweet-favour'd in thy taste,
Unless I fpake, or look'd, or touch'd, or carv'd.

How comes it now, my husband, oh, how comes it,
That thou art thus eftranged from thy felf?
Thy felf I call it, being ftrange to me:
That, undividable, incorporate,

Am better than thy dear felf's better part.
Ah, do not tear away thy felf from me:
For know, my love, as eafie 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 felf; 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'ft thou not fpit at me, and fpurn at me,
And hurl the name of husband in my face,
And tear the ftain'd skin of my harlot-brow,
I 2

And

And from my falfe 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 poffefs'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 ftrumpeted by thy contagion.

(5)

I know you not:

Keep then fair league, and truce with thy true bed;
I live dif-ftain'd, thou undishonoured.
Ant. Plead you to me, fair dame?
In Ephefus I am but two hours old,
As ftrange unto your town as to your
Who, every word by all my wit being scann'd,
Wants wit in all one word to understand.

talk.

Luc. Fie, brother! how the world is chang'd 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 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 converfe, Sir, with this gentlewoman? What is the course 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
Didft thou deliver to me on the mart.

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

Adr. How ill agrees it with your gravity,

To counterfeit thus grofly with your flave,

(s) I live distain'd, thou undishonour'd.] To distaine (from the French Word, deftaindre) fignifies, to ftain, defile, pollute. But the Context requires a Senfe quite oppofite. We muft either read, unftain'd; or, by adding an Hyphen, and giving the Prepofition a privative Force, read dif-ftain'd; and then it will mean, unftain'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 faften on this fleeve of thine;
Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine:
Whose weakness, marry'd to thy ftronger state,
Makes me with thy ftrength to communicate;
If aught poffefs thee from me, it is dross,
Ufurping ivy, brier, or idle mofs;

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

Ant. To me the speaks; the moves me for her theam › What, was I marry'd 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,

I'll entertain the favour'd fallacy.

Luc. Dromio, go bid the fervants spread for dinner. S. Dro. Oh, for my beads! I crofs me for a finner. This is the Fairy land: oh, fpight of spights!

We talk with goblins, ouphs, and elvish sprights; (6) If we obey them not, this will enfue,

They'll fuck our breath, and pinch us black and blue. Luc. Why prat'ft thou to thy felf, and answer'st not? (7)

Dromio, thou drone, thou fnail, thou flug, thou fot!
S. Dro. I am transformed, mafter, am not I?
Ant. I think, thou art in mind, and fo am I.

S. Dre.

(6) We talk with Goblins, Owls, and elvish Sprights;] They might fancy, they talk'd with Goblins and Sprights; but why with Owls, in the Name of Nonfenfe? Or could Owls fuck their Breath, and pinch them black and blue? I dare say, my Readers will acquiefce in the Juftness of my Emendation here: The Word is common with our Author in other Pallages.

(7) Why prat't thou to thy felf?

Dromio, thou Dromio, fnail, thou flug, 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 dif