THE

COMEDY OF ERRORS.

"THE Comedie of Errors" is one of those plays no copy of which has been discovered prior to that in the folio of 1623. It is noticed by Meres, (Palladis Tamia, 1598,) and, in all probability, was written, and acted first, in the very dawn of Shakespeare's genius. The main incident appears to have been taken from the Menæchmi of Plautus, but whether directly, or through the medium of some early translation of the Roman comedy, will most likely remain a subject of interesting speculation to editors and commentators for ages yet unborn.

Steevens conceived that our author was indebted to an English version by W. W[arner], printed in 1595, but there are circumstances which militate strongly against this presumption. În the first place, we have almost decisive proof that the present play was publicly performed a year before Warner's Menæchmi appeared, since in the Gesta Grayorum of 1594 (published in 4to, 1688) is the following entry :-"After such sports, a Comedy of Errors (like to Plautus his Menechmus) was played by the players; so that night was begun and continued to the end, in nothing but confusion and errors; whereupon it was ever afterwards called the Night of Errors." (P. 22.) Again, it is reasonable to expect, if Shakespeare had adopted Warner's version for the groundwork of his play, that some coincidence in the names of the characters, or at least some parallelism in the ideas and turns of expression, would be evident in the two works; but none has been detected. Another circumstance adverse to Steevens' conjecture, is the fact that the brothers Antipholus in Shakespeare's comedy are respectively distinguished, in the opening scenes, as Antipholus Erotes, or Errotis, and Antipholus Sereptus (corruptions, perhaps, of erraticus and surreptus), appellatives which are not found in Warner.* Taken singly, these facts are not of much weight, but together, they certainly tend to prove that the youthful dramatist either went at once to Plautus for so much of his fable and characters as are borrowed, or took them from some other source than the Menæchmi of Warner. The latter is the more probable and popular hypothesis. Without assenting to the opinion of those Commentators who deny to Shakespeare any acquaintance with Greek and Latin (languages, it should be remembered, which were better and more extensively cultivated in his day than in ours), we may safely suppose that,-engrossed as his time and mind must have been as an actor, a shareholder in the theatre, and a dramatic writer, whenever he had more than one source at command for the derivation of his story, he preferred that which gave him the least trouble to apprehend. That it was his practice, where the subject of his plot is taken from the ancients, to resort to existing translations, rather than apply to the originals themselves, we know, indeed, by comparing Coriolanus, Julius Cæsar, Antony and Cleopatra, &c. &c., with the translation of Plutarch extant in his time. The question then arises, did any English version of the Menæchmi, besides that by Warner, exist before the "Comedy of Errors" was written. We believe there did. The indefatigable Malone was the first to discover evidence of an old play called "The Historie of Error," which, according to the Accounts of the Revels in Queen Elizabeth's Court preserved in the Audit Office, was acted at Hampton Court on New Year's Night, 1576-77, "by the children of Powles."+

The same accounts contain an entry, under the date of 1582-3, which may be assumed to refer to this play, although the title, through the ignorance or carelessness of the scribe, is misprinted, "A Historie of Ferrar shewed before her Majestie at Wyndesor on Twelfdaie at night, enacted by the Lord Chamberlayne's servauntes," &c.

In "The Historie of Error," then, we have possibly the foundation of Shakespeare's "Comedy of Errors," and the source whence he adopted the designations erraticus and surreptus, which the players or printers corrupted into Erotes and Sereptus.

Mr. Halliwell has observed that the title of this comedy was either a common proverb, or furnished the subject of one; and in his magnificent edition of the great dramatist he adduces the following instances where it is mentioned by contemporary writers :-" Anton, in his Philosophical Satires, 1616, p. 51, exclaims- What Comedies of Errors swell the stage!' So also Decker, in his Knights Conjuring, 1607-His ignorance, arising from his blindeness, is the onely cause of this Comedie of Errors; and previously, in his Satiro-mastix, 1602, he seems to allude to the play itself Instead of the trumpets sounding thrice before the play begin, it shall not be amisse, for him that will read, first to behold this short Comedy of Errors, and where the greatest enter, to give them instead of a hisse, a gentle correction.' Again also, in the Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinarie, 1604,- This was a prettie Comedie of Errors, my round host.""

How long before the notice of it by Meres in 1598 the Comedy of Errors was acted, we can only conjecture from internal indications. The "long hobbling verses," as Blackstone termed them, that are found in it, and which were a marked peculiarity in the old plays anterior to Shakespeare's day, would alone determine it to have been one of his youthful efforts. Theobald was of opinion, too, that Dromio's reply (Act III. Sc. 2), to the question where he found France in the "globe"-like kitchen wench,

"In her forehead; arm'd and reverted, making war against her heir,”

was an allusion to the civil wars in France upon the succession of Henry IV. of Navarre; whose claim as heir was resisted by the States of France on account of his being a Protestant. If any such equivoque between hair and heir were really intended, which is fairly presumable, this passage would serve to fix the date of the play somewhere between 1589, when the war began, and 1593, the period of its termination.