Then, gentle brother, get you in again; Comfort my fifter, chear her, call her wife; 'Tis holy fport to be a little * vain, When the sweet 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 The folding meaning of your words' deceit ; 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 she fink. Luc. What, are you mad, that you do reafon 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. (not,) got Place in the firft Copies instead of but. And thefe two Monofyllables have by Miftake reciprocally difpoffefs'd one 4 another in many other Paffages of our Author's Works. THEO. * Vain is light of tongue, not veracious. Luc. Luc. Gaze where you should, and that will clear your fight. S. Ant. As good to wink, fweet love, as look on night. Luc. Why call you me, love? call my fifter fo. It is thyfelf, mine own felf's better part: S. Ant. Call thyfelf fifter, sweet; for I mean thee: Give me thy hand. Luc. Oh, foft, Sir, hold you still; I'll fetch my fifter, to get her good will. [Ex. Luciana. SCENE III. Enter Dromio of Syracufe. S. Ant. Why, how now, Dromio, where run'ft thou fo faft? S. Dro. Do you know me, Sir? am I Dromio? am I your man? am I myself? S. Ant. Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself. S. Dro. I am an ass, I am a woman's man, and befides myself. S. Ant. What woman's man? and how befides thyfelf? S. Dro Marry, Sir, befides myfelf, I am due to a woman; one that claims me, one that haunts me, one that will have me. My fole earth's heav'n, and my heaven's claim.] When he calls the girl his only heaven on earth, he utters the common cant of lovers. When he calls her his heaven's claim, I cannot understand him. Perhaps he means that which he asks of heaven. K 3 S. Ant. S. Ant. What claim lays fhe to thee? S. Dro. Marry, Sir, fuch a claim as you would lay to your horfe; and fhe would have me as a beaft: not that, I being a beaft, fhe would have me; but that she, being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me. S. Ant. What is she? S. Dro. A very reverent body; ay, fuch a one as a man may not fpeak of, without he lay, Sir reverence: I have but lean luck in the match; and yet is fhe a wond'rous fat marriage. S. Ant. How doft thou mean, a fat marriage? S. Dro. Marry, Sir, fhe's the kitchen wench, and all grease; and I know not what use to put her to, but to make a lamp of her, and run from her by her own light. I warrant, her rags, and the tallow in them, will burn a Lapland winter: if the lives 'till doomsday, fhe'll burn a week longer than the whole world. S. Ant. What complexion is fhe of? 1 S. Dro. Swart, like my fhoe, but her face nothing like fo clean kept; for why? fhe fweats, a man may go over fhoes in the grime of it. S. Ant. That's a fault, that water will mend. S. Dro. No, Sir, 'tis in grain; Noah's flood could not do it. S. Dro. Nell, Sir;-but her name and three quarters (that is, an ell and three quarters) will not meafure her from hip to hip. 7 S. Ant. What's her name? S. Dro. Nell, Sir; but her Name is three Quarters; that is, an Ell and three Quarters, &c.] This Paffage has hitherto lain as perplext and unintelligible, as it is now eafs, and truly humorous. If a Conundrum be restor'd, in fetting it right, who can help it? There are enough besides in our Author, and Ben Johnson, to countenance that current Vice of the Times when this Play appear'd. Nor is Mr. Pope, in the Chaflity of his Tafte, to briftle up at me for the Revival of this Witticism, fince I owe the Correction to the Sagacity of the ingenious Dr. Thirlby. THEOBALD,, S. Ant. Then fhe bears fome breadth? S. Dro. No longer from head to foot, than from hip to hip; fhe is fpherical, like a globe: I could find out countries in her. S. Ant. In what part of her body ftands Ireland? S. Dro. Marry, Sir, in her buttocks, I found it out by the bogs. S. Ant. Where Scotland? S. Dro. I found it out by the barrennefs, hard in the palm of her hand. S. Ant. Where France? S. Dro. In her forehead: arm'd and reverted, making War against her Hair.] All the other Countries, mention'd in this Defcription, are in Dromio's Replies fatirically characteriz'd: but here, as the Editors have order'd it, no Remark is made upon France; nor any Reafon given, why it fhould be in her Forehead: but only the Kitchin-wench's high Forehead is rallied, as pufhing back her Hair. Thus all the modern Editions; but the first Folio reads- making War against ber Heir And I am very apt to think, this laft is the true Reading; and that an Equivoque, as the French call it, a double Meaning, is defign'd in the Poet's Allufion: and therefore I have replaced it in the Text. In 1589, Henry III. of France being ftab'd, and dying of his Wound, was fucceeded by Henry IV. of Navarre, whom he appointed his Succeffor; but whole Claim the States of France refited, on accont of his being a Proteftant. This, I take it, is S. Dro. what he means, by France making War against her Heir. Now as, in 1591, Queen Elizabeth fent over 4000 Men, under the Conduct of the Earl of Effex, to the Affiftance of this Henry of Navarre; it seems to me very probable, that during this Expedition being on foot, this Comedy made its Appearance. And it it was the finest Addrefs imaginable in the Poet to throw fuch an oblique Sneer at France, for oppofing the Succeffion of that Heir, whofe Claim his Royal Miftrefs, the Queen, had fent over a Force to establish, and oblige them to acknowledge. THEOBALD. With this correction and explication Dr. Warburton concurs, and Sir T. Hanmer thinks an equivocation intended, though he retains hair in the text. Yet furely they all have loft the fenfe by looking beyond it. Our authour, in my opinion, only sports with an allufion, in which he takes too much delight, and means that his miftrefs had the French disease. The ideas are rather too offenfive, S. Dro. In her forehead; arm'd and reverted, making war against her hair. S. Ant. Where England? S. Dro. I look'd for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no whiteness in them; but I guess it flood in her chin, by the falt rheum that ran between France and it. S. Ant. Where Spain? S. Dro. Faith, I faw it not, but I felt it hot in her breath. S. Ant. Where America, the Indies? S. Dro. Oh, Sir, upon her nose, all o'er embellish'd with rubies, carbuncles, fapphires; declining their. rich afpect to the hot breath of Spain, who fent whole armadoes of carracts to be ballaft at her nofe. 9 S. Ant. Where ftood Belgia, the Netherlands? S. Dro. Oh, Sir, I did not look fo low. To conclude, this drudge, or diviner, laid claim to me, call'd me Dromio, fwore I was affur'd to her, told me what privy marks I had about me, as the marks of my fhoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart on my left arm, that I, amaz'd, ran from her as a witch, 1 And, I think, if my breast had not been made of faith, be dilated. By a forehead armed, |