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Douce, seeing that 'The Comedy of Errors' was suggested by "The Menæchmi' of Plautus, considers, no doubt, that Shakspere intended to place his action at the same period as the Roman play. It is manifest to us that he intended precisely the contrary. 'The Menæchmi' contains invocations in great

number to the ancient divinities;-Jupiter and Apollo are here familiar words. From the first line of The Comedy of Errors' to the last we have not the slightest allusion to the classical mythology. Was there not a time, then, even in the ancient city of Ephesus, when there might be an Abbess— men might call themselves Christians-and Satan, Adam, and Noah might be names of common use? We do not mean to affirm that Shakspere intended to select the Ephesus of Christianity-the great city of churches and councils-for the dwelling-place of Antipholus, any more than we think that Duke Solinus was a real personage that “Duke Menaphon, his most renowned uncle," ever had any existence or that even his name could be found in any story more trustworthy than that of Greene's 'Arcadia. The truth is, that, in the same way that Ardennes was a sort of terra incognita of chivalry, the poets of Shakspere's time had no hesitation in placing the fables of the romantic ages in classical localities, leaving the periods and the names perfectly undefined and unappreciable. Who will undertake to fix a period for the action of Sir Philip Sidney's great romance, when the author has conveyed his reader into the fairy or pastoral land, and

informed him "what manner of life the inhabitants of that region lead?" We cannot open a page of Sidney's 'Arcadia' without being struck with what we are accustomed to call anachronisms,-and these from a very I severe critic, who, in his 'Defence of Poesy,' lenounces with merciless severity all violation of the unities of the drama. One example will suffice:-Histor and Damon sing a "double sestine." The classical spirit that

"O Mercury, foregoer to the evening,

O heavenly huntress of the savage mountains,
O lovely star entitled of the morning,
While that my voice doth fill these woful
valleys,

Vouchsafe your silent ears to plaining music,
Which oft hath echo tired in secret forests."

"Her cannons be her eyes, mine eyes the walls be,

Which at first volley gave too open entry, Nor rampier did abide; my brain was upblown,

Undermined with a speech, the piercer of thoughts."

Warton has prettily said, speaking of Spencer,

exactness in his poem would have been like the cornice which a painter introduced in the grotto of Calypso." Those who would define everything in poetry are the makers of corniced grottos. As we are not desirous of belonging to this somewhat obsolete fraternity, to which even Warton himself affected to be

long when he wrote what is truly an apology

readers to decide whether Duke Solinus for The Fairy Queen,' we will leave our reigned at Ephesus before "the great temple, after having risen with increasing splendour from seven repeated misfortunes, was finally burnt by the Goths in their third naval invasion;" or whether he presided over the decaying city, somewhat nearer to the period when Justinian "filled Constantinople with its statues, and raised his church of St. Sophia on its columns;" or, lastly, whether he approached the period of its final desolation, when the "candlestick was removed out of its place," and the Christian Ephesus became the Mohammedan Aiasaluck.

But, decide as our readers may—and if they decide not at all they will not derive less satisfaction from the perusal of this drama-it has become necessary for the de

mands of the modern theatre that the scenery and costume should belong to some definite period. This desire for exactness is, to a certain extent, an evil; and it is an evil which necessarily belongs to what, at first appearance, is a manifest improvement in the modern stage. The exceeding beauty and accuracy of scenery and dress in our days is destructive, in some degree, to the poetical truth of Shakspere's dramas. It takes them out of the region of the broad and universal, to impair their freedom and narrow their range by a topographical and chronological minuteness. When the word "Thebes' was exhibited upon a painted board to Shakspere's audience, their thoughts of that city were in subjection to the descriptions of the poet; but, if a pencil as magical as that of Stanfield had shown them a Thebes that the child might believe to be a reality, the words to which they listened would have been comparatively uninteresting, in the easier gratification of the senses instead of the intellect. Poetry must always have something of the vague and indistinct in its character. The exact has its own province. Let science explore the wilds of Africa, and map out for us where there are mighty rivers and verdant plains, in the places where the old geographers gave us pictures of lions and elephants to designate undiscovered desolation. But let poetry still have its undefined countries; let Arcadia remain unsurveyed; let us not be too curious to inquire whether Dromio was an ancient heathen or a Christian, nor whether Bottom the weaver lived precisely at the time when Theseus did battle with the Centaurs.

Coleridge has furnished the philosophy of all just criticism upon The Comedy of Errors' in a note, which we shall copy entire from his 'Literary Remains:'

"The myriad-minded man, our, and all men's Shakspere, has in this piece presented us with a legitimate farce in exactest consonance with the philosophical principles and character of farce, as distinguished from comedy and from entertainments. A proper farce is mainly distinguished from comedy by the licence allowed, and even required, in *See Sydney's Defence of Poesy.'

the fable, in order to produce strange and laughable situations. The story need not be probable, it is enough that it is possible. A comedy would scarcely allow even the two Antipholuses; because, although there have been instances of almost indistinguishable likeness in two persons, yet these are mere individual accidents, casus ludentis naturæ, and the verum will not excuse the inverisimile. But farce dares add the two Dromios, and is justified in so doing by the laws of its end and constitution. In a word, farces commence in a postulate, which must be granted."

This postulate granted, it is impossible to imagine any dramatic action to be managed with more skill than that of 'The Comedy of Errors.' Hazlitt has pronounced a censure upon the play which is in reality a commendation:-"The curiosity excited is certainly very considerable, though not of the most pleasing kind. We are teased as with a riddle, which, notwithstanding, we try to solve." To excite the curiosity, by presenting a riddle which we should try to solve, was precisely what Plautus and Shakspere intended to do. Our poet has made the riddle more complex by the introduction of the two Dromios, and has therefore increased the excitement of our curiosity. But whether this excitement be pleasing or annoying, and whether the riddle amuse or tease us, entirely depends upon the degree of attention which the reader or spectator of the farce is disposed to bestow upon it. Hazlitt adds, "In reading the play, from the sameness of the names of the two Antipholuses and the two Dromios, as well as from their being constantly taken for each other by those who see them, it is difficult, without a painful effort of attention, to keep the characters distinct in the mind. And again, on the stage, either the complete similarity of their persons and dress must produce the same perplexity whenever they first enter, or the identity of appearance which the story supposes will be destroyed. We still, however, having a clue to the difficulty, can tell which is which, merely from the contradictions which arise as soon as the different parties begin to speak; and we are

indemnified for the perplexity and blunders into which we are thrown, by seeing others thrown into greater and almost inextricable ones." Hazlitt has here, almost undesignedly, pointed out the source of the pleasure which, with an "effort of attention,"—not a "painful effort," we think,-a reader or spectator of The Comedy of Errors' is sure to receive from this drama. We have "a clue to the difficulty;"-we know more than the actors in the drama;-we may be a little perplexed, but the deep perplexity of the characters is a constantly increasing triumph to us. We have never seen the play; but

one who has seen it thus describes the effect:

* ייִ

"Until I saw it on the stage (not mangled into an opera), I had not imagined the extent of the mistakes, the drollery of them, their unabated continuance, till, at the end of the fourth act, they reached their climax with the assistance of Dr. Pinch, when the audience in their laughter rolled about like waves. Mr. Brown adds, with great truth, "To the strange contrast of grave astonishment among the actors, with their laughable situations in the eyes of the spectators, who are let into the secret, is to be ascribed the irresistible effect." The spectators, the readers, have the clue, are let into the secret, by the story of the first scene. Nothing can be more beautifully managed, or is altogether more Shaksperean, than the narrative of Egeon: and that narrative is so clear and so impressive, that the reader never forgets it amidst all the errors and perplexities which follow. The Duke, who, like the reader or spectator, has heard the narrative, instantly sees the real state of things when the dénouement is approaching:

"Why, here begins his morning story right." The reader or spectator has seen it all along, -certainly by an effort of attention, for without the effort the characters would be confounded like the vain shadows of a halfwaking dream;—and, having seen it, it is impossible, we think, that the constant readiness of the reader or spectator to solve the riddle should be other than pleasurable. It

* 'Shakespeare's Autobiographical Poems,' &c. By Charles Armitage Brown.

appears to us that every one of an audience of 'The Comedy of Errors,' who keeps his eyes open, will, after he has become a little familiar with the persons of the two Antipholuses and the two Dromios, find out some clue by which he can detect a difference between each, even without "the practical contradictions which arise as soon as the different parties begin to speak." Schlegel says, "In such pieces we must always presuppose, to give an appearance of truth to the senses at least, that the parts by which the misunderstandings are occasioned are played with masks: and this the poet, no doubt, observed." Whether masks, properly so called, were used in Shakspere's time in the representation of this play, we have some doubt. But, unquestionably, each pair of persons selected to play the twins must be of the same height, with such general resemblances of the features as may be made to appear identical by the colour and false hair of the tiring-room,—and be dressed with apparently perfect similarity. But let every care be taken to make the deception perfect, and yet the observing spectator will detect a difference between each; some peculiarity of the voice, some "trick o' the eye," some dissimilarity in gait, some minute variation in dress. We once knew two adult twin-brothers who might have played the Dromios without the least aids from the arts of the theatre. They were each stout, their stature was the same, each had a sort of shuffle in his walk, the voice of each was rough and unmusical, and they each dressed without any manifest peculiarity. One of them had long been a resident in the country town where we lived within a few doors of him, and saw him daily; the other came from a distant county to stay with our neighbour. Great was the perplexity. It was perfectly impossible to distinguish between them, at first, when they were apart; and we well remember walking some distance with the stranger, mistaking him for his brother, and not discovering the mistake (which he humoured) till we saw his total ignorance of the locality. But after seeing this Dromio erraticus a few times the perplexity was at an end. There was a difference which was