it. His doors are shut against him, it is true;-in his impatience he would force his way into his house, against the remonstrances of the good Balthazar :

"Your long experience of her wisdom,

Her sober virtue, years, and modesty,

Plead on her part some cause to you unknown."

He departs, but not "in patience;" he is content to dine from home, but not at "the Tiger." His resolve

"That chain will I bestow

(Be it for nothing but to spite my wife)
Upon mine hostess,"-

would not have been made by his brother, in a similar situation. He has spited his wife; he has dined with the courtezan. But he is not satisfied:

"Go thou

And buy a rope's end; that will I bestow
Among my wife and her confederates."

We pity him not when he is arrested, nor when he receives the "rope's end" instead of his "ducats." His furious passion with his wife, and the foul names he bestows on her, are quite in character; and when he has

"Beaten the maids a-row, and bound the doctor,"

we cannot have a suspicion that the doctor was practising on the right patient. In a word, we cannot doubt that, although the Antipholus of Ephesus may be a brave soldier, who took "deep scars to save his prince's life,—and that he really has a right to consider himself much injured,—he is strikingly opposed to the Antipholus of Syracuse; that he is neither sedate, nor gentle, nor trulyloving;-that he has no habits of self-command;—that his temperament is sensual;—and that, although the riddle of his perplexity is solved, he will still find causes of unhappiness, and entertain a huge infectious troop Of pale distemperatures."

""

The characters of the two Dromios are not so distinctly marked in their points of difference, at the first aspect. They each have their " merry jests;" they each bear a beating with wonderful good temper; they each cling faithfully to their master's interests. But there is certainly a marked difference in the quality of their mirth. The Dromio of Ephesus is precise and antithetical, striving to utter his jests with infinite gravity and discretion, and approaching a pun with a sly solemnity that is prodigiously diverting :

Again :

"The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit;
The clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell;
My mistress made it one upon my cheek:
She is so hot, because the meat is cold."

"I have some marks of yours upon my pate,
Some of my mistress' marks upon my shoulders,
But not a thousand marks between you both.”

He is a formal humourist, and, we have no doubt, spoke with a drawling and monotonous accent, fit for his part in such a dialogue as this:—

"Ant. E. Were not my doors lock'd up, and I shut out?
Dro. E. Perdy, your doors were lock'd, and you shut out.
Ant. E. And did not she herself revile me there?
Dro. E. Sans fable, she herself revil'd you there.

Ant. E. Did not her kitchen-maid rail, taunt, and scorn me? Dro. E. Certes, she did; the kitchen-vestal scorn'd you." On the contrary, the " merry jests " of Dromio of Syracuse all come from the outpouring of his gladsome heart. He is a creature of prodigious animal spirits, running over with fun and queer similitudes. He makes not the slightest attempt at arranging a joke, but utters what comes uppermost with irrepressible volubility. He is an untutored wit; and we have no doubt gave his tongue as active exercise by hurried pronunciation and variable emphasis, as could alone make his long descriptions endurable by his sensitive master. Look at the dialogue in the second Scene of

Act II., where Antipholus, after having repressed his jests, is drawn into a tilting-match of words with him, in which the merry slave has clearly the victory. Look, again, at his description of the "kitchen-wench,”—coarse, indeed, in parts, but altogether irresistibly droll. The twin-brother was quite incapable of such a flood of fun. Again, what a prodigality of wit is displayed in his description of the bailiff! His epithets are inexhaustible. Each of the Dromios is admirable in his way; but we think that he of Syracuse is as superior to the twin-slave of Ephesus as our old friend Launce is to Speed, in the Two Gentlemen of Verona. These distinctions between the Antipholuses and Dromios have not, as far as we know, been before pointed out;-but they certainly do exist, and appear to us to be defined by the great master of character with singular force as well as delicacy. Of course the characters of the twins could not be violently contrasted, for that would have destroyed the illusion. They must still

"Go hand in hand, not one before another."

N

[Coin of Ephesus.]

STATE OF THE TEXT, AND CHRONOLOGY, OF THE TAMING OF THE SHREW.

THE Taming of the Shrew was first printed in the folio collection of Shakspere's Plays in 1623. But it is to be observed that, although this play had not been previously published, in the entry of the books of the Stationers' Company of the claim of the publishers of this first collected edition to "Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, so many of the said copies as are not formerly entered to other men," the Taming of the Shrew is not recited in the list. In the books of the Stationers' Company we have the following entry, May 2, 1594:-'Peter Shorte. A plesant conceyted hystorie called the Tayminge of a Shrowe.' In the same year 'A plesant conceited Historie called the Taming of a Shrew,' was printed by Peter Short for Cuthbert Burbie. We shall have occasion to speak fully of this play, which unquestionably preceded Shakspere's 'Taming of the Shrew.' On the 22nd January, 1606, we find an entry to 'Mr. Ling,' of Taminge of a Shrew.' In 1607, Nicholas Ling published a new edition of the play which was printed for Cuthbert Burbie' in 1594. On the 19th November, 1607, John Smythick (or Smethwick) entered Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Love's Labour's Lost, and 'The Taminge of a Shrew.' Smethwick had become, by assignment, the proprietor of Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Love's Labour's Lost, which had previously been published by others; and he ultimately became a proprietor of the first folio. The entry of 1607 might possibly have secured his copyright in Shakspere's Taming of the Shrew,' to which it might have referred, as he enters three others of Shakspere's plays on the same day. But Ling, who did publish the old Taming of a Shrew,' also enters with it Love's Labour's Lost, and Romeo and Juliet, in 1606. It is remarkable that our poet's King John, which, like the Taming of the Shrew, was decidedly a rifacimento of an older play, is not, although first printed in the folio of 1623, claimed as copyright by the proprietors of the folio; nor was it claimed by any previous proprietor. The entry of John Smethwick, although not varying from the entry of the preceding year by Ling, of the title of the Taming of