Luc. That love I begg'd for you, he begg'd of me. Adr. With what perfuafion did he tempt thy love? Luc. With words, that in an honeft fuit might

move.

First, he did praife my beauty; then my speech.
Adr. Did'ft fpeak him fair?

Luc. Have patience, I beseech.

Adr. I cannot, nor I will not, hold me ftill; My tongue, though not my heart, fhall have its will. He is deformed, crooked, old and fere, Ill-fac'd, whofe-body'd, fhapeless every where; Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind,

1

Stigmatical in making, worfe in mind.

Luc. Who would be jealous then of fuch a one? No evil loft is wail'd when it is gone.

Adr. Ah! but I think him better than I fay,

And yet, would herein others' eyes were worse : For from her neft the lapwing cries away;

My heart prays for him, tho' my tongue do curfe.

Enter Dromio of Syracuse.

S. Dro. Here, go; the defk, the purfe; sweet now make haste.

Luc. How, haft thou lost thy breath?

fere] that is, dry, withered. JOHNSON. Stigmatical in making] That is, marked or figmatized by nature with deformity, as a token of his vicious difpofition. JOHNSON.

For from her neft the lapwing, &c.] This expreffion feems to be proverbial. I have met with it in many of the old comic writers. Greene, in his Second Part of Cony-catching, 1592, fays,"But again to our priggers, who, as before I faid cry with the lapwing farthest from the neft, and from their place of refidence where their most abode is."

Nafh, fpeaking of Gabriel Harvey, fays" he withdraweth men, lapwing-like, from his neft, as much as might be." See this paffage yet more amply explained in a note on Mafure for Measure, act i. STEEVENS.

S. Dro.

2

S. Dro. By running faft.

Adr. Where is thy mafter, Dromio? is he well?

S. Dro. No, he's in Tartar Limbo, worfe than hell: A devil in an everlafting garment hath him, One, whofe hard heart is button'd up with steel: A fiend, a fairy, pitilefs and rough;

3

A wolf, nay, worfe, a fellow all in buff;

4 A back-friend, a fhoulder-clapper, one that commands

The paffages of allies, creeks, and narrow lands; A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry-foot well;

3 A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough] Dromio here bringing word in halte that his mailer is arrested, defcribes the bailift by names proper to raife horror and detellation of fuch a creature, fuch as, a devil, a fiend, a wolf, &c. But how does fairy come

up to thefe terrible ideas? We fhould reada fiend, a fury, &c.

THEOBALD.

There were fairies like bobgobitas, pitiless and rough, and defcribed as malevolent and mifchievous. JOHNSON,

4 A back-friend, a fhoulder-clapper, &c. of allies, creeks, and narrow lands.] It fhould be written, I think, narrow lanes, as he has the fame expreffion, Rich. II. act v. fc. 6.

Even fuch they fay as ftand in narrow lanes. GRAY.

5 A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry-foot well:] To run counter is to run backward, by mittaking the courfe of the animal purfued; to draw dry-fort is, I believe, to purfue by the track or prick of the foot; to run counter and draw dry-foot will are, therefore, inconfiftent. The jet confifts in the ambiguity of the word counter, which means the wrong way in the cafe, and a prison in London. The officer that arrefted him was a ferjeant of the counter. For the congruity of this jeft with the fcene of action, let our authour anfwer. JOHNSON.

Ben Jonfon has the fame expreffion; Every Man in his Humour, act ii. fc iv.

Well, the truth is, my old mafter intends to follow my young, dry-foot over Moorfields to London this morning, &c.”

To draw dry-foot, is when the dog purfues the game by the fcent of the foot for which the blood-hound is famed.

VOL. II.

:

GRAY.

One,

One, that, before the judgment, carries

6

to hell. "

Adr. Why, man, what is the matter?

poor fouls

S. Dro. I do not know the matter; he is 'refted on the cafe."

Adr. What, is he arrested? tell me, at whofe fuit.

S. Dro. I know not at whofe fuit he is arrested, well. But he's in a fuit of buff, which 'refted him, that I can tell. Will you fend him, mistress, redemption, the money in his defk ?

Adr. Go fetch it, fifter.-This I wonder at,

[Exit Luciana. That he, unknown to me, fhould be in debt! Tell me, was he arrested on a band?"

S. Dro. Not on a band, but on a stronger thing, A chain, a chain; do you not hear it ring?

Adr. What, the chain?

S. Dro. No, no; the bell: 'tis time that I were

gone.

It was two ere I left him, and now the clock ftrikes

one.

-poor fouls to hell.] Hell was the cant term for an obscure dungeon in any of our prifons. It is mentioned in the Counterrat, a poem, 1658:

7

"In Wood-ftreet's hole, or Poultry's bell."

STEEVENS.

-on the cafe.] An action upon the cafe, is a general action given for the redrefs of a wrong done any man without force, and not especially provided for by law.

GRAY.

was he arrested on a band.] Thus the old copy, and I believe rightly; though the modern editors read bond. A bond, i. e. an obligatory writing to pay a fum of money, was anciently fpelt band. A band is likewife a neckloth. On this circumstance I believe the humour of the paffage turns.

B. Jonfon, perfonifying the inftruments of the law, fays,
"Statute and Band and Wax fhall go with me."

Again, without perfonification;

"See here your Mortgage, Statute, Band, and Wax."

STEEVENS.

Adr.

Adr. The hours come back! that I did never hear. S. Dro. O yes, if any hour meet a ferjeant, a'turns back for very fear.

Adr. As if time were in debt! how fondly doft thou reafon ?

S. Dro. Time is a very bankrout, and owes more than he's worth, to season.

Nay, he's a thief too: Have you not heard men say,
That time comes ftealing on by night and day?
If Time be in debt and theft, and a ferjeant in the way,
Hath he not reafon to turn back an hour in the day?

Enter Luciana.

Adr. Go, Dromio; there's the money, bear it ftrait;

And bring thy mafter home immediately. Come, fifter: I am prefs'd down with conceit; Conceit, my comfort, and my injury. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.

Changes to the Street.

Enter Antipholis of Syracufe.

8. Ant. There's not a man I meet, but doth falute

me,

As if I were their well-acquainted friend;
And every one doth call me by my name.
Some tender money to me, fome invite me;
Some other give me thanks for kindneffes;
Some offer me commodities to buy.
Even now a taylor call'd me in his fhop,
And show'd me filks that he had bought for me,
And, therewithal, tock measure of my body.
Sure, these are but imaginary wiles,

And Lapland forcerers inhabit here.

Enter Dromio of Syracufe.

S. Dro. Mafter, here's the gold you fent me for: what, have you got the picture of old Adam new appareil'd?

S. Ant. What gold is this? What Adam doft thou

mean?

S. Dro. Not that Adam, that kept the paradife, but that Adam, that keeps the prifon: he that goes in the calves-fkin, that was kill'd for the prodigal; he that came behind you, fir, like an evil angel, and bid you forfake your liberty.

S. Ant. I understand thee not.

S. Dro. No? why, 'tis a plain cafe. He that went like a bafe-viol in a cafe of leather; the man, fir, that, when gentlemen are tired, gives them a fob, and 'refts them; he, fir, that takes pity on decayed men, and gives 'em fuits of durance; he that fets up his

reft

9-what, have you got the picture of old Adam new-apparell'd?] A fhort word or two must have flipt out here, by fome accident in copying, or at prefs; otherwife I have no conception of the meaning of the paflage. The cafe is this. Dromio's mafter had been. arrested, and fent his fervant home for money to redeem him: he running back with the money meets the twin Antipholis, whom he mistakes for his mafter, and feeing him clear of the of ficer before the money was come, he cries, in a furprize;

What, bave you got rid of the picture of old Adam new apparell'd? For fo I have ventured to fupply, by conjecture. But why is the officer call'd old Adam new apparell'd? The allufion is to Adam in his ftate of innocence going naked; and immediately after the fall, being cloath'd in a frock of fkins. Thus he was new apparell'd: and, in like manner, the ferjeants of the Counter were formerly clad in buff, or calves-skin, as the author humourously a little lower calls it. THEOBALD.

The explanation is very good, but the text does not require to be amended. JOHNSON.

be, that fets up his reft to do more with his mace than a MORRIS-pike.] Sets up his reft, is a phrafe taken from military exercife. When gunpowder was firft invented, its force was very weak compared to that in prefent ufe. This neceffarily required

fire