character for the apparent purpose of proving a moral standpoint-notably in the case of the Duke?

82. What is the difference between moralizing and treating a subject morally?

83. Trace the affiliated humorous characters in other plays of Shakespeare.

84. What effect of contrast is seen between the characters of Angelo and Isabella and the other people of the play? Which group more stirs the sympathies?

85. Weigh internal evidences, comparing this with other plays as to characters and situations; consider the development of such a character as Isabella; observe the arrest of natural evolution in the plot, as seen in the last Act; then say where you would place this drama in the chronology of Shakespeare's works.

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS.

Preface.

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The First Edition. The Comedy of Errors first appeared in the Folio of 1623, where it immediately follows Measure for Measure. The names of all the actors are not given at the end of the play as in the case of the previous plays; in the stage-directions to the first two Acts the two Antipholi are distinguished as Antipholus Erotes and Antipholus Sereptus; the latter title was probably derived from the Menæchmus Surreptus of Plautus a character evidently well-known to the Elizabethans (cp. Cambridge Shakespeare, Note 1); as regards the former name, it is noteworthy that Erotion (also Errotis in Act II.) is the name of "the Courtezan in Plautus' Menachmi; to this source the name may perhaps be referred; otherwise it must be regarded as an error for Erraticus or Errans.

The Comedy of Errors is the shortest of all Shakespeare's plays; its total number of lines is 1770.

Date of Composition. The Comedy of Errors is mentioned in 1598 by Meres in his Palladis Tamia among the six "excellent comedies of Shakespeare. In the Gesta Grayorum of 1594 occurs what is probably the earliest reference to the play :

"After such sport, a Comedy of Errors (like to Plautus his Menechmus) was played by the players; so that night began and continued to the end, in nothing but confusion and errors; whereupon it was ever afterwards called the Night of Errors." There are other references to comedies of "Errors" (a "Historie of Error was acted by

the St. Paul's children at Greenwich as early as New Year 1576-7), but they merely indicate that the phrase was proverbial. Certain critics detect in these pre-Shakespearian plays the original of Shakespeare's Comedy.

One or two points of internal evidence are helpful in fixing the approximate time of composition. In Act III. ii. 125 there is evidently an allusion to the civil war in France between Henry III. and Henry of Navarre, which lasted from August, 1589, to July, 1593. Further, the reference to "whole armadoes of caracks in the same Scene suggests the earlier rather than the later limit: the play may safely be dated 1589-91.* This early date is corroborated by the general style of the play-its lyrical passages with rhyming couplets and alternate rhymes; the doggerel verse; the abundance of quibbles and word-play; the prologue-like" speech of Ægeon in the openin~ scene; lines suggestive of other early plays (e. g. Act II. ii. 200, reminds us of Midsummer-Night's Dream; cp. Act IV. i. 93, and Love's Labour's Lost, ÏI. i. 219, and Two Gentlemen of Verona, I. i. 72).

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Sources of the Plot. The main plot of The Comedy of Errors is directly or indirectly derived from the Menachmi of Plautus," a farce of mistaken identity," which very early in the history of the modern drama became a favourite theme with dramatists: pre-Shakespearian paraphrases and adaptations exist in French, German, and Italian; the interlude of " Jack Juggler" (1563) is probably its earliest representative in English literature. The oldest extant English translation appeared in the year 1595, with the following title:-Menæcmi, a pleasant and fine conceited Comedie, taken out of the most excellent wittie Poet Plautus. Chosen purposely from out the rest as least harmefull, and yet most delightfull. Written in Eng

* Cp. An attempt to determine Chronological Order of Shakespeare's Plays; H. P. Stokes, pp. 16-20.