taliation for his exclusion by his own wi
house.

Although Shakespeare's delineation of
Errors has been already spoken of as co
and shadowy, this remark must only be
relation to the wealth of creative genius
Even a
great characters of his later plays.

of his career very considerable skill is
the difficult task of discriminating the
twin masters and attendants of The Errors
in dramatic contrast appears in the colloc
what sedate and melancholy Antipholus
his servant the merry and jesting Dromio
no less in the association of the impatie
Antipholus of Ephesus with the somewh
creet Dromio of Ephesus. And yet this
sharp, never overdone, otherwise it would
illusion for the spectator, even when arme
knowledge. The twin characters may be
but not fully filled in. Antipholus of S
to find his lost mother and brother, he
after a quest of some years, and consequen
care and melancholy" (I. ii. 20).

He that commends me to mine ow
Commends me to the thing I cann

He is kind to his attendant though he
habit, as the proper thing to do. He is
lectual, steady and constant, and, above
we learn from his poetic declaration to

e from his own

character in The paratively timid so understood in exhibited in the E this early period hown by him in characters of the Great cleverness tion of the someof Syracuse with of Syracuse; and nt and passionate at precise and discontrast is never ave destroyed the d with all previous said to be outlined racuse has set out has not succeeded tly he is "dull with

n content

ɔt get. (11. i. 33.)

e beats him out of amiable, and intelall, sentimental, as Luciana in Act III.

sc. i. He refers to his love-making again in the last scene (v. i. 375):

What I told you then,

I hope I shall have leisure to make good.

His character is altogether of finer grain than that of his brother. His brother Antipholus of Ephesus is cast in an inferior mould, both in intellect and morals. He is sensual in temperament. When his doors are shut against him he is capable of dining with the courtezan and giving her the chain in order to spite his wife (III. i. 117, 118). Smarting under his injuries he is brutal towards his wife (IV. iv. 100). He is vindictive and passionate; he will "bestow a rope's end among his wife and her confederates" (IV. i. 16). From the point of view of dramatic retribution he probably deserves all the hard treatment which Shakespeare has meted out to him.

The contrast between the twin Dromios is of like character, but it does not appear to be so carefully worked out, nor in fact did the needs of the piece require this. Dromio of Syracuse is described by his master (1. ii. 19) as—

A trusty villain, Sir; that very oft,

When I am dull with care and melancholy,
Lightens my humour with his merry jests.

This Dromio has a plentiful fund of animal spirits and ir-
repressible wit, as befits a man who has roamed about the
world. His temperament is clearly seen in the quibbling
dialogue of Act II. sc. ii., in which he rises superior to his
master in the art of verbal quip and crank; in his equally
smart description of Nell the kitchen-wench in Act III. sc.
ii.; and, above all, in his description, with its outpouring of

inexhaustible epithets, of the Sergeant d Act IV. sc. ii. In fact, the chief farcical in are engineered by Dromio of Syracuse. of Ephesus is much more grave and dis precise, as befits a well-mannered servan his life in town. See Act I. sc. ii.; Act sc. iv. That he is consequently looked Syracuse as the "elder" appears from v.

Dro. S. Not I, Sir; you are my elder.

We'll draw cuts for the senior; till

However trifling the point, it may be i in view of Shakespeare's debt to Lyly, that appears in Lyly's Mother Bombie as tha Memphis; and in all likelihood this is the speare's name for his "attendants on the t

Adriana is drawn with considerable gives us the impression of a loving and dut impatient and quick-tempered wife, who shrew withal. Whether, as is sometim character is drawn wholly or in part fro speare's own wife may be left to the conje But in all respects the character is an end that of the "Mulier" of Plautus.

Luciana is a slighter sketch, but seem intended her character to be more bala Adriana, and he seems to endow her wi sense and worldly prudence than her sister. of Syracuse makes love to her she is prud she gives way to any feeling, to "fetch he good-will" (III. ii. 70); and in the open

the Counter, in Idents of the play His twin-brother reet, formal and

who has passed I. sc. i.; Act IV.

m by his twin of 421-23.

Then lead thou first. nteresting to note, the name Dromio I of a servant to source of Shakewo Antipholuses." individuality, and ful though jealous, is something of a es imagined, her m that of Shakecture of the reader. rmous advance on

ingly Shakespeare nced than that of th more commonWhen Antipholus ent enough, before er sister to get her ing of this second

scene she appears to us as a rather philosophic and worldly 'young person" in her conversation with Antipholus as to his relations with his supposed wife.

The influence of Lyly on Shakespeare's early comedies has already been referred to. The "Romantic Comedy," as it is sometimes styled, of Shakespeare is the result in some measure of the movement initiated by Lyly in his comedies which display in their euphuistic dialogue that peculiar form of "wit" to which action is completely subordinated, and which he had brought into fashion at Court. A fair example of this "wit" is quoted by Mr. W. J. Courthope, in his History of English Poetry, vol. iv., p. 72, from Lyly's Mydas in the scene between Pipenetta, Licio and Petulus (Fairholt vol. ii., pp. 13-15). But Lyly's first object, as Courthope also points out, was to make the action of his dramas unreal His heroes and heroines, invariably taken from classica mythology, were "removed from all touch with ordinary humanity." His plots were of the most improbable structure He invested his actions with a kind of fairy atmosphere and worked out his dénouements, after the classical fashion by means of divine agencies.

The motive of cross-purposes, confusion and mystification pervades all the early comedies of Shakespeare. But while in Love's Labour's Lost these are brought about by natura stupidity or deliberate artifice, and in the Two Gentlemen of Verona by the agency of love, in The Errors it is reached simply by the freaks of nature in the production of two sets of twin brothers. Shakespeare had learnt from Lyly to produce that unreal and improbable atmosphere which is the great charm of his early comedies, and he improved upo

the teaching. Lyly had probably deriv of Plautus himself. A good example is tryon, I. i. 299, where Sosia says:

Di immortales, obsecro vestran
Ubi ego perii? ubi immutatus
Ubi ego formam perdidi?

Perhaps the most strikingly imaginati The Errors is the state of mind produce Antipholus and his attendant by the trea from the inhabitants of Ephesus. The r and servant each doubts his own identity

Ant. S. Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell
Sleeping or waking? mad or well-
Known unto these and to myself dis

Dro. S. Do you know me, Sir? am I Drom am I myself? (111. ii. 74.)

But the "more spiritual form of illusio Errors is entirely medieval, and was of speare from the examples furnished to dimion, in which the action is affected fairies, witches and enchanted objects. says Courthope, "Shakespeare took the plot, in which some well-marked charac necessary to the evolution of the main the stage to amuse the audience with his abuse of language." In The Errors this seen, is filled by Dromio of Syracuse; an ample is found in the witty passage bet master in Act II. sc. ii. 49-108: