There is a purfe of ducats; let her fend it;
Tell her, I am arrested in the street,

And that shall bail me: hie thee, flave; be gone:
On, officer, to prifon 'till it come.
[Exeunt.
S. Dro.. To Adriana! that is where we din'd,
Where Dowsabel did claim me for her husband :
She is too big, I hope, for me to compass.
Thither I muft, altho' against my will,

For fervants must their master's minds fulfil. [Exit.

SCENE II.

Changes to the boufe of Antipholis of Ephesus.
Enter Adriana and Luciana.

Adr. Ah, Luciana, did he tempt thee so?
Might'ft thou perceive aufterely in his eye
That he did plead in earneft, yea or no?
Look'd he or red, or pale; or fad, or merrily?
What obfervation mad'st thou in this case,
Of his heart's meteors tilting in his face?"
Luc. First he deny'd you had in him no right.
Adr. He meant, he did me none; the more my
fpight.

Luc. Then fwore he, that he was a stranger here. Adr. And true he fwore, though yet, forfworn he

—meteors tilting in his face?] Alluding to thofe meteors in the fky, which have the appearance of lines of armies meeting in the hock. To this appearance he compares civil wars in another place.

Which, like the meteors of a troubled heav'n,

All of one nature, of one fubftance bred,

Did lately meet in the inteftine shock

And furious clofe of civil butchery.

WARBURTON,

Luc.

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 honest suit might

move.

Firft, he did praise 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, worse 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;

I

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

Enter Dromio of Syracufe.

S. Dro. Here, go; the desk, the purse; sweet now make haste.

Luc. How, haft thou loft 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 fartheft from the neft, and from their place "of refidence where their most abode is."

Nash, speaking 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 Measure for Measure, act i. STEEVENS.

2

S. Dre.

S. Dro. By running fast.

Adr. Where is thy mafter, Dromio? is he well? S. Dro. No, he's in Tartar Limbo, worse than hell: A devil in an everlafting garment hath him, One, whofe hard heart is button'd up with fteel: A fiend, a fairy, pitilefs and rough; 3

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

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 hafte that his matter is arrefted, defcribes the bailiff by names proper to raise horror and deteftation of fuch a creature, fuch as, a devil, a fiend, a wolf, &c. But how does fairy come up to these terrible ideas? We fhould read

a fiend, a fury, &c.

THEOBALD.

There were fairies like bobgoblins, pitilefs and rough, and defcribed as malevolent and mischievous. JOHNSON.

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

Even fuch they fay as ftand in narrow lanes.

GRAY.

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 pursued; to draw dry-foot 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 jeft confifts in the ambiguity of the word counter, which means the wrong way in the chafe, and a prifon in London. The officer that arrested 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.

:

о

GRAY.

One,

One, that, before the judgment, carries poor fouls

to hell. "

Adr. Why, man, what is the matter?

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

Adr. What, is he arrested? tell me, at whose 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 obfcure dungeon in any of our prifons. It is mentioned in the Counterrat, a poem, 1658:

7

"In Wood-street'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 arrefted 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 Spelt 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 reason ?

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 reason to turn back an hour in the day?

Enter Luciana.

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

And bring thy master 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.

S. 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 shop,
And fhow'd me filks that he had bought for me,
And, therewithal, took measure of my body.

Sure, these are but imaginary wiles,

And Lapland forcerers inhabit here.