ANT. S. By what rule, fir?

DRO. S. Marry, fir, by a rule as plain as the plain bald pate of father Time himself.

ANT. S. Let's hear it.

DRO. S. There's no time for a man to recover his hair, that grows bald by nature.

ANT. S. May he not do it by fine and recovery DRO. S. Yes, to pay a fine for a peruke, and recover the loft hair of another man.

ANT. S. Why is Time fuch a niggard of hair, being, as it is, fo plentiful an excrement? 2

DRO. S. Because it is a bleffing that he bestows on beasts and what he hath fcanted men in hair,3 he hath given them in wit.

:

ANT. S. Why, but there's many a man hath more hair than wit.

DRO. S. Not a man of thofe, but he hath the wit to lofe his hair.3

- by fine and recovery? have originated from our author's other jokes of the fame fchool.

This attempt at pleafantry muft clerkship to an attorney. He has STEEVENS.

2 Ant. S. Hy is Time, &c.] In former editions: Ant. Why is Time fuch a nigard of hair, being, as it is, fo pleniful an excrement?

Dro. S. Because it is a blessing that he bestows on beafts, and what he hath jeanted them in hair, he hath given them in wit.

Surely, this is mock-reafoning, and a contradiction in fenfe. Can hair be fuppofed a bleffing, which Time beftows on beafts peculiarly; and yet that he hath fcanted them of it too? Men and Them, I obferve, are very frequently mistaken, vice verfa, for each other, in the old impreffions of our author. THEOBALD.

The fame error is found in the Induction to K. Henry IV. P. II. edit. 1623:

Stuffing the ears of them with falfe reports." MALONE. 3 Not a man of these, but he hath the wit to lose his hair.] That is, Those who have more hair than wit, are cafily entrapped by loofe

ANT. S. Why, thou didst conclude hairy men plain dealers without wit.

DRO. S. The plainer dealer, the fooner loft: Yet he lofeth it in a kind of jollity.

ANT. S. For what reafon?

DRO. S. For two; and found ones too.
ANT. S. Nay, not found, I pray you.

DRO. S. Sure ones then.

ANT. S. Nay, not fure, in a thing falfing.*

DRO. S. Certain ones then.

ANT. S. Name them.

DRO. S. The one, to fave the money that he fpends in tiring; the other, that at dinner they fhould not drop in his porridge.

ANT. S. You would all this time have proved, there is no time" for all things.

DRO. S. Marry, and did, fir; namely, no time? to recover hair loft by nature.

women, and fuffer the confequences of lewdness, one of which, in the first appearance of the difeafe in Europe, was the lofs of hair. JOHNSON.

So, in The Roaring Girl, 1611:

Your women are fo hot, I must lofe my hair in their company, I fee.”

"His hair fheds off, and yet he speaks not fo much in the nose as he did before." STEEVENS.

4

-falfing.] This word is now obfolete. Spenfer and Chaucer often ufe the verb to falfe. Mr. Heath would read falling.

5

STEEVENS.

that he spends in tiring;] The old copy reads-in trying.

The correction was made by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

6 there is no time-] The old copy reads-here, &c. The editor of the fecond folio made the correction. MALONE.

7

no time, &c.] The first folio has-in no time, &c. In was rejected by the editor of the fecond folio. Perhaps the word fhould rather have been corrected. The author might have written

Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed; I live dis-ftain'd, thou undishonoured.+

ANT. S. Plead you to me, fair dame? I know

you not:

In Ephefus I am but two hours old,

As ftrange unto your town, as to your talk;
Who, every word by all my wit being fcann'd,
Want wit in all one word to understand.

Luc. Fie, brother! how the world is chang'd with you:

When were you wont to use my fifter thus?
She fent for you by Dromio home to dinner.

ANT. S. By Dromio?

DRO. S. By me?

ADR. By thee; and this thou didst return from him,

That he did buffet thee, and, in his blows
Deny'd my house for his, me for his wife.

ANT. S. Did you converfe, fir, with this gentlewoman?

What is the course and drift of your compact? DRO. S. I, fir? I never faw her till this time. ANT. S. Villain, thou lieft; for even her very words

4 I live dis-ftain'd, thou undishonoured.] To diftain (from the French word, deftaindre) fignifies, to ftain, defile, pollute. But the context requires a fenfe quite oppofite. We muft either read, unftain'd; or, by adding an hyphen, and giving the prepofition a privative force, read dis-ftain'd; and then it will mean, unftain'd, undefiled. THEOBALD.

I would read:

I live diftained, thou difhonoured.

That is, As long as thou continueft to difhonour thyself, I also live diftained. HEATH.

Didft thou deliver to me on the mart.

DRO. S. I never fpake with her in all my life. ANT. S. How can fhe thus then call us by our namės,

Unless it be by inspiration?

ADR. How ill agrees it with your gravity, To counterfeit thus grofsly with your flave, Abetting him to thwart me in my mood? Be it my wrong, you are from me exempt, But wrong not that wrong with a more contempt. Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine : Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine; Whose weakness, married to thy ftronger ftate,' Makes me with thy ftrength to communicate:

S -you are from me exempt,] Exempt, feparated, parted. The fenfe is, If I am doomed to fuffer the wrong of feparation, yet injure not with contempt me who am already injured. JOHNSON.

Johnfon fays that exempt means feparated, parted; and the use of the word in that fenfe may be fupported by a paffage in Beaumont and Fletcher's Triumph of Honour, where Valerius, in the character of Mercury, fays,

"To fhew rafh vows cannot bind destiny,

Lady, behold the rocks tranfported be.

"Hard-hearted Dorigen! yield, left for contempt

They fix you there a rock, whence they're exempt.' Yet I think that Adriana does not use the word exempt in that fenfe, but means to fay, that as he was her husband the had no power over him, and that he was privileged to do her wrong.

• Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine ;]

Lenta, qui, velut affitas "Vitis implicat arbores,

Implicabitur in tuum

"Complexum." Catull. 57.

So Milton, Par. Loft. B. V:

"

They led the vine

"To wed her elm.

M. MASON.

She fpous'd, about him twines

"Her marriageable arms.' MALONE.

7ftronger ftate,] The old copy has-franger. Corrected

by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

If aught poffefs thee from me, it is drofs,
Ufurping ivy, briar, or idle mofs; &

8

Who, all for want of pruning, with intrufion
Infect thy fap, and live on thy confufion.

ANT. S. To me the speaks; fhe moves me for her theme:

What, was I married to her in my dream?
Or fleep I now, and think I hear all this?
What error drives our eyes and ears amiss?
Until I know this fure uncertainty,

I'll entertain the offer'd fallacy."

Luc. Dromio, go bid the fervants spread for dinner.

DRO. S. O, for my beads! I cross me for a fin

ner.

This is the fairy land;-O, fpite of fpites!
We talk with goblins, owls, and elvish fprites;2

8 idle mos;] i. e. mofs that produces no fruit, but being unfertile is ufelefs. So, in Othello:

STEEVENS.

-antres vast and defarts idle." 9 the offer'd fallacy.] The old copy has:

the free'd fallacy.

Which perhaps was only, by miftake, for

the offer'd fallacy.

This conjecture is from an anonymous correfpondent.
Mr. Pope reads-favour'd fallacy. STEEVENS.

We talk with goblins, owls, and elvish Sprites;] Here Mr. Theobald calls out in the name of Nonfenfe, the first time he had formally invoked her, to tell him how owls could fuck their breath, and pinch them black and blue. He therefore alters owls to ouphs, and dares fay, that his readers will acquiefce in the juftness of his emendation. But, for all this, we must not part with the old reading. He did not know it to be an old popular fuperftition, that the fcrietch-owl fucked out the breath and blood of infants in the cradle. On this account, the Italians called witches, who were supposed to be in like manner mifchievously bent against children, frega from ftrix, the jerietch-owl. This fuperftition they had derived from their pagan ancestors, as appears from this paffage of Ovid: