resemblance, by creating still greater astonishment in their friends and acquaintances, seems an agreeable addition. The _Menæchmi_ was translated into English towards the end of the sixteenth century, by William Warner, the author of _Albion’s England_. This version, which was first printed in 1595, and is entitled, “Menæchmi, a pleasaunt and fine conceited comedy, taken out of the most excellent wittie poet Plautus, chosen purposely, as least harmefull, yet most delightful,” was unquestionably the origin of Shakspeare’s _Comedy of Errors_. The resemblance of the two Antipholis’, and the other circumstances which give rise to the intrigue, are nearly the same as in Plautus. Some of the mistakes, too, which occur on the arrival of Antipholis of Syracuse at Ephesus, have been suggested by the Latin play. Thus, the Syracusan, on coming to Ephesus, dines with his brother’s wife. This lady had under repair, at the goldsmith’s, a valuable chain, which her husband resolves to present to his mistress, but the goldsmith gives it to the Syracusan. At length the Ephesian is believed insane by his friends, who bring Doctor Pinch, a conjurer, to exorcise him. Shakspeare has added the characters of the twin Dromios, the servants of the Antipholis’s, who have the same singular resemblance to each other as their masters, which has produced such intricacy of plot that it is hardly possible to unravel the incidents. The _Comedy of Errors_ is accounted one of the earliest, and is certainly one of the least happy efforts of Shakspeare’s genius. I cannot agree with M. Schlegel, in thinking it better than the Menæchmi of Plautus, or even than the best modern imitation of that comedy—_Les Menechmes, ou Les Jumeaux_, of the French poet Regnard, which is, at least, a more lively and agreeable imitation. All the scenes, however, have been accommodated to French manners; and the plot differs considerably from that of Plautus, being partly formed on an old French play of the same title, by Rotrou, which appeared as early as 1636. One chief distinction is, that the Chevalier Menechme knows of the arrival of his brother from the country, and knows that he had come to Paris in order to receive an inheritance bequeathed to him by his uncle, as also to marry a young lady of whom the Chevalier was enamoured. The Chevalier avails himself of the resemblance to prosecute his love-suit with the lady, and to receive the legacy from the hands of an attorney, while his brother is in the meantime harassed by women to whom the Chevalier had formerly paid addresses, and is arrested for his debts. It was natural enough, as in Plautus, that an infant, stolen and carried to a remote country, should have transmitted no account of himself to his family, and should have been believed by them to be dead; but this can with difficulty be supposed of Regnard’s Chevalier, who had not left his paternal home in Brittany till the usual age for entering