E-text prepared bu Ted Garvin, Keith M. Eckrich, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team SHAKESPEARE STUDY PROGRAMS: THE COMEDIES by CHARLOTTE PORTER & HELEN A. CLARKE Authors of _The Tragedies_ Editors of the _Pembroke Shakespeare_, the _First Folio Shakespeare_, _Poet Lore_, etc. Boston: Richard G. Badger Toronto: The Copp Clark Co., Limited The Gorham Press, Boston, U.S.A. [Illustration: ARTI et VERITATI] INTRODUCTORY NOTE The Shakespeare Study Programs appeared originally in _Poet Lore_. They have met with marked favor, and have been reprinted as the back numbers went out of print. The steady demand for these programs prompts the present issue in book-form. Several new programs have been added, and those reprinted have been revised. The references in this volume are to the "First Folio Edition" of Shakespeare, edited by Charlotte Porter. "Criticism is the endeavour to find, to know, to love, to recommend not only the best, but all the good that has been known and thought and written in the world. ... It shows how to grasp and how to enjoy;... it helps the ear to listen when the horns of England blow." --GEORGE SAINTSBURY, "History of Criticism." CONTENTS The Comedie of Errors The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Taming of the Shrew Love's Labour's Lost Much Adoe About Nothing A Midsommer Nights Dreame The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor As You Like It Twelfe Night The Tempest The Winter's Tale THE COMEDIE OF ERRORS In the Summer of 1594 a translation of a Latin Farce by the Roman Dramatist, Plautus, was made ready for publication in London. It may even have been published then, for, although the title page date is 1595, then, as often now, the issue was made in advance of date. Circulation in MS., moreover, now unusual, was then common. This translation was registered, at any rate, for publication, June 16, 1594, as "A Booke entitled Menæchmi, being a pleasant and fine conceited comedy taken out of the most wittie poet Plautus, chosen purposely from out the rest as being the least harmful and most delightful." Six months later, Shakespeare had made an English Farce out of this Latin one. He invented several new characters, arranged many new situations, and put a good deal more life-likeness in the relations of the characters, while yet it may be seen that, his new play, "The Comedie of Errors," was directly drawn from the old one by Plautus. The first record we have of Shakespeare as an actor before Queen Elizabeth relates to the performance in Christmas week of this same year of "twoe severall comedies." This record in the Accounts of the Treasurer who paid out the money for the Plays acted before the Queen, runs as follows: