PET. Where is your fifter, and Hortenfio's wife? KATH. They fit conferring by the parlour fire. PET. Go, fetch them hither; if they deny to

come,

Swinge me them foundly forth unto their husbands: Away, I fay, and bring them hither straight. [Exit KATHARINA.

Luc. Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder. HOR. And fo it is; I wonder, what it bodes. PET. Marry, peace it bodes, and love, and quiet life,

And awful rule, and right fupremacy;

And, to be short, what not, that's fweet and happy.
BAP. Now fair befal thee, good Petruchio!
The wager thou haft won; and I will add
Unto their loffes twenty thousand crowns;
Another dowry to another daughter,
For fhe is chang'd, as she had never been.

PET. Nay, I will win my wager better yet;
And show more fign of her obedience,
Her new-built virtue and obedience.

Re-enter KATHARINA, with BIANCA and Widow.

See, where fhe comes; and brings your froward wives

As prisoners to her womanly persuasion.—
Katharine, that cap of yours becomes you not;
Off with that bauble, throw it under foot.

[KATHARINA pulls off her cap, and throws it

down.

WID. Lord, let me never have a cause to figh, Till I be brought to fuch a filly pass!

BIAN. Fie! what a foolish duty call you this?

Luc. I would, your duty were as foolish too: The wifdom of your duty, fair Bianca, Hath coft me an hundred crowns fince fupper

time.

BLAN. The more fool you, for laying on my duty. PET. Katharine, I charge thee, tell these headstrong women

What duty they do owe their lords and husbands. WID. Come, come, you're mocking; we will have no telling.

PET. Come on, I fay; and first begin with her. WID. She fhall not.

PET. I fay, the shall ;-and first begin with her. KATH. Fie, fie! unknit that threat'ning unkind brow;

And dart not fcornful glances from those eyes,
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor:
It blots thy beauty, as frofts bite the meads;'
Confounds thy fame, as whirlwinds shake fair buds;
And in no fenfe is meet, or amiable.

A woman mov'd, is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-feeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And, while it is fo, none fo dry or thirsty
Will deign to fip, or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy fovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance: commits his body

an hundred crowns-] Old copy-five hundred. Corrected by Mr. Pope. In the MS. from which our author's plays were printed, probably numbers were always expreffed in figures, which has been the occafion of many mistakes in the early editions. MALONE.

as frofts bite the meads;] The old copy reads-frofts do bite. The correction was made by the editor of the fecond folio.

MALONE.

To painful labour, both by fea and land;
To watch the night in ftorms, the day in cold,
While thou lieft warm at home, fecure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands,
But love, fair looks, and true obedience;—
Too little payment for fo great a debt.
Such duty as the fubject owes the prince,
Even fuch, a woman oweth to her husband:
And, when she's froward, peevish, fullen, four,
And, not obedient to his honeft will,
What is fhe, but a foul contending rebel,
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?-
I am afham'd, that women are fo fimple
To offer war where they fhould kneel for peace;
Or feek for rule, fupremacy, and fway,
When they are bound to ferve, love, and obey.
Why are our bodies foft, and weak, and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world;
But that our foft conditions,' and our hearts,
Should well agree with our external parts?
Come, come, you froward and unable worms!
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great; my reafon, haply, more,
To bandy word for word, and frown for frown:
But now, I fee our lances are but straws;
Our strength as weak, our weakness paft compare,→
That feeming to be moft, which we least are.+
Then vail your ftomachs,' for it is no boot;

And place your hands below your husband's foot:

3

our foft conditions,] The gentle qualities of our minds. MALONE.

So, in King Henry V:"my tongue is rough coz, and my con Aition is not fmooth." STEEVENS.

4

which we leaft are.] The old copy erroneously prolongs this line by reading-which we indeed leaft are. STEEVENS.:

• Then vail your fiomachs,] i, e, abate your pride, your spirit.

In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready, may it do him ease.

PET. Why, there's a wench!-Come on, and kifs me, Kate.

Luc. Well, go thy ways, old lad; for thou shalt ha't.

VIN. 'Tis a good hearing, when children aretoward.

Luc.But a harsh hearing, when women are froward. PET. Come, Kate, we'll to-bed:

We three are married, but you two are fped." 'Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white;" [To LUCENTIO. And, being a winner, God give you good night! [Exeunt PETRUCHIO and KATHARINA. HOR. Now go thy ways, thou haft tam'd a curst fhrew.

for

7

Luc. 'Tis a wonder, by your leave, fhe will be tam'd fo.

So, in King Henry IV. P. I:

you

[Exeunt.

"'Gan vail his ftomach, and did grace the fhame
"Of thofe that turn'd their backs." STEEVENS.

-you two are fped.] i. e. the fate of you both is decided;
have wives who exhibit early proofs of disobedience.

STEEVENS.

-though you hit the white;] To hit the white is a phrafe borrowed from archery: the mark was commonly white. Here it alludes to the name Bianca, or white. JOHNSON

So, in Feltham's Answer to Ben Jonfon's Ode at the end of his New Inn:

"As oft you've wanted brains
"And art to ftrike the white,
"As you have levell'd right."

Again, in Sir Afton Cokayn's Poems, 1658:

"And as an expert archer hits the white." MALONE. Exeunt.] At the conclufion of this piece, Mr. Pope continued his infertions from the old play, as follows:

"Enter two fervants, bearing Sly in his own apparel, and leaving him on the ftage. Then enter a Tapfter.

"Sly. [awaking.] Sim, give's fome more wine.. the players gone? Am I not a lord?

-What, all

Tap. A lord, with a murrain?-Come, art thou drunk ftill? Sly. Who's this? Tapfter!-Oh, I have had the bravest dream that ever thou heard'ft in all thy life.

Tap. Yea, marry, but thou hadst best get thee home, for your wife will curfe you for dreaming here all night.

Sly. Will the? I know how to tame a brew. I dreamt upon it all this night, and thou haft wak'd me out of the best dream that ever I had. But I'll to my wife, and tame her too, if she anger me."

Thefe paffages, which have been hitherto printed as part of the work of Shakspeare, I have funk into the notes, that they may be preferved, as they feem to be neceffary to the integrity of the piece, though they really compofe no part of it, being not publifhed in the folio 1623. Mr. Pope, however, has quoted them with a degree of inaccuracy which would have deferved cenfure, had they been of greater confequence than they are. The players delivered down this comedy, among the reft, as one of Shakspeare's own; and its intrinfic merit bears fufficient evidence to the propriety of their decifion.

May I add a few reafons why I neither believe the former comedy of The Taming the Shrew, 1607, nor the old play of King John, in two Parts, to have been the work of Shakspeare? He generally followed every novel or hiftory from whence he took his plots, as clofely as he could; and is fo often indebted to these originals for his very thoughts and expreffions, that we may fairly pronounce him not to have been above borrowing, to spare himself the labour of invention. It is therefore probable, that both these plays, (like that of Henry V. in which Oldcastle is introduced) were the unfuccefsful performances of contemporary players. Shakspeare faw they were meanly written, and yet that their plans were fuch as would furnish incidents for a better dramatist. He therefore might lazily adopt the order of their scenes, ftill writing the dialogue anew, and inferting little more from either piece, than a few lines which he might think worth preferving, or was too much in haste to alter. It is no uncommon thing in the literary world, to see the track of others followed by those who would never have given themselves the trouble to mark out one of their own. STEEVENS.

It is almost unneceffary to vindicate Shakspeare from being the author of the old Taming of a Shrew. Mr. Pope in confequence of his being very fuperficially acquainted with the phrafeology of our early writers, firft afcribed it to him, and on his authority this