Hor. I am afraid, sir, do what you can,

Enter Biondello.
Yours will not be intreated : Now, where's my wife?

Bion. She says, you have some goodly jeft in hand;
She will not come: she bids you come to het.

Pet. Worse and worse ; she will not come!
Oh vile, intolerable, not to be endur'd :
Sirrah, Grumio, go to your mistress,
Say, I command her to come to me. [Exit Grumio.

Hor. I know her answer.
Pet. What?
Hor. She will not.
Pet. The fouler fortune mine, and there's an end.

Enter Carbarine.
Bap. Now, by my hollidame, here comes Catharine!
Cath. What is your will, sir, that you send for me?
Pet. Where is your fifter, and Hortenfio's wife?
Gath. 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 say, and bring them hither straight.

[Exit Catharine.
Lúc. Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.
Hor. And so it is ; I wonder, what it bodes.
Pet. Marry, peace it bodes, and love, and quiet

life,
And awful rule, and right supremacy;
And, to be short, what not, that's sweet and happy.

Bap. Now fair befal thee, good Petruchio !
The wager thou hast won; and I will add
Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns;
Another dowry to another daughter,
For she is chang'd, as she had never been.
Pet. Nay, I will win my wager better yet;

And

And show more sign of her obedience,
Her new-built virtue and obedience.

Re-enter Catharine, Bianca, and Widow.
See, where she comes, and brings your froward wives
As prisoners to her womanly persuasion.
Catharine, that cap of yours becomes you not ;
off with that bauble, throw it under foot.

.. [She pulls off her cap, and throws it down. Wid. Lord, let me never have a cause to figh, 'Till I be brought to such a filly pass !

Bian. Fy! what a foolish duty call you this ?

Luc. I would your duty were as foolish too!
The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,
Coft me an hundred crowns since supper-time.

Bian. The more fool you, for laying on my dutý.
Pet. Catharine, I charge thee, tell these headftrong

women, What duty they do owe their lords and husbands.“ Wid. Come, come, you're mocking; we will have

no telling.
1 Pet. Come on, I lay; and first begin with her.

Wid. She shall not.
Pet. I lay, she shall; and Arst begin with her.
Cath. Fy! fy! unknit that threat’ning, unkind

brow;
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes,
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor :
It blots thy beauty as frosts bite the meads ;
Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds
And in' no sense is meet or amiable.
A wonian mov'd is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty ;
And, while it is fo, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,

And

1

G g 2

And for thy maintenance : commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land;
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
While thou ly'st warm at home, secure and safe ;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands,
But love, fair looks, and true obedience ;
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince,
Even such a woman oweth to her husband :
And when she's froward, peevish, fullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will ;
What is lhe but a foul contending rebel,
And graceless traitor to her loving lord ?
I am alham'd, that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace;
Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.
Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world ;
But that our soft 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 reason, haply, more,
To bandy word for word, and frown for frown:
But now, I fee, our launces are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness part compare ;
That seeming to be most, which we indeed least are.
• Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot ;
And place your hands below your husband's foot :
In coken of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready, may it do him ease.
Pet. Why, there's a wench! Come on, and kiss

me, Kate. Luc. Well, gothy ways, old lad; for thou shalt ha't. *Tben vail your ftomacbs) i. e. lower your resentments. STEEV

Vin. 'Tis a good hearing, when children are toward. Luc. But a harsh hearing, when women are fro

ward. Pet. Come, Kate, we'll to-bed : We three are married, but you two are fped. 'Twas I won the wager, tho you hit the 7 white; And, being a winner, God give you good night!

[Exeunt Petruchio and Catharine. Hor. Now go thy ways, thou haft tam'd a curst

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

[Exeunt omnes. *

? Though you hit the wbite.). To hit the wbite is a phrafe borrowed from archery: the mark was commonly white. Here it álludes to the name Bianca, or white. JOHNSON.

• At the conclufion of this piece, Mr. Pope continued his inser. tions from the old play as follows : Enter two fervants, bearing Sly in his own apparel, and leaving him

on the flage. Then enter a Tapler. Sly. [awaking.) Sim, give's fome more wine-wbat, all the players gone ? am I not a lord? Tap. A lord, with

a murrain ? come, art thou drunk fill? Sly. Who's this? Tapster! oh, I bave had the bravest dream that ever thou beard'f in all thy life.

Tap. Yea, marry, but shou badft best get thee home, for your wife will curse you for dreaming here all night.

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

These passages, which have been hitherto printed as part of the work of Shakespeare, I have funk into the notes, that they may be preserved, as they are necessary to the integrity of the piece, though they really compose no part of it, being neither published in the folio or quarto editions. The players delivered down this comedy, among the reft, as one of Shakespeare's own; and its intrinsic merit bears fufficient evidence to the propriety of their decision. Mr. Pope is the only person who appears to have met with the old spurious play of the same name. The speech which he has quoted from hence, bears little resemblance, in my opinion, to the stile of Shakespeare ; and, if I am not mistaken, exhibits seo veral words, which he has employed in no other of his pieces. It

may

8

may likewise be remarked, that the old copy of this play, dated 1607, from which Mr. Pope inserted such passages as are now de. graded, does not appear to have reached the hands of Dr. Warburton, who inherited all the rest which his friend had enumerated. For this copy I have repeatedly advertised, with such offers as might have tempted any indigent owner to have sold it, and, I hope, in such terms as might have procured me the loan of it from those who preserved it only on account of its rarity. It was, however, neither to be bought, borrowed, or heard of. I would therefore, excuse myself for having left such parts out of the text, as I do not believe to be genține, for the same reason that Bernini declined the task of repairing a famous though mutilated ftatue, because I am unwilling to unite stucco with Grecian marble.

I must add a few more reasons 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 Shakespeare. Hegenerally followed every novel or history from whence he took his plots, as closely as he could ; and is so often indebted to these orie ginals for his very thoughts and expressions, 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 Hen. V. in which Oldcastle is introduced) were the unsuccessful performances of contemporary authors. Shakespeare saw they were meanly written, and yet that their plans were such as would furnith incidents for a better dramatift. He therefore might lazily adopt the order of their scenes, still writing the dialogue anew, and inserting little more from either piece, than a few lines which he might think worth preserving, or was too much in hafte 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.

"T

From this play the Tatler formed a story, vol. iv. No. 231.

HERE are very many ill habits that might with much

ease have been prevented, which, after we have indulged ourselves in them, become incorrigible. We have a sort of proverbial expression, of taking a woman dorun in her wedding bees, if you would bring her to reason. An early behaviour of this fort, had a very remarkable good effe&t in a family wherein I was several years an intimate acquaintance.

“A gentleman in Lincolnshire had four daughters, three of which were early married very happily; but the fourth, though no way inferior to any of her fitters, either in person or accomplishments, had from her 'infancy discovered so imperious a temper, (usually called a high spirit) that it continually made great uneafiness in

the