Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. MEASURE FOR MEASURE — THE COMEDY OF ERRORS —MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING —LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST Measure for Measure D'AVENANT'S " Law against Lovers " is an alteration of " Measure for Measure," with the incorporation of the characters of Benedick and Beatrice from " Much Ado about Nothing." This seems to be the first of these rifacimenti, for it was produced as early as February, 1662, at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, although it was not printed until 1673. The characters of " Measure for Measure " are mostly retained, as are also the chief features of the main plot, but the comic underplot is omitted. The borrowed characters are fitted into the dramatis per- sonae by making Benedick a brother of Angelo and Beatrice a cousin of Julietta and ward of Angelo. A new character is added in Viola, who is a very young sister to Beatrice, and who, Benedick says, " is not a chip of the old block, but will prove a smart twig of'the young branch," and whose singing and dancing especially pleased Pepys. Very little of the action of " Much Ado" is introduced, but many extracts from its dialogue are made use of, being joined in a somewhat altered form with dialogue of D'Avenant's own manufacture. The scene is shifted to Turin. At the opening of Act I, the Duke entrusts the government to Angelo and Escalus as in Shakespeare.Then enter Beatrice, Julietta, Viola, and. Balthasar (who has also been imported, somewhat altered, from "Much Ado"), and the scene is like I, 1 of " Much Ado." On the announcement of Benedick's entrance, the ladies step behind the hangings and then Escalus informs Benedick that the latter's brother is now the head of the government. Lucio comes in and tells of the revival of an old law, which is considered a law against lovers (whence the ne...