Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851

But if the gentlemen really did mistake the identity of their ladies, Boyet's answers must have misled them into a similar mistake in their names: so that the natural consequence would have been, that each lover would afterwards address his {164} poetical effusion nominally to the wrong lady! which does not appear to have been the case.

Therefore, even if the masking be admitted, it can in no way lessen the inconsistency of the cross questions, which to me appears to have arisen from a most palpable instance of clerical or typographical transposition.

Steevens was on the right scent, although he rejected it in the same breath, when he said,--

"No advantage would be gained by an exchange of names, because the last speech is determined to Biron by Maria, who gives a character of him after he has made his exit."

This is a good reason against a transposition in the male names, but it