The Folio of 1623 supplies our only text, The Comedie of Errors coming fifth in the order of that volume. On every test it must rank among the earliest of Shakespeare's plays. Francis Meres (1598) puts it second on his famous list in Palladis Tamia. ‘As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy among the Latines, so Shakespeare among the English is the most excellent in both kinds; for Comedy, witnes his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Loue labors lost.…’ But we find an almost indubitable reference to it in a merry, tract describing the Christmas revels at Gray's Inn, 1594–5, and entitled Gesta Grayorum: or the History of the High and mighty Prince, Henry, Prince of Purpoole…Who Reigned and Died, A.D. 1594; this Prince being one Henry Helmes of Norfolk, gentleman, chosen Lord of Misrule for the occasion. He was installed with, no little pomp and circumstance, issued extravagant proclamations containing much legal wit (and some bawdry), and in particular on the second Grand Night (28 December) entertained an ‘ambassador’ and his suite from the Inner Temple: on which occasion, it would seem, a great deal of misrule arose.