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SCENE IV.

A Room in Ford's House.

Enter PAGE, FORD, Mrs. PAGE, Mrs. FORD, and Sir HUGH EVANS.

EVA. 'Tis one of the peft difcretions of a 'oman as ever I did look upon.

PAGE. And did he fend you both these letters at an inftant?

MRS. PAGE. Within a quarter of an hour.

FORD. Pardon me, wife: Henceforth do what thou wilt;

I rather will suspect the fun with cold,"

Than thee with wantonnefs: now doth thy honour

stand,

In him that was of late an heretick,

As firm as faith.

PAGE.

'Tis well, 'tis well; no more.

7 I rather will fufpect the fun with cold,] Thus the modern editions.-The old ones read-with gold, which may mean, I rather will fufpect the fun can be a thief, or be corrupted by a bribe, than thy honour can be betrayed to wantonnefs. Mr. Rowe filently made the change, which fucceeding editors have as filently adopted. A thought of a fimilar kind occurs in Henry IV. P. I:

Shall the bleffed fun of heaven prove a micher?"

I have not, however, difplaced Mr. Rowe's emendation; as a zeal to preserve old readings, without diftinction, may fometimes prove as injurious to our author's reputation, as a defire to introduce new ones, without attention to the quaintnefs of phraseology then in use. STEEVENS.

So, in Weftward for Smelts, a pamphlet which Shak fpeare certainly had read: "I anfwere in the behalfe of one, who is as free from difloyaltie, as is the funne from darkness, or the fire from COLD." A husband is fpeaking of his wife. MALONE.

Be not as extreme in fubmiffion,

As in offence;

But let our plot go forward: let our wives
Yet once again, to make us publick sport,
Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow,
Where we may take him, and disgrace him for it.
FORD. There is no better way than that they spoke
of.

PAGE. How! to fend him word they'll meet him in the park at midnight! fie, fie; he'll never

come.

EVA. You fay, he has been thrown in the rivers; and has been grievoufly peaten, as an old 'oman: methinks, there fhould be terrors in him, that he fhould not come; methinks, his flesh is punish'd, he shall have no defires.

PAGE. So think I too.

MRS. FORD. Devife but how you'll ufe him when he comes,

And let us two devife to bring him thither.

MRS. PAGE. There is an old tale goes, that Herne
the hunter,

Sometime a keeper here in Windfor foreft,
Doth all the winter time, at ftill midnight,
Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns;
And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle;

8

and takes the cattle;] To take, in Shakspeare, fignifies to feize or ftrike with a difeafe, to blaft. So, in Lear:

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Strike her young bones,

"Ye taking airs, with lamenefs." JOHNSON.

So, in Markham's Treatife of Horses, 1595, chap. 8: "Of a horfe that is taken. A horfe that is bereft of his feeling, mooving or ftyrring, is faid to be taken, and in footh fo he is, in that he is arrefted by fo villainous a difeafe; yet fome farriors, not well understanding the ground of the difeafe, confter the word taken, to

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And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a

chain

In a moft hideous and dreadful manner :

You have heard of fuch a fpirit; and well you know, The fuperftitious idle-headed eld"

Receiv'd, and did deliver to our age,

This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth.

PAGE. Why, yet there want not many, that do fear In deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak: But what of this?

MRS. FORD. Marry, this is our device;

That Falstaff at that oak fhall meet with us, Difguis'd like Herne, with huge horns on his head.* PAGE. Well, let it not be doubted but he'll come, And in this fhape: When you have brought him thither,

What shall be done with him? what is your plot? MRS. PAGE. That likewife have we thought upon, and thus:

be ftriken by some planet or evil-fpirit, which is false," &c. Thus our poet:

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-No planets ftrike, no fairy takes." TOLLET.

- idle-headed eld ] Eld feems to be used here, for what our poet calls in Macbeth-the olden time. It is employed in Meafare for Meafure, to exprefs age and decrepitude:

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doth beg the alms

"Of palfied eld." STEEVENS.

I rather imagine it is ufed here for old perfons. MALONE.

2

Difguis'd like Herne, with huge horns on his head.] This line, which is not in the folio, was properly reftored from the old quarto by Mr. Theobald. He at the fame time introduced another"We'll fend him word to meet us in the field," which is clearly unneceffary, and indeed improper; for the word field relates to two preceding lines of the quarto, which have not been introduced : Now, for that Falstaff has been fo deceiv'd,

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"As that he dares not meet us in the house,
"We'll fend him word to meet us in the field."

MALONE.

Nan Page my daughter, and my little fon,
And three or four more of their growth, we'll drefs
Like urchins, ouphes,' and fairies, green and white,
With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,
And rattles in their hands; upon a fudden,
As Falstaff, fhe, and I, are newly met,
Let them from forth a faw-pit rush at once
With fome diffused fong; upon their fight,
We two in great amazedness will fly :

4

Then let them all encircle him about,

And, fairy-like, to-pinch the unclean knight; '

S -urchins, ouphes,] The primitive fignification of urchin is a hedge-hog. In this fenfe it is ufed in The Tempeft. Hence it comes to fignify any thing little and dwarfish. Ouph is the Teutonick word for a fairy or goblin. STEEVENS.

4 With fome diffufed fong;] A diffufed fong fignifies a fong that ftrikes out into wild fentiments beyond the bounds of nature, fuch as those whofe fubject is fairy land. WARBURTON.

Diffufed may mean confused. So, in Stowe's Chronicle, p. 553: Rice quoth he, (i. e. Cardinal Wolfey,) fpeak you Welch to him: I doubt not but thy fpeech fhall be more diffufe to him, than his French fhall be to thee." TOLLET.

By diffufed fong, Shakspeare may mean fuch unconnected ditties as mad people fing. Kent, in K. Lear, when he has determined to affume an appearance foreign to his own, declares his refolution to diffufe his fpeech, i. e. to give it a wild and irregular turn.

STEEVENS.

With fome diffufed fong;] i. e. wild, irregular, difcordant. That this was the meaning of the word, I have shown in a note on another play by a paffage from one of Greene's pamphlets, in which he calls a dress of which the different parts were made after the fashions of different countries," a diffufed attire." MALONE.

And, fairy-like, to-pinch the unclean knight;] This ufe of to in compofition with verbs, is very common in Gower and Chaucer, but must have been rather antiquated in the time of Shakspeare. See, Gower, De Confeffione Amantis, B. IV. fol. 7:

"All to-tore is myn araie."

And Chaucer, Reeve's Tale, 1169:

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The conftruction will otherwife be very hard. TYRWHITT.

And ask him, why, that hour of fairy revel,
In their fo facred paths he dares to tread,

In fhape prophane.

MRS. FORD.

Let the fuppofed fairies pinch him sound,

And till he tell the truth,

The truth being known,

And burn him with their tapers.

MRS. PAGE.

We'll all present ourselves; dif-horn the fpirit, And mock him home to Windsor.

The children muft

FORD.
Be practis'd well to this, or they'll ne'er do't.

EVA. I will teach the children their behaviours; and I will be like a jack-an-apes alfo,' to burn the knight with my taber.

I add a few more inftances, to fhow that this ufe of the prepofition to was not entirely antiquated in the time of our author. So, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. IV. c. 7:

"With briers and bushes all to-rent and scratched.”

Again, B. V. c. 8:

"With locks all loofe, and raiment all to-tore."

Again, B. V. c. 9:

"Made of ftrange ftuffe, but all to-worne and ragged,
"And underneath the breech was all to-torne and jagged."

Again, in The Three Lords of London, 1590:

"The poft at which he runs, and all to-burns it.”

Again, in Arden of Feversham, 1592:

"Watchet fattin doublet, all to-torn."

STEEVENS.

The editor of Gawin Douglas's Tranflation of the Æneid, fol. Edinb. 1710, obferves in his General Rules for the Understanding the Language, that to prefixed, in antient writers, has little or no fignificancy, but with all put before it, fignifies altogether. Since, Milton has "were all to-ruffled." See Comus, v. 380. Warton's edit. It is not likely that this practice was become antiquated in the time of Shakspeare, as Mr. Tyrwhitt fuppofes. HOLT WHITE. pinch him found,] i. e. foundly. The adjective used as The modern editors read-round. STEEVENS.

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an adverb.

1 I will teach the children their behaviours; and I will be like a jack-an-apes alfo,] The idea of this ftratagem, &c. might have been adopted from part of the entertainment prepared by Thomas

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