Slen. Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her, and we have a nay-word, how to know one another. I come to her in white, and cry "mum;" she cries "budget;" and by that we know one another.

Shal. That's good too: but what needs either your mum, or her budget? the white will decipher her well enough.-It hath struck ten o'clock.

Page. The night is dark; light and spirits will become it well. Heaven prosper our sport! No man means evil but the devil, and we shall know him by his horns. Let's away; follow me. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.-The Street in Windsor. Enter MRS. PAGE, MRS. FORD, and DR. CAIUS. Mrs. Page. Master Doctor, my daughter is in green when you see your time, take her by the hand, away with her to the deanery, and despatch it quickly: Go before into the park; we two must go together.

Caius. I know vat I have to do; adieu. Mrs. Page. Fare you well, sir. [Exit CAIUS. My husband will not rejoice so much at the abuse of Falstaff, as he will chafe at the doctor's marrying my daughter: but 'tis no matter; better a little chiding, than a great deal of heart-break.

Mrs. Ford. Where is Nan now, and her troop of fairies? and the Welch devil, Hugh?

Mrs. Page. They are all couched in a pit hard by Herne's oak, with obscured lights; which, at the very instant of Falstaff's and our meeting, they will at once display to the night.

Mrs. Ford. That cannot choose but amaze him. Mrs. Page. If he be not amazed, he will be mocked; if he be amazed, he will every way be

mocked.

SCENE V.-Another part of the Park. Enter FALSTAFF disguised, with a buck's head on.

Fal. The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute draws on: Now, the hot-blooded gods assist me :-Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa; love set on thy horns. O, powerful love! that, in some respects, makes a beast a man; in some other, a man a beast.— You were also, Jupiter, a swan, for the love of Leda. O, omnipotent love! how near the god drew to the complexion of a goose! A fault done first in the form of a beast; O, Jove, a beastly fault! and then another fault in the semblance of a fowl; think on 't, Jove; a foul fault. When gods have hot backs, what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a Windsor stag, and the fattest, I think, i' the forest: Send me a cool rut-time, Jove! Who comes here? my doe?

Enter MRS. FORD and MRS. PAGE.

Mrs. Ford. Sir John, art thou there, my deer? my male deer?

Fal. My doe?-Let the sky rain potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Green Sleeves; hail kissing-comfits, and snow eringoes; let there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here. [Embracing her. Mrs. Ford. Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.

Fal. Divide me like a bribe-buck, each a haunch: I will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk, and my horns I bequeath to your husbands. Am I a woodman? ha! Speak I like Herne the hunter? -Why, now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes restitution. As I am a true spirit, welcome! [Noise within.

Mrs. Page. Alas! what noise?
Mrs. Ford. Heaven forgive our sins!
Fal. What should this be?
Mrs. Ford.

Mrs. Page. Fal. I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that is in me should set hell on fire: he would never else cross me thus.

} Away, away. [They run off.

Enter SIR HUGH EVANS, like a satyr; MRS. QUICKLY, and PISTOL; ANNE PAGE, as the Fairy Queen, attended by her brother and others, dressed like fairies, with waxen tapers on their heads.

Quick. Fairies, black, grey, green and white, You moonshine revellers, and shades of night, You orphan-heirs of fixéd destiny, Attend your office and your quality. Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes.

Pist. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys.

Cricket, to Windsor chimnies shalt thou leap: Where fires thou find'st unraked, and hearths unswept,

There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry:
Our radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery.

Fal. They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die:

I'll wink and couch: no man their works must
eye.
[Lies down upon his face.
Eva. Where's Pede?-Go you, and where
you find a maid

That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,
Raise up the organs of her fantasy,
Sleep she as sound as careless infancy;
But those as sleep, and think not on their sins,

Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and shins.

Quick. About, about;

Search Windsor-castle, elves, within and out:
Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room;
That it may stand till the perpetual doom,
In state as wholesome, as in state 't is fit;
Worthy the owner, and the owner it.
The several chairs of order look you scour
With juice of balm, and every precious flower:
Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest,
With loyal blazon evermore be blest!
And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,
Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring:
The expressure that it bears green let it be,
More fertile-fresh than all the field to see;
And Honi soit qui mal y pensé write,

In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white:
Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,
Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee:
Fairies use flowers for their charactery.
Away; disperse: But, till 't is one o'clock,
Our dance of custom, round about the oak
Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget.

Eca. Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set:

And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be,
To guide our measure round about the tree.
But, stay; I smell a man of middle earth.

Fal. Heavens defend me from that Welch fairy! Lest he transform me to a piece of cheese!

Pist. Vile worm, thou wast o'erlooked even in thy birth.

Quick. With trial-fire touch me his finger-end: If he be chaste, the flame will back descend, And turn him to no pain; but if he start, It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.

Pist. A trial, come.

Eva. Come, will this wood take fire?

[They burn him with their tapers.

Fal. Oh, oh, oh!

Quick. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire! About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme : And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time. Eva. It is right; indeed he is full of lecheries and iniquity.

SONG.

Fye on sinful fantasy!

Fye on lust and luxury!

Lust is but a bloody fire,

Kindled with unchaste desire,

Fed in heart; whose flames aspire,

As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.
Pinch him, fairies, mutually;

Pinch him for his villany;

Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about, Till candles, and starlight, and moonshine be out.

During this song, the fairies pinch FALSTAFF. DOCTOR CAIUS comes one way, and steals away a fairy in green; SLENDER another way, and takes off a fairy in white; and Fenton comes, and steals away MRS. ANNE PAGE. A noise of hunting is made within. All the fairies run away. FALSTAFF pulls off his buck's head, and

rises.

Enter PAGE, FORD, MRS. PAGE, and MRS. FORD. They lay hold of him.

Page. Nay, do not fly; I think we have watched you now;

Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn? Mrs. Page. I pray you, come; hold up the jest no higher

Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives? See you these, husband? do not these fair yokes Become the forest better than the town?

Ford. Now, sir, who's a cuckold now?Master Brook, Falstaff's a knave, a cuckoldly knave; here are his horns, Master Brook: And, Master Brook, he hath enjoyed nothing of Ford's but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of money; which must be paid to Master Brook; his horses are arrested for it, Master Brook.

Mrs. Ford. Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never meet. I will never take you for my love again, but I will always count you my deer. Fal. I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass. Ford. Ay, and an ox too; both the proofs are

extant.

Fal. And these are not fairies? I was three or four times in the thought they were not fairies and yet the guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my powers, drove the grossness of the foppery into a received belief, in despite of the teeth of all rhyme and reason, that they were fairies. See now, how wit may be made a Jack-a-lent, when 't is upon ill employment!

Eva. Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you. Ford. Well said, fairy Hugh.

Eva. And leave you your jealousies too, I pray

you.

Ford. I will never mistrust my wife again, till thou art able to woo her in good English.

Fal. Have I laid my brain in the sun and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross o'erreaching as this? Am I ridden with a Welch goat too? Shall I have a coxcomb of frize? 'Tis time I were choked with a piece of toasted cheese.

Eva. Seese is not goot to give putter; your pelly is all putter.

Fal. Seese and putter! have I lived to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of English? This is enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking through the realm.

Mrs. Page. Why, Sir John, do you think, though we would have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders, and have given ourselves without scruple to hell, that ever the devil could have made you our delight.

Ford. What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax? Mrs. Page. A puffed man?

Page. Old, cold, withered, and of intolerable entrails?

Ford. And one that is as slanderous as Satan? Page. And as poor as Job?

Ford. And as wicked as his wife?

Eva. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack, and wine, and metheglins, and to drink

ings, and swearings, and starings, pribbles, and prabbles?

Fal. Well, I am your theme: you have the start of me; I am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welch flannel: ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me; use me as you will.

Ford. Marry, sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, to one Master Brook, that you have cozened of money, to whom you should have been a pander: over and above that you have suffered, I think to repay that money will be a biting affliction.

Mrs. Ford. Nay, husband, let that go to make amends:

Forgive that sum, and so we'll all be friends.

Ford. Well, here's my hand; all's forgiven at last. Page. Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset to-night at my house; where I will desire thee to laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee: Tell her, Master Slender hath married her daughter.

Mrs. Page. Doctors doubt that: If Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius' wife. [Aside.

Enter SLENDer.

Slen. Whoo, ho! ho! father Page! Page. Son! how now? how now, son? have you despatched?

Slen. Despatched?-I'll make the best in Gloucestershire know on 't; would I were hanged, la, else.

Page. Of what, son?

Slen. I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page, and she's a great lubberly boy: If it had not been i' the church, I would have swinged him, or he should have swinged me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir, and 'tis a postmaster's boy.

Page. Upon my life then you took the wrong. Slen. What need you tell me that? I think so, when I took a boy for a girl. If I had been married to him, for all he was in woman's apparel, I would not have had him.

Page. Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how you should know my daughter by her garments?

Slen. I went to her in white, and cried "mum," and she cried "budget," as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was not Anne, but a postmaster's boy.

Eva. Jeshu! Master Slender, cannot you see but marry boys?

Page. O, I am vexed at heart: What shall I do? Mrs. Page. Good George, be not angry: I knew of your purpose; turned my daughter into green; and, indeed, she is now with the doctor at the deanery, and there married.

Enter CAIUS.

Caius. Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened; I ha' married un garçon, a boy; un paisan, by gar, a boy; it is not Anne Page: by gar, I am cozened.

Mrs. Page. Why, did you take her in green? Caius. Ay, by gar, and 'tis a boy by gar, I'll raise all Windsor. [Exit CAIUS. Ford. This is strange: Who hath got the right Anne? Page. My heart misgives me: Here comes Master Fenton.

Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE. How now, Master Fenton!

Anne. Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon!

Page. Now, mistress? how chance you went not with Master Slender?

Mrs. Page. Why went you not with master doctor, maid?

Fent. You do amaze her: Hear the truth of it. You would have married her most shamefully, Where there was no proportion held in love. The truth is, she and I, long since contracted, Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us. The offence is holy that she hath committed: And this deceit loses the name of craft, Of disobedience, or unduteous title; Since therein she doth evitate and shun A thousand irreligious curséd hours Which forced marriage would have brought upon her.

"Sir Hugh, persuade me not.”—Act I., Scene 1.

The term Sir was formerly applied to the inferior clergy, as well as to knights; nor is the custom at present altogether extinct. At Cambridge and Dublin the designation is still applied to bachelors of arts, but always annexed to the surname only; as, Sir Evans, &c. Fuller, in his "CHURCH HISTORY," says, "Such priests as have the addition of 'Sir' before their christian name, were men not graduated in the university; being in orders, but not in degrees; whilst others, entitled 'masters,' had commenced in the arts."

"A star-chamber matter."-Act I., Scene 1.

The obnoxious old court of Star Chamber took cognizance of routs and riots.

"And custalorum."—Act I., Scene 1.

A contraction or corruption for custos rotulorum.

"Writes himself armigero.”—Act I., Scene 1. "Armiger" is the latin term for "esquire." Slender had probably seen his relative's official signature, "Jurat' coram me, Roberto Shallow, armigero;" and thus unwittingly is led to substitute the ablative case for the nominative.

"The dozen white luces in their coat."—Act I., Scene 1. In what is here said of the luce (the pike, or jack), the poet is supposed to make some satirical reference to Sir Thomas Lucy, his Stratford prosecutor; but the ambiguity of the passage is so much more evident than the satire, that it has probably plagued the commentators far worse than it did the knight. Shallow's phrase, "The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an old coat" (which occurs a few lines lower), is thought by Dr. Johnson to imply, that the "fresh fish" is the coat of an ancient family; while the "salt fish" is the coat of a merchant, grown rich by trading over the sea. This explanation is at least ingenious, if not quite satisfactory.

"Out-run on Cotsall."-Act I., Scene 1.

The allusion is to the annual games celebrated on Cotswold, in Gloucestershire. They were revived by a certain Mr. Robert Dover, in the beginning of the reign of James I.; and consisted of wrestling, leaping, pitching the bar, handling the pike, dancing of women, various kinds of hunting, and particularly coursing the hare with greyhounds. These festivities have been commemorated in verse by Ben Jonson, Drayton, and Randolph, in a work called "ANNALIA Du

"Coney-catching rascals.”—Act I., Scene 1.

A coney-catcher was a cheat or sharper. As coney is the name of a young rabbit, the phrase probably implied that the fools these sharpers preyed upon were as easily caught as the inexperienced animals.

"You Banbury cheese."—Act I., Scene 1.

This is said in ridicule of Slender's meagreness of person, a Banbury cheese being remarkably thin. In "Jack Drum's Entertainment" (1601), there is this passage: "Put off your clothes, and you are like a Banbury cheese, nothing but paring."

"How now, Mephostophilus?"-Act I., Scene 1.

This is the name of a spirit in the old histories of Faustus. Marlowe and Goethe have mainly contributed to keep it in familiar use.

"Mill-sixpences-Edward shovel-boards."—Act I., Scene 1.

The first-named coins were used as counters; the second, were the broad shillings of Edward VI., and used at the game of shovel-board, now called shuffle-board. Slender states that his lamented "shovel-boards" had cost him "two shilling and twopence a-piece;" and the matter is thus explained by Douce:-"We must suppose that the shillings purchased of the miller had been hoarded by him, and were in high preservation, and heavier than those which had been worn in circulation. These would, consequently, be of greater importance to a nice player at the game of shovelboard; and induce him, especially if an opulent man, to procure them at a price far beyond their original value."

"Latten bilbo."-Act I., Scene 1.

Another allusion to Slender's person. Latten is a mixed metal of copper and calamine, and cast in thin plates; it would consequently, both in edge and substance, be a vile material for making bilboes. We are told also that the word latten is still used in the north, as equivalent to tin. Steevens suggests, with great probability, that the word should be lathen bilbo. Falstaff talks of driving the Prince and his subjects before him with a dagger of lath.

"Marry trap."-Act I,, Scene 1.

This apparently was an exclamation of triumph, when a man was caught in his own snare, or otherwise punished as the consequence of his own behaviour.

"Conclusions passed the careires."-Act 1., Scene 1.

The ingenious Bardolph appears somewhat affectedly obscure in this passage; he is trying to escape, like the cuttlefish, in a darkness of his own creation. If we allow him to have any distinct meaning, he probably intends to say that the whole affair passed all reasonable bounds, and became a scene of confusion, in which, unfortunately, even his innocence could not protect him from suspicion. This erudite defence serves his purpose of confounding Slender, who answers, Ay, you spake in Latin then too."