I trow, threw this whale, with fo many tuns of oil in his belly, afhore at Windfor? How fhall I be reveng'd on him? I think, the beft way were to entertain him with hope, 'till the wicked fire of lust have melted him in his own greafe.-Did you ever hear the like?

Mrs. Page. Letter for letter; but that the name of Page and Ford differs !-To thy great comfort in this mystery of ill opinions, here's the twin-brother of thy letter: but let thine inherit firft; for, I proteft, mine never fhall. I warrant, he hath a thousand of these letters, writ with blank fpace for different names, (fure more) and thefe are of the fecond edition: He will print them out of doubt; for he cares not what he puts into the prefs, when he would put us two. I had rather be a giantefs, and lie under mount Pelion. Well, I will find you twenty lafcivious turtles, ere one chafte man.

Mrs. Ford. Why, this is the very fame; the very hand, the very words: What doth he think of us?

Mrs. Page. Nay, I know not: It makes me almost ready to wrangle with mine own honefty. I'll entertain myfelf like one that I am not acquainted withal; for, fure, unless he knew fome train in

"Greene Sleeves is worn away,
"Yellow fleeves come to decaie,
"Black fleeves I hold in despite,
"But white fleeves is my delight."

Mention of the fame tune is made again in the fourth act of this play. STEEVENS.

-prefs,—] Prefs is used ambiguoufly, for a prefs to print, and a press to fqueeze. JOHNSON.

9

fome ftrain in me,] Thus the old copies. The modern editors read, "fome ftain in me," but, I think, unneceffarily. A fimilar expreffion occurs in The Winter's Tale:

"With what encounter fo uncurrent, have I

"Strain'd to appcar thus ?"

And again in Timon:

66 - a noble nature

"May catch a wrench." STEEVENS.

me,

me, that I know not myself, he would never have boarded me in this fury.

Mrs. Ford. Boarding, call you it? I'll be fure to keep him above deck.

Mrs. Page. So will I; if he come under my hatches, I'll never to fea again. Let's be reveng'd on him: let's appoint him a meeting; give him a fhow of comfort in his fuit; and lead him on with a fine baited delay, till he hath pawn'd his horses to mine Hoft of the Garter.

Mrs. Ford. Nay, I will confent to act any villainy against him, that may not fully the charinefs of our honefty'. Oh, that my husband faw this letter ! it would give eternal food to his jealoufy.

Mrs. Page. Why, look, where he comes; and my good man too: he's as far from jealoufy, as I am from giving him caufe; and that, I hope, is an unmeafurable diftance.

Mrs. Ford. You are the happier woman.

Mrs. Page. Let's confult together against this greafy knight: Come hither. [They retire. Enter Ford with Piftol, Page with Nym.

Ford. Well, I hope, it be not so.

3

Pift. Hope is a curtail-dog in fome affairs:

Sir John affects thy wife.

Ford.

-the chariness of our honefty.] i.e. the caution which ought to attend on it. STEEVENS.

2

Oh, that my husband faw this letter!] Surely Mrs. Ford does not wish to excite the jealoufy, of which the complains. I think we should read-Oh, if my husband, &c. and thus the copy, 1619: "Oh lord, if my husband fhould fee the letter! i' faith, this would even give edge to his jealoufie." STEEVENS.

3-curtail-dog-] That is, a dog that miffes his game. The tail is counted neceffary to the agility of a greyhound; and one method of difqualifying a dog, according to the forest laws, is to cut his tail, or make him a curtail. JOHNSON.

This allufion is common to the old writers. So in Mucedorus: "I will not be made a curtail for no man's pleasure."

S 3

A curtail

Ford. Why, Sir, my wife is not young.

Pift. He wooes both high and low, both rich and poor,

Both young and old, one with another, Ford;
He loves thy gally-mawfry+; Ford, perpend 5.
Ford. Love my wife?

Pift. With liver burning hot : Prevent, or go thou, Like Sir Acteon he, with Ring-wood at thy heels:— O, odious is the name !

Ford. What naine, Sir?

Pift. The horn, I fay: Farewel.

Take heed; have open eye; for thieves do foot by

night:

Take heed, ere fummer comes, or 'cuckoo-birds do

A curtail-dog was the dog of an unqualify'd perfon, whose tail, by the laws of the foreft, was cut off. So, in the Unknown Shepherd's complaint, in England's Helicon, 1614:

"My curtail-dog, that wont to have plaide," &c.

STEEVENS. gally-marfry;] i. e. A medley. So in the Winter's Tale: "They have a dance, which the wenches fay is a gallimaufry of gambols." Pistol ludicrously ufes it for a woman. Thus, in A Woman never vex'd, 1632:

"Let us show ourselves gallants or galli-maufries."

STEEVENS.

-Ford, perpend.] This is perhaps a ridicule on a passage in the old comedy of Cambyfes:

"My fapient words I say perpend.”

Again:

do

"My queen perpend what I pronounce." Shakespeare has put the fame word into the mouth of Polonius. STEEVENS. cuckoo-birds de fing.] Such is the reading of the folio, and the quarto 1630. The quartos 1602, and 1619 readwhen cuckoo-birds appear. The modern editors-when cuckoobirds affright. For this laft reading I find no authority.

Away, fir corporal Nym.

STEEVENS.

Believe

Believe it, Page; he speaks fenfe.

[Exit Piftol. Ford. I will be patient; I will find out this.

Nym. [Speaking to Page.] And this is true; I like not the humour of lying. He hath wrong'd me in fome humours: I fhould have borne the humour'd letter to her; but I have a sword, and it fhall bite upon my neceffity. He loves your wife; there's the fhort and the long. My name is corporal Nym; I fpeak, and I avouch. 'Tis true:-my name is Nym, and Falstaff loves your wife.-Adieu! I love not the humour of bread and cheese; and there's the humour of it. Adieu. [Exit Nym.

Believe it, Page; he speaks fenfe.] Nym, I believe, is out of place, and we should read thus:

Away, fir corporal.

Nym. Believe it, Page; he speaks fenfe. JOHNSON.

Perhaps Dr. Johnson is mistaken in his conjecture. He feems

not to have been aware of the manner in which the author meant this scene should be reprefented. Ford and Piftol, Page and Nym, enter in pairs, each pair in feparate converfation; and while Piftol is informing Ford of Falftaff's defign upon his wife, Nym is, during that time, talking afide to Page, and giving information of the like plot against him. When Pistol has finished, he calls out to Nym to come away; but feeing that he and Page are still in clofe debate, he goes off alone, firft affuring Page, he may depend on the truth of Nym's ftory. Believe it, Page. Nym then proceeds to tell the remainder of his tale out aloud. And this is true &c. A little further on in this fcene, Ford fays to Page, You beard what this knave (i. e. Piftol) told me. Page replies, Yes, and you heard what the other (i. e. Nym) told me. STEEVENS.

8 I have a fword, and it shall bite upon my neceffity.He loves your wife; &c.] This abfurd paffage may be pointed into fenfe. I have a fword, and it shall bite- upon my necefity, he loves your wife, &c. Having faid his ford fhould bite, he ftops fhort, as was fitting: for he meant that it should bite upon the highway. And then turns to the fubject of his conference, and fwears, by bis neceffity, that Falstaff loved his wife.

WARBURTON.

I do not fee the difficulty of this paffage: no phrafe is more common than -you may, upon a need, thus. Nym, to gain credit, fays, that he is above the mean office of carrying love-letters; he has nobler means of living; he has a feword, and upon his neceffity, that is, when his need drives him to unlawful expedients, his fword ball bite. JOHNSON.

S 4

Page.

Page. The humour of it, quoth a'! here's a fellow frights humour out of its wits.

Ford. I will feek out Falftaff.

Page. I never heard fuch a drawling, affecting rogue.

Ford. If I do find it, well.

Page. I will not believe fuch a Cataian, though

the

The humour of it,-] The following epigram, taken from an old collection without date, but apparently printed before the year 1600, will beft account for Nym's frequent repetition of the word humour. Epig. 27.

Afke HUMORS what a feather he doth weare,
It is his humour (by the Lord) he'll sweare.
Or what he doth with fuch a horse-taile locke;
Or why upon a whore he spends his stocke?
He hath a humour doth determine fo.
Why in the ftop-throte fashion he doth goe,
With scarfe about his necke, hat without band?
It is his humour. Sweet fir, understand
What caufe his purfe is fo extreame distrest
That oftentimes is fcarcely penny-bleft?
Only a humour. If you question why
His tongue is ne'er unfurnish'd with a lye?
It is his bumour too he doth protest.
Or why with ferjeants he is fo oppreft,
That like to ghofts they haunt him ev'rie day?
A rafcal humour doth not love to pay.

Object why bootes and fpurres are fill in feafon?
His humour anfwers: bumour is his reason.

If you perceive his wits in wetting shrunke,
'It cometh of a humour to be drunke.

When you behold his lookes pale, thin, and
Th' occafion is, his humour and a whoore.
And every thing that he doth undertake,

poore,

It is a veine, for fencelefs humour's fake. STEEVENS. I will not believe fuch a Cataian,-] Mr. Theobald has here a pleasant note, as usual, "This is a piece of fatire that did not want its force at the time of this play's appearing; though the history on which it is grounded is become obfolete.' And then tells a long story of Martin Frobisher attempting the north-west paffage, and bringing home a black stone, as he thought, full of gold ore that it proved not fo, and that therefore Cataians and Frobishers became by-words for vain boasters. The whole is an idle dream. All the myftery of the term Cataian, for a liar, is

only