them to a dog for a new-year's gift. The rogues flighted me into the river with as little remorfe as they would have drown'd a bitch's blind puppies, fifteen i'th' litter; and you may know, by my fize, that I' have a kind of alacrity in finking: if the bottom were as deep as hell, I should down. I had been drown'd, but that the shore was fhelvy and fhallow; a death that I abhor; for the water fwells a man: and what a thing should I have been, when I had been swell'd? I should have been a mountain of mummy.

Enter Bardolph.

Now, is the Sack brew'd?

Bard. Here's Mrs. Quickly, Sir, to fpeak with you. Fal. Come, let me pour in fome fack to the Thameswater; for my belly's as cold as if I had fwallow'd fnow-balls, for pills to cool the reins. Call her in. Bard. Come in, woman.

S CE N E XVI.

Enter Mrs. Quickly.

Quic. By your leave: I cry you mercy. Give your worship good morrow.

Fal. Take away these challices; go brew me a pottle of fack finely.

Bard. With eggs, Sir?

Fal. Simple of it felf: I'll no pullet-fperm in my brewage. How now ?

Quic. Marry, Sir, I come to your worship from miftrefs Ford.

Fal. Miftrefs Ford? I have had Ford enough; I was thrown into the Ford; I have my belly full of Ford.

Quic. Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault: fhe does fo take on with her men; they mistook their erection.

Fal. So did I mine, to build on a foolish woman's promise.

Den WEL, She laments, Sr, for it, that it would gern your mean to L Herbsband goes this mo my & prang, Se defires you once more to come to her between eight and one. I micry her work quickly; fte. mace you amends, warat VOL

ja Mall vist her; tell her fo, and bid ber Link what a man is: let her confider his frailty, and then jonge of my met.

Qut. I will tell her.

Fa.. Do fo. Between rine and ten, fay'it thou? Sur. Eight and nine, Sir.

Fal. Well, be gone; I will not miís her.

Quic. Peace be with you, Sir.

[Exit.

Fal I marvel, I hear not of mafter Brock; he fent

Ford. Blefs you, Sir.

Fal. Now, mafter Brock, you come to know what hath pafs'd between me and Ford's wife.

Ford. That, indeed, Sir John, is my business. Fal. Matter Brook, I will not lie to you; I was at her house the hour fhe appointed me.

Ford. And you sped, Sir?

Fal. Very ill-favour'dly, mafter Brook.

Ford. How, Sir, did fhe change her determination? Fal. No, mafter Brook; but the peaking cornuto her husband, mafter Brook, dwelling in a continul larum of jealoufie, comes me in the inftant of our encounter ; after we had embrac'd, kifs'd, protefted, and as it were, fpoke the prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither provok'd and inftigated by his diftemper, and, forfooth, to fearch his houfe for his wife's love.

Ford.

Ford. What, while you was there?

Fal. While I was there.

Ford. And did he fearch for you, and could not find you?

Fal. You fhall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in one mistress Page, gives intelligence of Ford's approach, and by her invention, and Ford's wife's direction, they convey'd me into a buck-basket.

Ford. A buck-basket?

Fal. Yea, a buck-basket; ramm'd me in with foul fhirts and fmocks, focks, foul ftockings, and greafie napkins; that, mafter Brook, there was the rankeft compound of villainous fmell, that ever offended noftril. Ford. And how long lay you there?

Fal. Nay, you fhall hear, mafter Brook, what I have fuffer'd to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being thus cramm'd in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his hinds, were call'd forth by their mistress, to carry me in the name of foul cloaths to Datchet-lane; they took me on their fhoulders, met the jealous knave their master in the door, who ask'd them once or twice what they had in their basket; I quak'd for fear, lest the lunatick knave would have fearch'd it; but fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold, held his hand. Well, on went he for a fearch, and away went I for foul cloaths; but mark the fequel, mafter Brook; I fuffer'd the pangs of three egregious deaths: first, an intolerable fright, to be detected by a jealous rotten bell-weather; next to be compass'd like a good bilbo, in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and then to be ftopt in, like a strong distillation, with ftinking cloaths that freted in their own greafe: think of that, a man of my kidney; think of

8 by her invention, and Ford's wife's DISTRACTION,] We must read DIRECTION. For tho' the speaker might think Ford's wife much frighted at the approach of her husband, yet he is here fpeaking of the part which he bore in an artful contrivance to deceive him.

that,

Mrs. Ford. A plain kerchief, Sir John: my brows become nothing elfe, nor that well neither.

femblance of a hip (as Shakespear fays) in all her trim: with all her pennants out, and flags and ftreamers flying.

in Samfon Agonistes, paints Dalila.

But who is this, what thing of fea or land?
Female of fex it feems,

That fo bedeckt, ornate and gay,

Comes this way failing

Like a fately ship

Of Tarius, bound for th' Ifles

Of Javan or Gadier,

With all her bravery on, and tackle trim,

Sails fill'd, and fireamers waving,

Thus Milion,

Courted by all the winds that hold them play.

Thus

This was an image familiar with the poets of that time. Beaumont and Fletcher, in their play of Wit without money, She fpreads fattens as the King's fhips do canvas every where, he may space her mifen; &c. This will direct us to reform the following word of tire-valiant, which I fufpect to be corrupt, valiant being a very incongruous epithet for a woman's head-drefs. I fuppofe Shakespear wrote tire-vailant. As the fhip-tire was an open head-drefs, fo the tire-vailant was a clofe one; in which the head and breaft were covered as with a vail. And these were, in fact, the two different head-dresses then in fashion, as we may fee by the pictures of that time. One of which was fo open, that the whole neck, breafts and fhoulders, were open'd to view the other, fo fecurely inclofed in kerchiefs, &c. that nothing could be feen above the eyes or below the chin.

or any Venetian attire. ] This is a wrong reading, as appears from the impropriety of the word attire here ufed for a woman's head-dress: whereas it fignifies the dress of any part. We fhould read therefore, Or any 'tire of Venetian admittance. For the word attire, reduced by the Aphærefis, to 'tire, takes a new fignification, and means only the head-drefs. Hence Tirewoman, for a dreffer of the head. As to the meaning of the latter part of the fentence, this may be feen by a paraphrafe of the whole fpeech. Your face is fo good, fays the speaker, that it would become any head-drefs worn at court, either the open or the clofe, or indeed any rich and fashionable one worth adorning with Venetian point, or which will admit to be adorned. [Of Venetian admittance] The fashionable lace, at that time, was Venetian point.

Fal.

Fal. Thou art a traytor to say so; thou would't make an abfolute Courtier; and the firm fixure of thy foot would give an excellent motion to thy gate, in a femi-circled farthingale. I fee what thou wert; if fortune thy foe were not, nature is thy friend: come, thou canst not hide it.

Mrs. Ford. Believe me, there's no fuch thing in me. Fal. What made me love thee? let that perfuade thee, there's fomething extraordinary in thee. Come, I cannot cog, and fay, thou art this and that, like a-many of thefe lifping haw-thorn buds, that come like women in mens apparel, and fmell like BucklersBury in fimpling time; I cannot: but I love thee, none but thee; and thou deservest it.

Mrs. Ford. Do not betray me, Sir; I fear you love mistress Page.

Fal. Thou might'ft as well fay, I love to walk by the Counter-gate, which is as hateful to me as the reek of a lime-kiln.

Mrs. Ford. Well, heav'n knows how I love you, and you shall one day find it.

Fal. Keep in that mind; I'll deferve it.

Mrs. Ford. Nay, I must tell you, so you do; or elfe I could not be in that mind.

Rob. [within.] Miftrefs Ford, miftrefs Ford, here's mistress Page at the door, fweating, and blowing, and looking wildly, and would needs fpeak with you prefently.

Fal. She fhall not fee me; I will enfconce me behind the arras.

Mrs. Ford. Pray you, do fo; fhe's a very tattling

woman.

[Falstaff bides himself.

VOL. I.

X

SCENE