Duke. Why, then she's fled unto that peasant
Valentine;

And Eglamour is in her company.

"Tis true; for friar Laurence met them both,
As he in penance wander'd through the forest;
Him he knew well, and guess'd that it was she:
But, being mask'd, he was not sure of it:

SCENE L-The same. An Abbey. Enter EGLA- Besides, she did intend confession

And, to the nightingale's complaining notes,
cow-Tune my distresses, and record my woes.
[Aside. O thou that dost inhabit in my breast,

Leave not the mansion so long tenantless;
Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall,
[Aside. And leave no memory of what it was!"

Repair me with thy presence, Silvia;
Thou gentle nymph, cherish thy forlorn swain!—
What halloing, and what stir, is this to-day?

Jul. That such an ass should owe them. [Aside. These are my mates, that make their wills their law,
Pro. That they are out by lease.'
Jul. Here comes the Duke.

3 By Thurio's possessions he himself understands his lands. But Proteus chooses to take the word likewise in a figurative sense, as signifying his mental endowments,It and when he says they are out by lease, he means, that they are no longer enjoyed by their master (who is a

To hazard life, and rescue yon from him
That would have forced your honour and your love.
Vouchsafe me, for my meed, but one fair look;
A smaller boon than this I cannot beg,
And less than this, I'm sure you cannot give.

Val. How like a dream is this I see and hear!
Love, lend me patience to forbear a while. [Aside.
Sil. O miserable, unhappy that I am!
Pro. Unhappy were you, madam, ere I came;
But, by my coming, I have made you happy.
Sil. By thy approach thou mak'st me most un-
happy.

Jul. And me, when he approacheth to vour pre

sence.

Sil. Had I been seized by a hungry lion,
I would have been a breakfast to the beast,
Rather than have false Proteus rescue me.
O, heaven be judge, how I love Valentine,
Whose life's as tender' to me as my soul;
And full as much (for more there cannot be)
I do detest false perjur'd Proteus:
Therefore begone, solicit me no more.

[Aside.

Val. Why, boy! why, wag! how now? what is the matter? Look up; speak.

Jul. O good sir, my master charg'd me to deliver a ring to Madam Silvia; which, out of my neglect was never done.

Pro. Where is that ring, boy?

Jul. Here 'tis: this is it.

[Gives a ring.

Pro. How! let me see: why this is the ring I gave to Julia.

Jul. O, cry you mercy, sir, I have mistook; this is the ring you sent to Silvia. [Shows another ring. Pro. But, how cam'st thou by this ring? at my depart, I gave this unto Julia.

Jul. And Julia herself did give it me;
And Julia herself hath brought it hither.
Pro. How! Julia!

Jul. Behold her that gave aim to all thy oaths,
And entertain'd them deeply in her heart:
How oft hast thou with perjury cleft the root?'

Pro. What dangerous action, stood it next to O Proteus, let this habit make thee blush!

death,

Would I not undergo for one calm look?

O, 'tis the curse in love, and still approv'd,2
When women cannot love where they're belov'd.

Sil. When Proteus cannot love where he's be-
lov'd.

Read over Julia's heart, thy first best love,
For whose dear sake thou didst then rend thy faith
Into a thousand oaths; and all those oaths
Descended into perjury, to love me.

Thou hast no faith left now, unless thou hadst two,
And that's far worse than none; better have none
Than plural faith, which is too much by one:
Thou counterfeit to thy true friend!
Pro.

In love,
All men but Proteus.

Pro. Nay, if the gentle spirit of moving words
Can no way change you to a milder form,
I'll woo you like a soldier, at arms' end;

And love you 'gainst the nature of love, force you.
Sil. O heaven!

Pro.
I'll force thee yield to my desire.
Val. Ruffian, let go that rude uncivil touch;
Thou friend of an ill fashion.

Pro.

Valentine!

Be thou asham'd, that I have took upon me
Such an immodest raiment; if shame live
In a disguise of love:

It is the lesser blot modesty finds,

Women to change their shapes, than men their

minds.

Pro. Than men their minds? 'tis true: O heaven! were man

But constant, he were perfect: that one error
Fills him with faults; makes him run through all
the sins;

Inconstancy falls off, ere it begins:
What is in Silvia's face, but I may spy
More fresh in Julia's, with a constant eye?

Val Come, come, a hand from either:
Let me be blest to make this happy close?
"Twere pity two such friends should be long foes.
Pro. Bear witness, heaven, I have my wish for

ever.

Jul. And I mine.

Enter Out-laws, with DUKE and THURIO, Out. A prize, a prize, a prize!

Val. Forbear, forbear, I say; it is my lord the duke.

Your grace is welcome to a man disgrac❜d,

Sir Valentine!

Val. Thou common friend, that's without faith or Banished Valentine.
love,
Duke.
Thu. Yonder is Silvia; and Silvia's mine.
Val. Thurio, give back, or else embrace thy death;
Come not within the measure of my wrath:
Do not name Silvia thine: if once again,
Verona shall not hold thee. Here she stands,
Take but possession of her with a touch;—
I dare thee but to breathe upon my love.

(For such is a friend now,) treacherous man!
Thou hast beguil'd my hopes; nought but mine eye
Could have persuaded me: Now I dare not say
I have one friend alive; thou would'st disprove me.
Who should be trusted now, when one's right hand
Is perjur'd to the bosom? Proteus,

I am sorry I must never trust thee more,
But count the world a stranger for thy sake.
The private wound is deepest: O time most accurst!
'Mongst all foes, that a friend should be the worst!
Pro. My shame and guilt confound me.-
Forgive me, Valentine: if hearty sorrow
Be a sufficient ransom for offence,

I tender it here; I do as truly suffer,
As e'er I did commit.

1 i. e. as dear.

2 approv'd is confirm'd by proof.

Thu. Sir Valentine, I care not for her, I;
I hold him but a fool, that will endanger
His body for a girl that loves him not:
I claim her not, and therefore she is thine.
Duke. The more degenerate and base art thou,
To make such means for her as thou hast done,
And leave her on such slight conditions.-
Now, by the honour of my ancestry,
I do applaud thy spirit, Valentine,
And think thee worthy of an empress' love.
Know then, I here forget all former griefs,
Cancel all grudge, repeal thee home again.-
Plead a new state in thy unrivall'd merit,
To which I thus subscribe,-Sir Valentine,

5 i. e. of her heart, the allusion to archery is continu3 The word now was supplied in the folio of 1632. ed, and to cleaving the pin in shooting at the butts. 4 Steevens confounded the phrases of to cry aim 6" Verona shall not hold thee," is the reading of the Merry Wives of Windsor, Act iii. Sc. 2) and to give only authentic copy. Theobald proposed the reading, aim, both terms in archery. He who gave aim appears" Milan shall not behold thee," which has been adopted to have been called the mark, and was stationed near the butts, to inform the archers how near their arrows fell to the butt. We are indebted to Mr. Gifford for distinguishing the terms.-Vide Massinger, vol. ii. p. 27. Julia means to say that she was the mark that gave direction to his vows.

by all subsequent editors, but there is no authority for the change. If the reading is erroneous, Shakspeare must be held accountable for this as well as some other errors in his early productions.

7 "To make such means for her," to make such mterest for, to take such disingenuous pains about her

Thou art a gentleman, and well deriv'd;
Take thou thy Silvia, for thou hast deserv'd her.
Val. I thank your grace; the gift hath made me
happy.

I now beseech you, for your daughter's sake,
To grant one boon that I shall ask of you.

Duke. I grant it for thine own, whate'er it be.
Val. These banish'd men, that I have kept withal,
Are men endued with worthy qualities;
Forgive them what they have committed here,
And let them be recall'd from their exile:
They are reformed, civil, full of good,
And fit for great employment, worthy lord.
Duke. Thou hast prevail'd: I pardon them, and
thee;

Dispose of them, as thou know'st their deserts.
Come, let us go; we will include all jars1
With triumphs,2 mirth, and rare solemnity.

Val. And, as we walk along, I dare be bold
With our discourse to make your grace to smile:
What think you of this page, my lord?

[In this play there is a strange mixture of knowledge and ignorance, of care and negligence. The versifica tion is often excellent, the allusions are learned and just; but the author conveys his heroes by sea from one inland town to another in the same country; he places the emperor at Milan, and sends his young men to attend him, but never mentions him more; he makes Proteus, after an interview with Silvia, say he has only seen her picture; and, if we may credit the old copies, he has, by mistaking places, left his scenery inextricable. The reason of all this confusion seems to be, that he took his story from a novel, which he sometimes followed, and sometimes forsook, sometimes remembered, and some. times forgot.

That this play is rightly attributed to Shakspeare, I have little doubt. If it be taken from him, to whom shall it be given? This question may be asked of all the disputed plays, except Titus Andronicus; and it will be found more credible, that Shakspeare might sometimes sink below his highest flights, than that any other should rise up to his lowest. JOHNSON."

Johnson's general remarks on this play are just, except that part in which he arraigns the conduct of the poet, for making Proteus say he had only seen the picture of Silvia, when it appears that he had had a per boy.sonal interview with her. This however is not a blunder

Duke. I think the boy hath grace in him; he
blushes.

Val. I warrant you, my lord; more grace than
Duke. What mean you by that saying?
Val. Please you, I'll tell you as we pass along,
That you will wonder what hath fortuned.-
Come, Proteus; 'tis
your penance,
The story of your loves discovered:
That done, one day of marriage shall be yours;
One feast, one house, one mutual happiness,

but to hear

[Exeunt.

1 Include is here used for conclude. This is another of Shakspeare's Latinisms: "includo, to include, to shut in, to close in."-Cooper.

2 Triumphs are pageants, such as masks and shows.

of Shakspeare's, but a mistake of Johnson's, who con-
siders the passage alluded to in a more literal sense than
the author intended it. Sir Proteus, it is true, had seen
Silvia for a few moments; but though he could forin
from thence some idea of her person, he was still unac-
quainted with her temper, manners, and the qualities of
her mind. He therefore considers himself as having seen
her picture only.-The thought is just, and elegantly
less says to her:
expressed.-So, in The Scornful Lady, the elder Love-

I was mad once, when I loved pictures;
For what are shape and colours else, but pictures
M. MASON J

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

A FEW of the incidents of this Comedy might have Falstaff is disgraced in King Henry IV. Part ii. and dies

in King Henry V. Yet in the Merry Wives of Windsor
"If it
he talks as if he was still in favour at court.
should come to the ear of the court how I have been
transformed," &c.: and Page discountenances Fenton's
addresses to his daughter, because he kept company
with the wild Prince and with Poins. These circum?
stances seem to favour the supposition that this play was
written between the first and second parts of King Hen

been taken from an old translation of N Pecorone di Giovanni Fiorentino. The same story is to be met with in The Fortunate, the Deceived, and the Unfortunate Lovers, 1632.' A somewhat similar one occurs in the Piacevoli Notti di Straparola. Notte iv. Favola iv. The adventures of Falstaff seem to have been taken from the story of the lovers of Pisa in Tarleton's Newes out of Purgatorie,' bl. 1. no date, but entered on the Stationers' books in 1590. The fishwife's tale, inry IV. But that it was not written then may be collected Westward for Smelts,' a book from which Shakspeare borrowed part of the fable of Cymbeline, probably led him to lay the Scene at Windsor.

Mr. Malone thinks that the following line in the earliest edition of this comedy, Sailke my pinnace to those golden shores,' shows that it was written after Sir Walter Raleigh's return from Guiana in 1596.

The first edition of the Merry Wives of Windsor was printed in 1602, and it was probably written in 1601, after the two parts of King Henry IV. being, as it is said, composed at the desire of Queen Elizabeth, in order to exhibit Falstaff in love, when all the pleasantry which he could afford in any other situation was exhausted.

from the tradition above mentioned. The truth, probably is, that though it ought to be read (as Dr. Johnson observed,) between the second part of Henry IV. and Henry V. it was written after King Henry V. and after Shakspeare had killed Falstaff. In obedience to the royal commands, having revived him, he found it necessary at the same time to revive all those persons with whom he was wont to be exhibited; Nym, Bardolph, Pistol, and the Page: and disposed of them as he found ft convenient without a strict regard to their situ.ns or catastrophes in former plays.

Mr. Malone thinks that The Merry Wives of Windsor was revised and enlarged by the author after its first production. The old edition, in 1602, like that of Romeo and Juliet, he says, is apparently a rough draught and not a mutilated or imperfect copy. The precise time when the alterations and additions were made has not been ascertained: some passages in the enlarged copy may assist conjecture on the subject, but nothing deci

It may not be thought so clear that it was written after King Henry V. Nym and Bardolph are both hanged in that play, yet appear in Merry Wives of Windsor. *This story seems to have been first mentioned by Dennis in the Dedication to his alteration of this play, under the title of The Comical Gallant.' This Co-sive can be concluded from such evidence. medy,' says he, was written at Queen Elizabeth's command, and by her direction, and she was so eager to see it acted that she commanded it to be finished in fourteen days; and was afterwards, as tradition tells us, very well pleased at the representation.' The information probably came originally from Dryden, who, from his intimacy with Sir W. Davenant, had opportunities of learning many particulars concerning Shakspeare.

This comedy was not printed in its present form tih 1623, when it was published with the rest of Shakspeare's plays in folio. The imperfect copy of 1602 was again printed in 1619.

Mr. Boaden thinks that the chasms which occur in the story of the drama in this old copy afford evidence that it was imperfectly taken down during the represen

tation.

Shal. Sir, he's a good dog, and a fair dog; Can there be more said? he is good, and fair.-Is Sir John Falstaff here?

Page. Sir, he is within; and I would I could do a good office between you.

Eva. Fery goot: I will make a prief of it in my note-book; and we will afterwards 'ork upon the cause with as great discreetly as we can. Fal. Pistol,

Pist. He hears with ears.

Eva. The tevil and his tam! what phrase is this, He hears with car? Why, it is affectations.

Fat. Pistol, did you pick master Slender's purse? Slen. Ay, by these gloves, did he (or I would I might never come in mine own great chamber again else,) of seven groats in mill-sixpences, and two Edward shovel-boards, that cost me two shilling and twopence a-piece of Yead Miller, by these gloves.

Fal. Is this true, Pistol?

Eva. No; it is false, if it is a pick-purse.
Pist. Ha, thou mountain-foreigner!-Sir John,
and master mine,

I combat challenge of this latten bilbo:"
Word of denial in thy labras1o here;
Word of denial; froth and scum, thou liest.

Slen. By these gloves, then 'twas he.
Nym. Be avised, sir, and pass good humours: I
will say, marry, trap, with you, if you run the nut-

Eva. It is spoke as a christians ought to speak. Shal. He hath wrong'd me, master Page. Page. Sir, he doth in some sort confess it. Shal. If it be confess'd, it is not redress'd; is not that So, master Page? He hath wrong'd me; indeed he hath; at a word, he hath ;-believe me ;-Ro-hook's humour on me; that is the very note of it. bert Shallow, esquire, saith he is wrong'd. Page. Here comes Sir John.

Enter SIR JOHN Falstaff, BaRDOLPH, Nгм, and PISTOL.

Fal. Now, master Shallow; you'll complain of me to the king?

Shal. Knight, you have beaten my men, killed my deer, and broke open my lodge.

Fal. But not kiss'd your keeper's daughter?
Shal. Tut, a pin! this shall be answer'd.
Fal. I will answer it straight ;-I have done all
this:-That is now answer'd.

Shal. The Council shall know this.

Fal. "Twere better for you, if it were known in counsel: you'll be laugh'd at.

Eva. Pauca verba, Sir John, good worts.
Fal. Good worts! good cabbage.-Slender, I
broke your head; What matter have you against me?
Slen. Marry, sir, I have matter in my head against
you; and against your coney-catching rascals,
Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol. They carried me to
the tavern, and made me drunk, and afterwards
picked my pocket.

Bar. You Banbury cheese!'
Slen. Ay, it is no matter.

Pist. How now, Mephostophilus ?"

Slen. Ay, it is no matter.

Nym. Slice, I say! pauca, pauca ; slice! that's my humour.

Slen. Where's Simple, my man? can you tell,

cousin?

Eva. Peace: I pray you! Now let us understand: There is three umpires in this matter, as I understand that is-master Page, fidelicet, master Page; and there is myself, fidelicet, myself; and the three party is, lastly and finally, mine host of the Garter.

Page. We three, to hear it, and end it between them.

1 First folio. from the 4to. 1619. 2 The Cotswold Hills in Gloucestershire, famous for their fine turf, and therefore excellent for coursing. 3 Worts was the ancient term for all the cabbage kind.

I thank. The reading in the text is

4 A common name for cheats and sharpers in the time of Elizabeth. By a metaphor taken from those that rob warrens and conie grounds.'-Minshew's Dict. 5 Said in allusion to the thin carcass of Slender. So, "Put off your in Jack Drum's Entertainment, 1601. clothes, and you are like a Banbury Cheese, nothing but paring."

6 The name of a spirit, or familiar, in the old story book of Faustus: to whom there is another allusion Act ii. Sc. 2. It was a cant phrase, probably, for an ugly fellow.

Slen. By this hat, then he in the red face had it: for though I cannot remember what I did when you made me drunk, yet I am not altogether an ass. Fal. What say you, Scarlet and John? Bard. Why, sir, for my part, I say, the gentleman had drunk himself out of his five sentences. Eva. It is his five senses: fie, what the ignorance is!

Bard. And being fap,12 sir, was, as they say, cashier'd; and so conclusions pass'd the careires.

Slen. Ay, you spake in Latin then too; but 'tis no matter: I'll ne'er be drunk whilst I live again, but in honest, civil, godly company, for this trick: If I be drunk, I'll be drunk with those that have the fear of God, and not with drunken knaves.

Eva. So Got 'udge me, that is a virtuous mind. Fal. You hear all these matters denied, gentlemen; you hear it.

Enter MISTRESS ANNE PAGE, with wine; Mis-
TRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE following.
Page. Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we'll
drink within.
[Exit ANNE PAGE.
Slen. O heaven! this is mistress Anne Page.
Page. How now, mistress Ford?
Fal. Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very
well met: by your leave, good mistress.

[kissing her.

Page. Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome :Come, we have a hot venison pasty to dinner ; come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all

unkindness.

[Exeunt all but SHAL. SLENDER, and EVANS. Slen. I had rather than forty shillings I had my book of Songs and Sonnets14 here :

10 Lips.

11 Metaphorically a bailiff or constable, who hooks or seizes debtors or malefactors with a staff or otherwise. The meaning apparently is, if you try to bring me to justice.'

12 Fap was evidently a cant term for Foolish. It may have been derived from the Italian Vappa, which Flo rio explains "any wine that hath lost his force: used also for a man or woman without wit or reason." In Hutton's Dict. 1583, one of the meanings of the Latin Vappa is a Dissard or foolish man, &c.

13 A military phrase for running the charge in a tour nament or attack; here used metaphorically.

14 Slender means a popular book of Shakspearo's time, "Songes and Sonnettes, written by the Earle of Surrey and others," and published by Touel in 1557