Imatges de pàgina
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And not retire. Let me have your good will.
Anne. Good mother, do not marry me to yon fool.
Mrs. Page. I mean it not, I feek you a better huf-
band.

Quic. That's my mafter, mafter Doctor.

Anne. Alas, I had rather be set quick i'th' earth, And bowl'd to death with turnips 2.

Mrs. Page. Come, trouble not yourself; good mafter Fenton,

I will not be your friend nor enemy:

My daughter will I question how the loves you,
And as I find her, so am I affected.

'Till then, farewel, Sir-fhe muft needs go in,
Her Father will be angry. [Exe. Mrs. Page and Anne,
Fent. Farewel, gentle mistress; farewel, Nan.
Quic. This is my doing now. Nay, faid I, will
you caft away your child on a fool, and a phyfician?
look on mafter Fenton-This is my doing.

*

Fent, I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-night Give my fweet Nan this ring. There's for thy pains. [Exit.

Quic. Now heav'n fend thee good fortune! A kind heart he hath, a woman would run through fire and water for fuch a kind heart. But yet, I would my master had mistress Anne, or I would Mr. Slender had her; or, in footh, I would Mr. Fenton had her. I will do what I can for them all three, for fo I have promis'd; and I'll be as good as my word, but fpeciously for Mr. Fenton. Well, I inuft of another errand to Sir John Falstaff from my two miftreffes, what a beast am I to flack it?

[Exit.

2 Anne. Alas, I bad rather be to the procurefs, Quickly, who fet quick i'th earth, would mock the young woman's averfion for her mafter the Doc

And bowl'd to death with turnips.] Can we think the fpeaker would thus ridicule her own imprecation? We may be fure the last line should be given

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tor.

WARBURTON. -fool and a phyfician? ] I fhould read fool or a phyfician, meaning Slender and Gaius.

SCENE

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Fal. Go fetch me a quart of fack, put a toast in't. [Ex. Bard.] Have I liv'd to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of butchers' offal, and to be thrown into the Thames? Well, if I be serv'd fuch another trick, I'll have my brains ta'en out and butter'd, and give 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' lit- ́ ter; 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 fhould down. I had been drown'd, but that the shore was shelvy 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 speak with you. Fal. Come, let me pour in fome fack to the Thames

3 In former copies, -as they would have drown'd a blind Bitch's puppies,] I have ventur'd to tranfpofe the Adjective here, against the Authority of the printed Copies. I know, in horfes, a Colt from a blind

Stallion lofes much of the Value it might otherwise have ; but are puppies ever drown'd the fooner, for coming from a blind Bitch? The Author certainly wrote, as they would have drown'd a Bitch's blind puppies. THEOв.

water;

Call her in.

water; for my belly's as cold as if I had fwallow'd fnow-balls, for pills to cool the reins. Bard. Come in, woman.

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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 itfelf; 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.

Quic. Well, fhe laments, Sir, for it, that it would yern your heart to fee it. Her husband goes this morning a birding; fhe defires you once more to come to her between eight and nine. I must carry her word quickly; fhe'll make you amends, I warrant you.

Fal. Well, I will visit her; tell her fo, and bid her think, what a man is: let her confider his frailty, and then judge of my merit.

Quic. I will tell her.

Fal. Do fo. Between nine and ten, fay'st thou?

Quic. Eight and nine, Sir.

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

Quic. Peace be with you, Sir.

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[Exit.

Fal.

Fal. I marvel, I hear not of mafter Brook; he fent me word to stay within: I like his mony well. Oh, here he comes.

SCENE

XVII.

Enter Ford.

Ford. Blefs you, Sir.

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

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

Ford. And you fped, Sir?

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

Ford. How, Sir, did she change her determination? Fal. No, mafter Brook; but the peaking cornuto her husband, master Brook, dwelling in a continual larum of jealoufy, comes me in the inftant of our encounter; after we had embrac'd, kifs'd, protested, 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. What, while you was there?

Fal. While I was there.

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

you?

· Fal. You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in one miftrefs Page, gives intelligence of Ford's approach, and by her invention, and Ford's wife's di ftraction, 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 stockings, and greafy napkins; that, mafter Brook, there was the rankeft

com.

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 Datchetlane; they took me on their shoulders, met the jealous knave their master in the door, who asked them once or twice what they had in their basket; I quak'd for fear, left 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 compafs'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 diftillation, with ftinking cloaths that fretted in their own greafe: think of that, a man of my kidney; think of that, that am as fubject to heat as butter; a man of continual diffolution and thaw; it was a miracle to 'fcape fuffocation. And in the height of this bath, when I was more than half stew'd in greafe, like a Dutch difh, to be thrown into the Thames, and cool'd glowing hot, in that furge, like a horfe-fhoe; think of that; hiffing hot; think of that, mafter Brock.

*

Ford. In good fadness, Sir, I am forry that for my fake you have fuffer'd all this. My fuit is then defperate; you'll undertake her no more?

Fal. Mafter Brock, I will be thrown into Etna, as I have been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her hufband is this morning gone a birding; I have re4 A bilbo is a Spanish blade, of which the excellence is flexibleness and elafticity,

kidney;] Kaney in this

phrafe now fignifies kind or qualities, but Faiftaff means a man whofe kidnies are as far as mine.

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