suffered more for their sakes, more than the villainous inconstancy of man's disposition is able to bear. Quick. And have not they suffered? Yes, I warrant; speciously one of them: mistress Ford, good heart, is beaten black and blue, that you cannot see a white spot about her.

Fal. What tellest thou me of black and blue? I was beaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow; and I was like to be apprehended for the witch of Brentford: but that my admirable dexterity of wit, my counterfeiting the action of an old woman, delivered me, the knave constable had set me i' the stocks, i' the common stocks, for a witch.

Quick. Sir, let me speak with you in your chamber: you shall hear how things go; and, I warrant, to your content. Here is a letter will say somewhat. Good hearts, what ado here is to bring you together! Sure, one of you does not serve heaven well, that you are so crossed.

Fal. Come up into my chamber.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VI.-Another Room in the Garter Inn. Enter FENTON and Host. Host. Master Fenton, talk not to me; my mind is heavy: I will give over all.

Fent. Yet hear me speak. Assist me in my purAnd, as I am gentleman, I'll give thee [pose, A hundred pound in gold more than your loss.

Host. I will hear you, master Fenton; and I will, at the least, keep your counsel.

Fent. From time to time I have acquainted you With the dear love I bear to fair Anne Page; Who, mutually, hath answer'd my affection (So far forth as herself might be her chooser) Even to my wish. I have a letter from her Of such contents as you will wonder at; The mirth whereof so larded with my matter, That neither, singly, can be manifested, Without the show of both;-wherein fat Falstaff Hath a great scene: the image of the jest

[Pointing to the Letter. I'll show you here at large. Hark, good mine host: To-night at Herne's oak, just 'twixt twelve and one, Must my sweet Nan present the fairy queen; The purpose why, is here: [Pointing to Letter.] in which disguise,

While other jests are something rank on foot,
Her father hath commanded her to slip
Away with Slender, and with him at Eton
Immediately to marry: she hath consented.
Now, Sir,

Her mother, even strong against that match,
And firm for Dr Caius, hath appointed
That he shall likewise shuffle her away,
While other sports are tasking of their minds,
And at the deanery, where a priest attends,
Straight marry her: to this her mother's plot
She, seemingly obedient, likewise hath
Made promise to the doctor.-Now, thus it rests:
Her father means she shall be all in white;
And in that habit, when Slender sees his time
To take her by the hand, and bid her go,
She shall go with him: her mother hath intended,
The better to denote her to the doctor,
(For they must all be mask'd and vizarded,)
That, quaint in green, she shall be loose enrob'd,
With ribands pendent, flaring 'bout her head;
And when the doctor spies his vantage ripe,

To pinch her by the hand, and on that token,
The maid hath given consent to go with him.
Host. Which means she to deceive, father or
mother?

Fent. Both, my good host, to go along with me:
And here it rests,-that you'll procure the vicar
To stay for me at church 'twixt twelve and one,
And, in the lawful name of marrying,
To give our hearts united ceremony.

[vicar. Host. Well, husband your device: I'll to the Bring you the maid, you shall not lack a priest. Fent. So shall I evermore be bound to thee; Besides, I'll make a present recompense. [Exeunt.

ACT V.

SCENE I.-A Room in the Garter Inn.

Enter FALSTAFF and Mrs QUICKLY. Fal. Pr'ythee, no more prattling;-go:-I'll hold. This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers. Away, go. They say there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death.— Away.

Quick. I'll provide you a chain; and I'll do what I can to get you a pair of horns.

Fal. Away, I say; time wears: hold up your head, and mince. [Exit Mrs QUICKLY.

Enter FORD.

How now, master Brook! Master Brook, the matter will be known to-night, or never. Be you in the park about midnight, at Herne's oak, and you shall see wonders.

Ford. Went you not to her yesterday, Sir, as you told me you had appointed?

Fal. I went to her, master Brook, as you see, like a poor old man: but I came from her, master Brook, like a poor old woman. That same knave Ford, her husband, hath the finest mad devil of jealousy in him, master Brook, that ever governed frenzy:-I will tell you:-he beat me grievously, in the shape of a woman; for in the shape of a man, master Brook, I fear not Goliath with a weaver's beam; because I know also, life is a shuttle. I am in haste; go along with me: I'll tell you all, master Brook. Since I plucked geese, played truant, and whipped top, I knew not what it was to be beaten, till lately. Follow me: I'll tell you strange things of this knave Ford; on whom to-night I will be revenged, and I will deliver his wife into your hand. -Follow:-Strange things in hand, master Brook: -follow. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.-Windsor Park. Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER. Page. Come, come: we'll couch i' the castle-ditch, till we see the light of our fairies.-Remember, son Slender, my daughter.

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.

66

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 Welsh 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.

Mrs Ford. We'll betray him finely.

Mrs Page. Against such lewdsters, and their lechery,

Those that betray them do no treachery.

Mrs Ford. The hour draws on: to the oak, to the oak!

SCENE IV.-Windsor Park.

[Exeunt.

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, or who can blame me to piss my tallow?-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 with the black scut!-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 bribed buck, each a haunch: I will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk, and my horns I bequeath 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!

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

Mrs Ford.

Mrs Page.

Away, away!

[Noise within.

[They run off.

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

Enter Sir HUGH EVANS, as a Satyr: PISTOL, as Hobgoblin: ANNE PAGE, as the Fairy Queen, attended by her brother and others, as fairies, with waxen tapers on their heads.

Queen. Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,
You moonshine revellers, and shades of night,
You orphan-heirs of fixed destiny,
Attend your office and your quality.—
Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy o-yes.

[toys!

Pist. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap, Where fires thou find'st unrak'd 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 Bede?-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 that sleep, and think not on their sins,
Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and
Queen. About, about!
[shins.

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 'tis fit;
Worthy the owner, and the owner it.
The several chairs of order look you scour
Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest,
With juice of balm, and every precious flower:
With loyal blazon, ever more be blest!
And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,
Th' expressure that it bears, green let it be,
Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring:

More fertile-fresh than all the field to see;
And, Honi soit qui mal y pense, 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 'tis one o'clock,
Our dance of custom round about the oak
Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget.

Eva. 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 Welsh fairy, lest he transform me to a piece of cheese!

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

Queen. 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! Queen. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!— About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme: And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.

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 buckbasket, 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 'tis 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 Welsh 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 drinkings, 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 Welsh 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.

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. [Aside.] Doctors doubt that: if Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, doctor Caius' wife.

Enter SLENDER.

Sien. 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, Page. Of what, son? {else!

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 post-master'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,"