need of washing; so throwing him into the water will do him a benefit.

Mrs Page. Hang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the same strain were in the same distress.

Mrs Ford. I think, my husband hath some special suspicion of Falstaff's being here: for I never saw him so gross in his jealousy till now.

Mrs Page. I will lay a plot to try that: and we will yet have more tricks with Falstaff: his dissolute disease will scarce obey this medicine.

Mrs Ford. Shall we send that foolish carrion, mistress Quickly, to him, and excuse his throwing into the water; and give him another hope, to betray him to another punishment?

Mrs Page. We'll do it; let him be sent for to-morrow eight o'clock, to have amends.

Re-enter FORD, PAGE, CAIUS, and Sir HUGH EVANS.

Ford. I cannot find him: may be the knave bragged of that, he could not compass. Mrs Page. Heard you that?

Mrs Ford. Ay, ay, peace:-You use me well,

master Ford, do you?

Ford. Ay, I do so.

Eva. In your teeth: for shame. Ford. Pray you go, master Page. Eva. I pray you now, remembrance to-morrow on the lousy knave, mine host. Caius. Dat is good; by gar, vit all my heart. Eva. A lousy knave; to have his gibes, and his mockeries. [Exeunt.

SCENE IV.-A room in Page's house. Enter FENTON and Mistress ANNE PAGE. Fent. I see, I cannot get thy father's love; Therefore, no more turn me to him, sweet Nan. Anne. Alas! how then?

Fent. Why, thou must be thyself. He doth object, I am too great of birth; And that, my state being gall'd with my expence, I seek to heal it only by his wealth: Besides these, other bars he lays before me,— My riots past, my wild societies; And tells me, 'tis a thing impossible I should love thee, but as a property. Anne. May be, he tells you true.

Fent. No, heaven so speed me in my time to come!

Albeit, I will confess, thy father's wealth

your thoughts!

Ford. Amen.

Ford. Ay, ay; I must bear it.

Eva. If there be any pody in the house, and in the chambers, and in the coffers, and in the presses, heaven forgive my sins at the day of judgment !

Caius. By gar, nor I too; dere is no bodies. Page. Fie, fie, master Ford! are you not ashamed? What spirit, what devil suggests this imagination? I would not have your distemper in this kind, for the wealth of Windsor Castle. Ford. 'Tis my fault, master Page: I suffer for it.

Eva. You suffer for a pad conscience; your wife is as honest a 'omans, as I will desires among five thousand, and five hundred too.

Caius. By gar, I see 'tis an honest woman. Ford. Well;-I promised you a dinner :Come, come, walk in the park: I pray you, pardon me; I will hereafter make known to you, why I have done this.-Come, wife ;-come, mistress Page; I pray you, pardon me; pray heartily, pardon me.

Page. Let's go in, gentlemen; but, trust me, we'll mock him. I do invite you to-morrow morning to my house to breakfast; after, we'll a-birding together; I have a fine hawk for the bush: Shall it be so?

That now I aim at.

Anne. Gentle master Fenton, Yet seek my father's love: still seek it, sir: If opportunity and humblest suit Cannot attain it, why then,-Hark you hither. [They converse apart.

Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and Mrs QUICKLY. Shal. Break their talk, mistress Quickly; my kinsman shall speak for himself. Slen. I'll make a shaft or a bolt on't: slid, 'tiş but venturing.

Shal. Be not dismay'd.

Slen. No, she shall not dismay me: I care not for that, but that I am afcard.

Quick. Hark ye; master Slender would speak a word with you.

Anne. I come to him.-This is my father's choice.

O, what a world of vile ill-favour'd faults
Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a-
year!
Aside.

Quick. And how does good master Fenton ? Pray you, a word with you.

Shal. She's coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a father!

Slen. I had a father, mistress Anne ;-my uncle can tell you good jests of him:-Pray you, uncle, tell mistress Anne the jest, how my father stole two geese out of a pen, good uncle.

Shal. Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you. Slen. Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in Gloucestershire.

E

Shal. He will maintain you like a gentlewo

man.

Slen. Ay, that I will, come cut and long-tail, under the degree of a 'squire.

Shal. He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure.

Anne. Good master Shallow, let him woo for himself.

you

Shal. Marry, I thank you for it; I thank for that good comfort.-She calls you, coz: I'll leave you.

Anne. Now, master Slender.
Slen. Now, good mistress Anne.
Anne. What is your will?

Slen. My will? od's heartlings, that's a pretty jest, indeed! I ne'er made my will yet, I thank heaven; I am not such a sickly creature, I give heaven praise.

Anne. I mean, master Slender, what would you with me?

Slen. Truly, for mine own part, I would little or nothing with you: Your father, and my uncle, have made motions; if it be my luck, so; if not, happy man be his dole! They can tell you how things go, better than I can: You ask your father; here he comes.

may

Enter PAGE, and Mistress PAGE. Page. Now, master Slender :-Love him, daughter Anne.

Why, how now! what does master Fenton here?
You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house :
I told you, sir, my daughter is disposed of.
Fent. Nay, master Page, be not impatient.
Mrs Page. Good master Fenton, come not to
my child.

Page. She is no match for you.
Fent. Sir, will you hear me?
Page. No, good master Fenton.

Come, master Shallow; come, son Slender; in:-
Knowing my mind, you wrong me, master Fen-
ton. [Exeunt Page, Shal. and Slen.
Quick. Speak to mistress Page.
Fent. Good mistress Page, for that I love your
daughter

In such a righteous fashion as I do,

Give my sweet Nan this ring: There's for thy pains. [Exit. Quick. Now heaven send thee good fortune! A kind heart he hath: a woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart. But yet, I would my master had mistress Anne; or I would master Slender had her; or, in sooth, I would master Fenton had her: I will do what I can for them all three; for so I have promised, and I'll be as good as my word; but speciously for master Fenton. Well, I must of another errand to sir John Falstaff from my two mistresses; what a beast am I to slack it?

Fal. Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in't. [Exit Bard. Have I lived to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of butcher's offal; and to be thrown into the Thames? Well, if I be served such another trick, I'll have my brains ta'en out, and buttered, and give them to a dog for a new year's gift. The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse as they would have drowned a bitch's blind puppies, fifteen i' the litter: and you may know by my size, that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the bottom were as deep as hell, I should down. I had been drowned, but that the shore was shelvy and shallow; a death that I abhor; for the water swells a man; and what a thing should I have

been a mountain of mummy.

Re-enter BARDOLPH, with the wine. Bard. Here's mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.

Fal. Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my belly's as cold, as if I had swallowed snow-balls for pills to cool the reins. Call her in.

Bard. Come in, woman.

Enter Mrs QUICKLY.

Quick. By your leave; I cry you mercy: Give your worship good-morrow.

Fal. Take away these chalices: Go brew me a pottle of sack finely.

Bard. With eggs, sir?

Fal. Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage.-Exit Bard.]-How now? Quick. Marry, sir, I come to your worship from mistress Ford.

Fal. Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough: I was thrown into the ford: I have my belly full of ford.

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

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

Quick. Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning a birding; she desires you once more to come to her between eight and nine: I must carry her word quickly: she'll make you amends, I warrant you.

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

Fal. Do so. Between nine and ten, say'st

thou?

Quick. Eight and nine, sir.

Fal. Well, be gone: I will not miss her. Quick. Peace be with you, sir! [Exit. Fal. I marvel, I hear not of master Brook; he sent me word to stay within: I like his money well. O, here he comes.

Enter FORD.

Ford. Bless you, sir!

Fal. Now, master Brook? you come to know what hath passed between me and Ford's wife? Ford. That, indeed, sir John, is my business. Fal. Master Brook, I will not lie to you; I was at her house the hour she appointed me. Ford. And how sped you, sir?

Fal. Very ill-favouredly, master Brook. Ford. How so, sir? Did she change her determination?

Fal. No, master Brook; but the peaking cornuto her husband, master Brook, dwelling in a continual 'larum of jealousy, comes me in the instant of our encounter, after we had embraced, kissed, protested, and, as it were, spoke the prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither provoked and instigated by his distemper, and, forsooth, to search his house for his wife's love.

Ford. What, while you were 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 mistress Page; gives intelligence of Ford's approach; and, by her invention, and Ford's wife's distraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket. Ford. A buck-basket!

Fal. By the lord, a buck-basket: rammed me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, and greasy napkins; that, master Brook, there was the rankest compound of villainous smell, that ever offended nostril.

Ford. And how long lay you there?

Fal. Nay, you shall hear, master Brook, what I have suffered to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being thus crammed in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his hinds, were called forth by their mistress, to carry me in the name of foul clothes to Datchet-lane: 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 quaked for fear, lest the lunatic knave would have searched it; but fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold, held his hand. Well; on went he for a search, and away went I for foul clothes. But mark the sequel, master Brook: I suffered the pangs of three several deaths: first, an intolerable fright, to be detected with a jealous rotten bell-wether; next, to be compassed, like a good bilbo, in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and then, to be stopped in, like a strong distillation, with stinking clothes, that fretted in their own grease: think of that, a man of my kidney,-think of that; that am as subject to heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw; it was a miracle to 'scape suffocation. And in the height of this bath, when I was more than half stewed in grease, like a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of that,-hissing hot,-think of that, master Brook.

Ford. In good sadness, sir, I am sorry that for my sake you have suffered all this. My suit then is desperate; you'll undertake her no

more.

Fal. Master Brook, I will be thrown into Etna, as I have been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her husband is this morning gone a birding: I have received from her another embassy of meeting; 'twixt eight and nine is the hour, master Brook.

Ford. 'Tis past eight already, sir.

Fal. Is it? I will then address me to my appointment. Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you shall know how I speed; and the conclusion shall be crowned with your enjoying her: Adieu. You shall have her, master Brook; master Brook, you shall cuckold Ford. [Exit.

Ford. Hum! ha! is this a vision? is this a dream? do I sleep? Master Ford, awake; awake, master Ford; there's a hole made in your best coat, master Ford. This 'tis to be married! this 'tis to have linen and buck-baskets!-Well, I will proclaim myself what I am : I will now take the lecher; he is at my house; he cannot 'scape me; 'tis impossible he should; he cannot creep into a halfpenny purse, nor into a pepper-box;

[Exit.

SCENE I.-The Street.

Enter Mrs PAGE, Mrs QUICKLY, and
WILLIAM.

Mrs Page. Is he at master Ford's already, think'st thou ?

Quick. Sure he is by this, or will be presentlv; but truly, he is very courageous mad, about his throwing into the water. Mistress Ford desires you to come suddenly.

Mrs Pag. I'll be with her by and by; I'll but bring my young man here to school: Look, where his master comes; 'tis a playing-day, Í

see.

Eva. Ay.

Will. Genitive,-horum, harum, horum. Quick. 'Vengeance of Jenny's case! fie on her!-never name her, child, if she be a whore. Eva. For shame, 'oman.

Quick. You do ill to teach the child such words: he teaches him to hick and to hack, which they'll do fast enough of themselves; and to call horum:-fie upon you!

Eva. 'Oman, art thou lunatics? hast thou no understandings for thy cases, and the numbers of the genders? Thou art as foolish christian creatures as I would desires.

Mrs Page. Pr'ythee hold thy peace. Eva. Shew me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns.

Will. Forsooth, I have forgot.

Eva. It is ki, kæ, cod; if you forget your kies, your kas, and your cods, you must be preeches. Go your ways, and play, go.

Mrs Page. He is a better scholar, than I thought he was.

Eva. He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, mistress Page.

Mrs Page. Adieu, good sir Hugh. [Erit Sir Hugh. Get you home, boy.-Come, we [Exeunt. stay too long.

SCENE II.-A room in Ford's house.

Enter FALSTAFF and Mrs FORD. Fal. Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my sufferance; I see, you are obsequious in your love, and I profess requital to a hair's breadth; not only, mistress Ford, in the sim

Mrs Ford. Why, does he talk of him? Mrs Page. Of none but him; and swears, he was carried out, the last time he searched for him, in a basket: protests to my husband, he is now here; and hath drawn him and the rest of their company from their sport, to make another experiment of his suspicion: but I am glad the knight is not here; now he shall see his own foolery.

Mrs Ford. How near is he, mistress Page? Mrs Page. Hard by; at street end; he will be here anon.

Mrs Ford. I am undone !—the knight is here. Mrs Page. Why, then you are utterly shamed,

and he's but a dead man. What a woman are you?-Away with him, away with him; better shame than murder.

Mrs Ford. Which way should he go? how should I bestow him? Shall I put him into the basket again?

Re-enter FALSTAFF.

Fal. No, I'll come no more i' the basket: May I not go out, ere he come?

Mrs Page. Alas, three of master Ford's brothers watch the door with pistols, that none shall issue out; otherwise you might slip away ere he came. But what make you here? Fal. What shall I do?—I'll creep up into the chimney.

Mrs Ford. There they always use to discharge their birding-pieces; Creep into the kilnhole.

Mrs Page. If you go out in your own semblance, you die, sir John. Unless you go out disguised,

Mrs Ford. How might we disguise him?

Mrs Page. Alas the day, I know not. There wise, he might put on a hat, a muffler, and a is no woman's gown big enough for him; otherkerchief, and so escape.

Fal. Good hearts, devise something: any extremity, rather than a mischief.

Mrs Ford. My maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has a gown above.

Mrs Page. On my word, it will serve him; she's as big as he is; and there's her thrum'd hat, and her muffler too: Run up, sir John.

Mrs Ford. Go, go, sweet sir John: mistress Page and I will look some linen for your head. Mrs Page. Quick, quick; we'll come dress you straight: put on the gown the while.

[Exit Falstaff

him in this shape: he cannot abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears, she's a witch; forbade her my house, and hath threatened to beat her.

Mrs Ford. I would, my husband would meet

Mrs Page. Heaven guide him to thy husband's cudgel! and the devil guide his cudgel afterwards!

Mrs Ford. But is my husband coming?

Mrs Page. Ay, in good sadness, is he; and talks of the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.

Mrs Ford. We'll try that; for I'll appoint my men to carry the basket again, to meet him at the door with it, as they did last time.

let's go dress him like the witch of Brentford. Mrs Page. Nay, but he'll be here presently:

Mrs Ford. I'll first direct my men, what they shall do with the basket. Go up, I'll bring linen for him straight. Exit.

Mrs Page. Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misuse him enough.

We'll leave a proof, by that which we will do, Wives may be merry, and yet honest too: We do not act, that often jest and laugh; "Tis old but true, Still swine eat all the draff. [Exit.

Re-enter Mrs FORD, with two Servants. Mrs Ford. Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders ; your master is hard at door; if he bid you set it down, obey him: quickly, despatch. [Exit.

1 Serv. Come, come, take it up. 2 Serv. Pray heaven, it be not full of the knight again.