Era. Nominativo, hig, hag, hog;-pray you, mark: genitivo, hujus. Well, what is your accusative case? Will. Accusativo, hinc.

Era. I pray you, have your remembrance, child: accusativo, hing, hang, hog.

Quick. Hang hog is Latin for bacon, I warrant you. Era. Leave your prabbles, 'oman.-What is the focative case, William?

Will. O-rocativo, O.

Era. Remember, William; focative is, caret.
Quick. And that's a good root.

Era. 'Oman, forbear.

Mrs. Page. Peace!

Eva. What is your genitive case plural, William? Will. Genitive case?

Era. Ay.

Will. Genitive,-horum, harum, horum.

Quick. Vengeance of Jenny's case! fie on her!— Never name her, child, if she be a whore.

Era. 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!

Era. '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.

Era. Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns.

Will. Forsooth, I have forgot.

Eva. It is qui, quæ, quod; if you forget your quis, your quæs, and your quods, 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. [Exit Sir HUGH.] Get you home, boy.-Come, we stay too long.

[Exeunt.

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, Mrs. Ford, in the simple office of love, but in all the accoutrement, complement, and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your husband now?

Mrs. Ford. He's a birding, sweet sir John.

Mrs. Page. [Within.] What hoa! gossip Ford! what

hoa!

Mrs. Ford. Step into the chamber, sir John.

[Exit FALSTAFF.

Enter Mrs. PAGE.

Mrs. Page. How now, sweetheart! who's at home besides yourself?

Mrs. Ford. Why, none but mine own people.
Mrs. Page. Indeed?

Mrs. Ford. No, certainly.-[Aside.] Speak louder. Mrs. Page. Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.

Mrs. Ford. Why?

Mrs. Page. Why, woman, your husband is in his old.

He is a good SPRAG memory.] "Sprag” still means lively or active in several parts of the country, and it is sometimes pronounced sprack.

lunes again': he so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails against all married mankind; so curses all Eve's daughters, of what complexion soever; and so buffets himself on the forehead, erying, "Peer-out, Peer-out!" that any madness I ever yet beheld seemed but tameness, civility, and patience, to this his distemper he is in now. I am glad the fat knight is not here. 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?

1 in his old LUNES again:] The quartos have rein, and the folio, 1623, lines, no doubt a misprint for "lunes," which Theobald substituted. In "Troilus and Cressida," Act ii. sc. 3, the folio, 1623, commits precisely the same error. In "The Winter's Tale," Vol. iii. p. 460, we have lunes in a similar sense, and there it is properly printed in the folio, 1623.

Fal. What shall I do?-I'll creep up into the chim

ney.

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

Fal. Where is it?

Mrs. Ford. He will seek there, on my word. Neither press, coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract for the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his note: there is no hiding you in the house.

Fal. I'll go out, then.

Mrs. Page. If you go out2 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 is no woman's gown big enough for him; otherwise, he might put on a hat, a muffler, and a kerchief, 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 straight; put on the gown the while.

come dress you [Exit FALSTaff.

2 Mrs. Page. If you go out-] This speech, as well as the next, is assigned to Mrs. Ford in the folio, 1623 it is very clear that they cannot both belong to her, but the editor of the folio, 1632, in order to get over the difficulty, coupled them. Malone transferred the first to Mrs. Page.

3- the fat woman of Brentford,] The quarto, 1602, gives her a name very popular in the time of Shakespeare; viz. Gillian of Brentford. A humorous, but extremely coarse tract, called "Jyl of Braintford's Testament," was written by R. Copland, and printed by W. Copland, and is often alluded to by subsequent writers, though we are not aware that it was ever re-published. See "Dodsley's Old Plays," last edit., vol. ix. p. 16, where several notices of Gillian of Brentford are collected.

Mrs. Ford. I would, my husband would meet 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. 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.

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

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.”

Re-enter Mrs. FORD, with two Servants.

[Exit.

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.

1 Serv. Come, come, take it up.

[Exit.

2 Serv. Pray heaven, it be not full of knight again3. 1 Serv. I hope not; I had as lief bear so much lead.

4 we cannot misuse HIM enough.] "Him" is from the folio, 1632, and it is evidently necessary, though omitted by the folio, 1623.

full of knight again.] The folio, 1632, injuriously to the sense and humour of the speech, reads, "full of the knight again." Capell also so printed it, but duly noting it as an interpolation.