Enter Sir Hugh like a Satyr; Quickly, and others, dreft like Fairies, with Tapers.

Quic. F You moon-fhine revellers, and fhades of AIRIES, black, gray, green, and white,

* You Ouphen heirs of fixed destiny, Attend your office, and your quality. Crier hobgoblin, make the fairy o-yes.

[night,

Eva. Elves, lift your names; filence, you airy toys. Cricket, to Windfor chimneys fhalt thou leap: Where fires thou find'ft unrak'd, and hearths unfwept, There pinch the maids as blue as bilbery.

Our radiant Queen hates fluts and fluttery.

Fal. They're 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 Pede? go you, and where you find

a maid,

That, ere fhe fleep, hath thrice her prayers faid,
Rein up the organs of her fantasy ;

Sleep fhe as found as careless infancy;

But thofe, that fleep, and think not on their fins, Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, fhoulders, fides and fhins.

Quic. About, about;

Search Windfor caftle, elves, within and out.
Strew good luck, ouphes, on every facred room,
That it may stand 'till the perpetual Doom,
In ftate as wholfom, as in state 'tis fit;
Worthy the owner, as the owner it.

*You Orphan-heirs of fixed deftiny.] But why Orphan-heirs? Destiny, whom they fucceeded, was yet in being. Doubtless the Poet wrote, You Ouphen-heirs of fixed destiny.-i. e. you Elves, who minister, and fucceed in-some of the Works of Destiny. They are called, in this Play, both before and afterwards, Ouphes; here Ouphen; en being. the plural Termination of Saxon Nouns.

And

The feveral chairs of Order look you fcour,
With juice of balm and ev'ry precious flow'r:
Each fair Inftalment-Coat and fev'ral Creft,
With loyal blazon evermore be blest!
And nightly-meadow-fairies, look, you sing,
Like to the Garter-compass, in a ring:
Th' expreffure that it bears, green let it be,
More fertile-fresh than all the field to fee;
And, Hony Soit Qui Mal y Penfe write,

In emrold-tuffs, flow'rs purfled, blue and white,
Like faphire, pearl, in rich embroidery,

Buckled below fair Knight-hood's bending knee;
Fairies use flow'rs for their charactery.
Away, difperfe; but, 'till 'tis one o'clock.
Our dance of cuftom round about the Oak
Of Herne, the hunter, let us not forget.

i Eva. Pray you, lock hand in hand, yourselves in

order fet:

And twenty glow-worms fhall our lanthorns be,
To guide our measure round about the tree.
But ftay, I fmell a man of middle earth.

Fal. Heav'ns defend me from that Welch fairy, left he transform me to a piece of cheese !

Eva. Vild wrom, thou waft o'er-look'd ev'n in thy birth.

Quic. With trial-fire touch me his finger-end;
If he be chafte, the flame will back defcend,
And turn him to no pain; but if he start,
It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.

Eva. A trial, come.

[They burn him with their tapers, and pinch him. Come, with this wood take fire.

Fal, Oh, oh, oh!

Quic. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in defire; About him, fairies, fing a fcornful rhime: And, as you trip, ftill pinch him to your time. Eva. It is right, indeed, he is full of leacheries and iniquity.

The

Fie on finful phantafy,
Fie on luft and luxury!
Luft is but i'th blood, a fire,
Kindled with unchafte defire,
Fed in heart, whofe flames afpire,

As thoughts to blow them, higher and higher.
Pinch him, fairies, mutually;

Pinch him for his villany:

Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,
'Till candles, and ftar-light, and moon-fhine be out.

During this Song, they pinch him.

Doctor Caius comes

one way, and steals away a boy in green; Slender another way, and he takes away a boy in white; and Fenton comes, and steals away Mrs. Anne Page. A noife of hunting is made within. All the fairies run away. Falftaff pulls off his Buck's head, and rifes.

Enter Page, Ford, &c. They lay hold on him.

Page. NAY, do not fly; I think, We've watcht

you now;

Will none but Herne the hunter ferve your turn? Mrs. Page. I pray you, come; hold up the jeft no higher.

Now, good Sir John, how like you Windfor wives? See you these, husbands? do not these fair Yoaks Become the Foreft better than the Town?

Ford. Now, Sir, who's a cuckold now? mafter Brook, Falftaff's a knave, a cuckoldly knave, here are his horns, mafter Brook; and, master Brook, he hath enjoy'd nothing of Ford's but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of money, which must be paid to mafter Brook; his horfes are arrefted for it, mafter Brook.

Mrs. Ford.

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 ex

tant.

Fal. And these are not fairies? I was three or four times in the thought, they were not fairies; and yet the guiltinefs of my mind, the fudden furprize of my powers, drove the groffnefs of the foppery into a receiv'd belief, in despight of the teeth of all rhime 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, ferve Got, and leave your defires, and fairies will not pinse you.

Ford. Well faid, fairy Hugh.

Eva. And leave you your jealoufies 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 fun and dry'd it, that it wants matter to prevent fo grofs o'er-reaching as this? am I ridden with a Welch goat too? fhall I have a coxcomb of frize? 'tis time, I were choak'd with a piece of toafted cheese.

Eva. Seefe is not good to give putter; your pelly is all putter.

Fal. Scefe and putter? have I liv'd to stand in the taunt of one, that makes fritters of English? this is enough to be the decay of luft 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 ourfelves without fcruple to hell, that ever the devil could have made you our delight?

Ford. What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax?

Mrs. Page.

Mrs. Page. A puft man?

Page. Old, cold, wither'd, and of intolerable entrails?

Ford. And one that is as flanderous as Satan ?
Page. And as poor as Job?

Ford. And as wicked as his wife?

Eva. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and facks, and wines, and metheglins, and to drinkings, and swearings, and starings, pribbles and prabbles ?

Fal. Well, I am your theme; you have the ftart of me; I am dejected; *I am not able to answer the Welch flannel; ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me; ufe me as you will.

you

Ford. Marry, Sir, we'll bring you to Windfor to one Mr. Brook, that have cozen'd of money, to whom you fhould have been a pander: over and above that you have fuffer'd, I think, to repay that money will be a biting affliction.

Mrs. Ford. Nay, husband, let That go to make amends:

Forgive that Sum, and fo we'll all be Friends.

Ford. Well, here's my hand; all's forgiven at laft. Page. Yet be cheerful, Knight; thou fhalt eat a poffet to night at my house, where I will defire thee to laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee. Tell her, Mr. Slender hath marry'd her daughter.

Mrs. Page. Doctors doubt that; if Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius's wife.

[Afide.

I am not able to answer the Welch Flannel.] Shakespear poffibly wrote Welch Flamen. As Sir Hugh was a choleric Prieft, and apt to take Fire, Flamen was a very proper Name, it being given to that Order of Latin Priests from the flame-coloured Habit

SCENE