devil be fham'd. What! wife, I fay; come, come forth, behold what honeft cloaths you fend forth to bleaching.

Page. Why, this paffes, mafter Ford,

-you are not

to go loose any longer, you must be pinnion'd.

Eva. Why, this is lunaticks; this is mad as a mad dog. Enter Mrs. Ford.

Shal. Indeed, mafter Ford, this is not well, indeed. Ford. So fay I too, Sir. Come hither, mistress Ford; miftrefs Ford, the honeft woman, the modeft wife, the virtuous creature, that hath the jealous fool to her huf band! I fufpect without caufe, mistress, do I?

Mrs. Ford. Heav'n be my witnefs you do, if you fufpect me in any dishonefly.

Ford. Well faid, brazen-face; hold it out: come forth, firrah. [Pulls the cloaths out of the basket.

Page. This paffes,

Mrs. Ford. Are you not afham'd, let the cloaths alone.. Ford. I fhall find you anon.

Eva. 'Tis unreafonable; will you take up your wife's cloaths? come away..

Ford. Empty the basket, I fay.
Mrs. Ford. Why, man, why?

Ford. Mafter Page, as I am a man, there was one convey'd out of my houfe yesterday in this basket; why may not he be there again in my houfe I am fure he is; my intelligence is true, my jealoufy is reafopable; pluck me out all the linnen.

Mrs. Ford. If you find a man there, he fhall die a flea's death.

Page. Here's no man.

Shal. By my fidelity, this is not well, mafter Ford; this wrongs you.

Eva. Mafter Ford, you must pray, and not follow the imaginations of your own heart; this is jealoufies. Ford. Well, he's not here I seek for.

Page. No, nor no where else but in your brain. Ford. Help to fearch my houfe this one time; if I and not what I feek, fhew no colour for my extremity;

let

let me for ever be your table fport; let them fay of me, as jealous as Ford, that fearched a hollow wall nut for his wife's leman. Satisfy me once more, once more fearch with me.

Mrs. Ford. What hoa, mistress Page! come you, and the old woman down; my husband will come into the chamber.

Ford. Old woman! what old woman's that?

Mrs. Ford. Why, it is my maid's aunt of Brainford. Ford. A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean; have I not forbid her my houfe? fhe comes of errands, does the? we are fimple men, we do not know what's brought to pass under the profeffion of fortune-telling. She works by charms, by fpells, by th' figure; and fuch dawbry as this is beyond our element; we know nothing. Come down, you witch; you hag you, come down, I fay.

Mrs. Ford. Nay, good fweet hufband; good gentlemen, let him not ftrike the old woman..

Enter Falftaff in womens cloathes, and Mrs. Page.

hand.

Ford, I'll Prat her.

Mrs. Page. Come, mother Prat, come, give me your Out of my door, you witch! [Beats him.] you hag, you baggage, you poulcat, you runnion! out, out, out; I'll conjure you, I'll fortunetell you.

[Exit Fal. Mrs. Page. Are you not afham'd? I think, you have kill'd the poor woman.

Mrs. Ford. Nay, he will do it; 'tis a goodly credit for you.

Ford. Hang her, witch.

Eva. By yea and no, I think, the o'man is a witch indeed I like not, when a o'man has a great peard; I fpy a great peard under her muffer.

Ford. Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow; fee but the iffue of my jealousy; (21) if I cry

out

(21) If I cry out thus upon no tryal, never trust me when I open again.] This is a corruption of the modern editions: the confequence

out thus upon no trail,never trust me when I open again. Page. Let's obey his humour a little further: come, gentlemen. [Exeunt. Mrs. Page. Truft me, he beat him moft pitifully. Mrs. Ford. Nay, by th' mass, that he did not; he beat him most unpitifully, methought.

Mrs. Page. I'll have the cudgel hallow'd and hung o'er the altar; it hath done meritorious fervice.

Mrs. Ford. What think you? may we, with the warrant of woman-hood, and the witness of a good confcience, purfue him with any further revenge?

Mrs. Page. The fpirit of wantonnefs is, fure, fcar'd out of hun; if the devil have him not in fee-fimple, with fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of wafte, attempt us again.

Mrs. Ford. Shall we tell our husbands how we have ferved him?

Mrs. Page. Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the figures out of your hufband's brain. If they can find in their hearts the poor unvirtuous fat Knight shall be any further afflicted, we two will still be the minifters.

Mrs. Ford. I'll warrant, they'll have him publickly fham'd; and, methinks, there would be no period to the jeft, fhould he not be publickly fham'd.

Mrs. Page. Come to the forge with it, then shape it: I would not have things cool. [Exeunt.

SCENE changes to the Garter-Inn.

Bard.

Enter Hoft and Bardolph.

IR, the German defires to have three of your horfes; the Duke himself will be to-morrow

at Court, and they are going to meet him.

Hoft. What Duke fhould that be, comes fo fecretly? I hear not of him in the Court: let me fpeak with the gentlemen; they speak English?

either of indolence, or ignorance. The two firft Folio's have it rightly, trayle; which is a hunting-term, and correfponds with cry out, and open. Our Author ufes the word again twice in his Hamlet. Or else this brain of mine hunts not the trayle of policy, &c. How chearfully on the falfe trayle they cry!

Bard.

Bard. Sir, I'll call them to you.

Hoft. They hall have my horfes, but I'll make them pay, I'll fawce them. They have had my house a week at command; I have turn'd away my other guefts; (22) they must compt off; I'll fawce them, [Exeunt.

come.

SCENE changes to Ford's Houfe.

Enter Page, Ford, Mistress Page, Miftress Ford, and

E-va. 'T

Evans.

IS one of the beft difcretions of a o'man, as ever I did look upon.

Page. And did he fend you both these letters at an inftant.

Mrs. Page. Within a quarter of an hour.

Ford. Pardon me, wife. Henceforth do what thou wilt ;

I rather will fufpe&t the fun with cold,

Than thee with wantonnefs; thy honour stands,
In him that was of late an heretick,

As firm of faith.

Page. 'Tis well, 'tis well; no more.

Be not as extreme in fubmiffion, as in offence;
But let our plot go forward: let our wives
Yet once again, to make us publick sport,
Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow,
Where we may take him, and difgrace him for it.
Ford. There is no better way than that they spoke of.
Page. How to fend him word they'll meet him in
the park at midnight? fy, fy, he'll never come.

Eva. You fay, he hath been thrown into the river; and has been grievously peaten, as an old o'man; methinks, there fhould be terrors in him, that he

(22) they must come off] This can never be our Poet's, or his Hoft's, meaning: to come off, is in other terms, to go scot-free; but thefe Germans had taken up the Hoft's houfe, and he was refolv'd to make them pay for it. We must certainly, therefore, read, they must compt off: i. e. they must pay off the accompt, or, as we now fay, down with their pence. Mr. Warburton.

fhould

hould not come; methinks, his flesh is punish'd, he fhall have no defires.

Page. So think I too.

Mrs. Ford. Devise but how you'll use him when he

'comes;

And let us two devife to bring him thither.

Mrs. Page. There is an old tale goes, that Herne the hunter,

Sometime a keeper here in Windfor forest,
Doth all the winter time at ftill of midnight
Walk round about an oak, with ragged horns;
And there he blafts the tree, and takes the cattle;
And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain
In a moft hideous and dreadful manner.

You've heard of fuch a fpirit; and well you know,
The fuperftitious idle-headed Eld

Receiv'd, and did deliver to our age,

This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth.

Page. Why yet there want not many, that do fear.

In deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak;
But what of this?

Mrs. Ford. Marry, this is our device, (23)
That Falstaff at that oak fhall meet with us.
We'll fend him word to meet us in the field,
Difguis'd like Herne, with huge horns on his head.
Page. Well, let it not be doubted, but he'll come.
And in this fhape when you have brought him thither,
What fhall be done with him? what is your plot?
Mrs. Page. That likewife we have thought upon,

and thus:

(23) Mrs. Ford. Marry, this is our device, That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us.

Page. Well; let it not be doubted, but he'll come.

And in this fhape when you have brought him thither,] Thus this paffage has been tranfmitted down to us, from the t me of the first edition by the Players: But what was this fhape, in which Falftaff was to be appointed to meet? For the women have not faid one word to afcertain it. This makes it more than fufpicious, the defect in this point must be owing to fome wife retrenchment. The two intermediate lines, which I have reftor'd from the old Quarto, are abfolutely neceffary, and clear up the matter.

Nan