Shal. He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure. Anne. Good mafter Shallow, let him woo for himself.

Shal. Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you 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? odd's-heart-lings, that's a pretty jest, indeed ! I ne'er made my will yet, I thank heav'n; I am not such a fickly creature, I give heav'n praise.

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

Slen. Truly, for my 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 may ask your father; here he

comes.

SCENE XIV.

Enter Page, and mistrefs 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 tell you, fır, my daughter is dispos’d 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 Fenton.

[Exeunt Page, Shallow, and Slender. Quic. Speak to mistress Page.

Fent. Good mistress Page, for that I love your daughter
In such a righteous fashion as I do,
Perforce, against all checks, rebukes, and manners,
I must advance the colours of my love,

And

And not retire. Let me have your good will.
Annę. Good mother, do not marry me to yon

fool.. Mrs. Page. I mean it not; I seek you a better husband. Quic. That's my master, master doctor.

Ănne. Alas, I had rather be set quick i'th'earth, And bowl'd to death with turnips.

Mrs. Page. Come, trouble not yourself, good master Fenton, I will not be your friend nor enemy: My daughter will I question how she loves you, And as I find her, so am I affected. 'Till then, farewel, fir; she must needs go in, Her father will be angry. [Ex. mistrefs Page, and Anne.

Fent. Farewel, gentle mistress; farewel, Nan.

Quic. This is my doing now. Nay, said I, will your child on a fool, or a physician? 'look on master Fenton: this is my doing.

Fent. I thank thee; and, I pray thee, once to-night Give my sweet Nan this ring: there's for thy pains.

Exit, Quic. Now heav'n fend 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 footh, I would, master Fenton had her. I will do what I can for them all three; for so I have promis’d, and I'll be as good as my word, but speciously for master Fenton. Well, I must of another errand to fir John Falstaff from my two mistresses; what a beast am I to slack it! [Exit.

you caft

cast away

:SCENE XV.

The Garter-Inn.

Enter Falstaff, and Bardolph. Fal. ARDOLPH, I say.

Bard Here, sir. Fal. Go, fetch me a quart of fack; put a toast in't. [Ex. Bard.]

B В

Have I liv'd to be carry'd in a basket, like a barrow of butchers offal, and to be thrown into the Thames? well, if I be serv’d fuch another trick, I'll have my brains ta'en out, and butter'd, 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 drown'd a bitch's blind puppies, fifteen i'th' litter; and you may know by my fize that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking: if the bottom were as deep as hell, I should down. I had been drown’d, 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 when I had been swell’d! I should have been a mountain of mummy. [Enter Bard.] — Now, is the fack brew'd ?

Bard. Here's mistress Quickly, fir, to speak with you.

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

Bard. Come in, woman.

SCENE XVI.

Enter mistress Quickly. Quic. By your leave : I cry you mercy. Give your worship good-morrow.

Fal. Take away these chalices: go, brew me a pottle of fack finely. Bard. With

eggs,

fir? Fal. Simple of itself: I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage. How now?

Quic. 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.

Quic. 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 on a foolish woman's promise.

Quic. Well, she laments, fir, for it, that it would yern your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning a birding; she

defires

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.

Quic. I will tell her.
Fal. Do so. Between nine and ten, fay'st thou ?
Quic. Eight and nine, fir.
Fal. Well, be gone; I will not miss her.
Quic. Peace be with

you,
fir.

[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, fir.

Fal. Now, master Brook, you come to know what hath pass’d
between me and Ford's wife?
Ford. That, indeed, fir 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 you sped, fır?
Fal. Very ill-favour’dly, master Brook.
Ford. How, fir! did the change her determination?

Fal. No, master Brook; but the peaking cornuto her husband,
master Brook, dwelling in a continual larum of jealousy, comes
in the instant of our encounter, after we had embrac'd, kiss’d,
protested, and, as it were, spoke the prologue of our comedy;
and at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither provok'd 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 direction, they convey'd me into a buck-basket.

Ford. A buck-basket?

Fal. Yea, a buck-basket; ramm’d me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, and greasy napkins; that, master Brook, there was the rankest compound of villanous smells that ever offended noftril.

Ford. And how long lay you there?
Fal. Nay, you shall

hear, master Brook, what I have suffer'd, to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being thus cramm’d in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his hinds, were call’d forth by their mistress to carry me in the name of foul cloths to Datchet-lane; they took me on their shoulders, met the jealous knave their master in the door, who ask'd them once or twice what they had in their basket; I quak'd for fear, lest the lunatick knave would have search'd 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 cloths; but mark the sequel, master Brook; I suffer'd the pangs of three egregious deaths: first, an intolerable fright, to be detected by a jealous rotten bell-weather; next, to be compass’d like a good bilbo, in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and then, to be stop'd in, like a strong distillation, with stinking cloths 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 fuffocation. And in the height of this bath, when I was more than half stew'd in grease like a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames

, and cool'd glowing hot in that surge, like a horse-lhoe; think of that; hissing hot; think of that, master Brook.

Ford. In good sadness, fir, I am sorry that for my fake you suffer'd all this. My suit is then 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

L1

morning

Vol. I.

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