fhould I fay to him?—I was then frugal of my mirth: heaven forgive me! - Why, I'll exhibit a bill in the parlia ment for the putting down of men." How fhall I be revenged on him? for revenged I will be, as fure as his guts are made of puddings.

Enter Miftrefs FORD.

Mrs. Ford. Miftrefs Page! truft me, I was going to your houfe.

Mrs. Page. And, trust me, I was coming to you. You very ill.

look

Mrs. Ford. Nay, I'll ne'er believe that; I have to fhow to the contrary.

to

Mrs. Page. 'Faith, but you do, in my mind.

Mrs. Ford. Well, I do then; yet, I fay, I could show you the contrary: O, miftrefs Page, give me fome counfel! Mrs. Page. What's the matter, woman?

Mrs. Ford. O woman, if it were not for one trifling refpect, I could come to fuch honour!

Mrs. Page. Hang the trifle, woman; take the honour: What is it?difpenfe with trifles;--what is it?

K 5

Mrs.

Sir John Smythe in Certain Difcourfes, &c. 4to. 1590, fays, that the habit of drinking to excefs was introduced into England from the Low Countries by fome of our fuch men of warre within thefe very few years: whereof it is come to paffe that now-a-dayes there are very fewe feaftes where our faid men of warre are prefent, but that they do invite and procure all the companie, of what calling foever they be, to carowfing and quaffing; and, because they will not be denied their challenges, they, with many new conges, ceremonies, and reverences, drinke to the health and profperitie of princes; to the health of counsellors, and unto the health of their greatest friends both at home and abroad: in which exercife they never ceafe till they be dead drunke, or, as the Flemings fay, Doot dronken." He adds, "And this aforefaid detestable vice hath within thefe fixe or feven yeares taken wonderful roote amongeft our English Nation, that in times paft was wont to be of all other nations of Chriftendome one of the fobereft." REED.

5. By breaking this fpeech into exclamations, the text may ftand; but I once thought it must be read, If I was not then frugal of my mi tb, &c. JOHNSON. 6 The expreffion, putting down, is a common phrafe of our municipal

law. MALONE.

The putting down of men, may only fignify the bumiliation of them, the bringing them to fhame. STEVENS

Mrs. Ford If I would but go to hell for an eternal mos ment, or fo, I could be knighted,

Mrs. Page. What?-thou lieft! Sir Alice Ford!. Thefe knights will hack; and fo thou shouldst not alter the article of thy gentry.7

Mrs. Ford. We burn day-light: 8-here, read, read ;perceive how I might be knighted.-I fhall think the worfe of fat men, as long as I have an eye to make difference of men's liking: And yet he would not fwear; prais'd women's modefty :

7 The punishment of a recreant, or undeferving knight, was to back off his fpurs: the meaning therefore is; it is not worth the while of a gentlewoman to be made a knight, for we'll degrade all these knights in a little time, by the ufual form of backing off their fpurs, and thou, if thou art knighted, fhalt be hacked with the reft. JOHNSON.

Sir T. Hanmer fays, to back, means to turn hackney, or prostitute. I fuppofe he means-Thefe knights will degrade themfelves, so that she will acquire no honour by being connected with them.

It is not, however, impoffible that Shakspeare meant by- these knights will back-thefe knights will foon become backney'd characters.So many knights were made about the time this play was amplified (for the paffage is neither in the copy 1602, nor 1619) that such a stroke of fatire might not have been unjustly thrown in. STEEVENS.

These knights will back (that is, become cheap or vulgar,) and therefore the advifes her friend not to fully her gentry by becoming one. The whole of this discourse about knighthood is added fince the first edition of this play [in 1602]; and therefore I fufpect this is an oblique reflection on the prodigality of James I. in bestowing these honours, and erecting in 1611 a new order of knighthood, called Baronets; which few of the ancient gentry would condescend to accept. See another stroke at them in Othello, A&t III. fc. iv. BLACKSTONE.

Sir W. Blackstone fuppofes that the order of Baronets (created in 1611) was likewise alluded to. But it appears to me highly probable that our author amplified the play before us at an earlier period. See An Attempt to afcertain the order of Shakspeare's plays, Article, Merry Wives of Wind for.

Between the time of King James's arrival at Berwick in April 1603, and the 2d of May, he made two hundred and thirty-feven knights; and in the July following between three and four hundred. It is probable that the play before us was enlarged in that or the fubfequent year, when this stroke of satire must have been highly relished by the audience.

8 i. e. we have more proof than we want.

STEEVENS.

MALONE.

I think, the meaning rather is, we are wafting time in idle talk, when we ought to read the letter; resembling those who waste candles by burning them in the day-time. MALONE.

10

9 i. e. men's condition of body. Thus in the Book of Job. young ones are in good hiking." STEEVENS.

Their

modefty: and gave fuch orderly and well-behaved reproof to all uncomelinefs, that I would have fworn his difpofition would have gone to the truth of his words: but they do no more adhere, and keep place together, than the hundredth pfalm to the tune of Green fleeves. What tempeft, I trow, threw this whale, with fo many tuns of oil in his belly, afhore at Windfor? How fhall I be revenged on him? I think, the best way were to entertain him with hope, till the wicked fire of luft have melted him in his own grease.Did you ever hear the like?

: Mrs. Page. Letter for letter; but that the name of Page and Ford differs!-To thy great comfort in this mystery of ill opinions, here's the twin-brother of thy letter: but let thine inherit firft; for, I proteft, mine never fhall. I war. rant, he hath a thousand of these letters, writ with blank fpace for different names, (fure more,) and these are of the fecond edition: He will print them out of doubt; for he cares not what he puts into the prefs,3 when he would put us two. I had rather be a giantefs, and lie under mount Pelion.4 Well, I will find you twenty lafcivious turtles, ere one chafte man.

Mrs. Ford. Why, this is the very fame; the very hand,. the very words: What doth he think of us?

Mrs. Page. Nay, I know not: It makes me almost ready to wrangle with mine own honefty. I'll entertain myself Like one that I am not acquainted withal; for, fure, unless he knew fome ftrain in me, that I know not myself, he would. never have boarded me in this fury.

3

Mrs. Ford. Boarding, call you it? I'll be fure to keep him above deck.

2 This fong was entered on the books of the Stationers' Company in September 1580: "Licensed unto Richard Jones, a newe northerne dittye of the lady Green Sleeves." The ballad feems to have been very popular. STEEVENS.

3 Prefs is ufed ambiguously, for a prefs to print, and a press to fqueeze. JOHNSON

4 Mr. Warton judiciously obferves, that in confequence of English verfions from Greek and Roman authors, an inundation of claffical pedantry very foon infected our poetry, and that perpetual allufions to ancient fable were introduced, as in the present inftance, without the leaft regard to propriety; for Mrs. Page was not intended, in any degree, to be a learned or an affected lady. STLEVENS..

Mrs. Page. So will I; if he come under my hatches, I'l never to fea again. Let's be revenged on him: let's appoint him a meeting; give him a fhow of comfort in his fuit; and lead him on with a fine-baited delay, till he hath pawn'd his horfes to mine Hoft of the Garter.

Mrs. Ford. Nay, I will confent to act any villainy against him, that may not fully the charinefs of our honefty. 0, that my hufband faw this letter ! 6 it would give eternal food to his jealousy.

Mrs. Page. Why, look, where he comes; and my good man too: he's as far from jealousy, as I am from giving hin: caufe; and that, I hope, is an unmeasurable distance.

: Mrs. Ford. You are the happier woman.

Mrs. Page. Let's confult together againft this greafy knight: Come hither.

[they retire.

Enter FORD, PISTOL, PAGE, and NYм. Ford. Well, I hope, it be not fo.

Pift. Hope is a curtail dog 7 in fome affairs:

Sir John affects thy wife.

Ford. Why, fir, my wife is not young.

Pift. He wooes both high and low, both rich and poor, Both young and old, one with another, Ford;

He loves thy gally-mawfry; Ford, perpend."

Ford. Love my wife?

Pift. With liver burning hot : Prevent, or go thou,

Like

i. e. the caution which ought to attend on it. STEEVENS. • Surely Mrs. Ford does not wish to excite the jealousy of which she complains. I think we should read-O, if my husband, &c.

STEEVENS.

7 That is, a dog that miffes his game. The tail is counted neceffary to the agility of a greyhound. JOHNSON.

8

That is, a dog of fmall value;-what we now call a cur. MALONE. — gally-mawfry ;] i. e. A medley. STEEVENS.

This is perhaps a ridicule on a pompous word too often used in the old play of Cambyfes :

"My fapient words I fay perpend.”

Shakspeare has put the fame word into the mouth of Polonius.

STEEVENS. Pistol again ufes it in K. Henry V.; fo does the Clown in Twelfth Night: I do not believe therefore that any ridicule was here aimed at Prefton, the author of Cambyfes. MALONE.

a The liver was anciently supposed to be the inspirer of amorous paffions. -B STEEVESS

Like Sir Acteon he, with Ring-wood at thy heels:

O, odious is the name!

Ford. What name, Gr?

Pift. The horn, I fay: Farewel.

Take heed; have open eye; for thieves do foot by night: Take heed, ere fummer comes, or cuckoo-birds do fing.Away, fir corporal Nym.

Believe it, Page; he fpeaks fenfe.3

[Exit PISTOL, Ford. I will be patient; I will find out this.

Nym. And this is true; [to Page.] I like not the humour of lying. He hath wrong'd me in fome humours: I should have borne the humour'd letter to her; but I have a fword, and it fhall bite upon my neceffity. He loves your wife; there's the short and the long. My name is corporal Nym; I fpeak, and I avouch. 'Tis true-my name is Nym, and Falstaff loves your wife.-Adieu! I love not the humour of bread and cheese; and there's the humour of it. Adieu. [Exit NYM. Page. The bumour of it, quoth 'a! here's a fellow frights

humour out of his wits.

Ford. I will feek out Falstaff.

Page. I never heard fuch a drawling, affecting rogue.
Ford. If I do find it, well.

3 Nym, I believe, is out of place, and we should read thus:

Away, fir corporal.

Nym. Believe it, Page; be fpeaks fenfe. JOHNSON.

Page.

Perhaps Dr. Johnson is mistaken in his conjecture. He feems not to have been aware of the manner in which the author meant this fcene should be reprefented. Ford and Piftol, Page and Nym, enter in pairs, each pair in feparate conversation; and while Pistol is informing Ford of Falstaff's defign upon his wife, Nym is, during that time, talking afide to Page, and giving information of the like plot against him.-When Pistol has finished, he calls out to Nym to come away; but feeing that he and Page are still in clofe debate, he goes aff alone, first affuring Page, he may depend on the truth of Nym's ftory. Believe it, Page, &c. Nym then proceeds to tell the remainder of his tale out aloud. And this is true, &c. A little further on in this fcene, Ford fays to Page, You beard what this knave (i. e. Piftol) told me, &c. Page replies, Yes; And you heard what the other (i. e. Nym) told me. STEEVENS.

4 Nym, to gain credit, fays, that he is above the mean office of carrying love-letters; he has nobler means of living; be has a fword, and upon his neceffity, that is, when bis need drives bim to unlawful expedients, his fword. fall bite. JOHNSON,