I combat challenge of this latten bilboa:

Word of denial in thy labras here;

Word of denial: froth and scum, thou liest!

SLEN. By these gloves, then 't was he.

NYM. Be advised, sir, and pass good humours; I will say,

marry trap," with you, if you run the nuthook's humour on me: that is the very note of it. SLEN. By this hat, then, he in the red face had it: for though I cannot remember what I did when you made me drunk, yet I am not altogether

an ass.

FAL. What say you, Scarlet and John?

BARD. Why, sir, for my part, I say, the gentleman had drunk himself out of his five sentences.

EVA. It is his five senses: fie, what the ignorance is!

BARD. And being fapd, sir, was, as they say, cashiered: and so conclusions passed the careers®.

SLEN. Ay, you spake in Latin then too; but 't is no matter: I'll ne'er be drunk whilst I live again, but in honest, civil, godly company, for this trick: if I be drunk, I'll be drunk with those that have the fear of God, and not with drunken knaves.

EVA. So Got 'udge me, that is a virtuous mind.

FAL. You hear all these matters denied, gentlemen; you hear it.

Enter Mistress ANNE PAGE with wine; Mistress FORD and Mistress PAGE

following.

PAGE. Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we 'll drink within.

SLEN. O heaven! this is mistress Anne Page.
PAGE. How now, mistress Ford?

[Exit ANNE PAGE.

FAL. Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well met: by your leave, good mistress. [Kissing her. PAGE. Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome: Come, we have a hot venison pasty to dinner; come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness. [Exeunt all but SHALLOW, SLENDER, and EVANS. SLEN. I had rather than forty shillings, I had my book of Songs and Sonnets here:

Enter SIMPLE.

How now, Simple! Where have you been? I must wait on myself, must I? You have not the Book of Riddles' about you, have you?

Bilbo is a sword; a latten bilbo-a sword made of a thin latten plate-expresses Pistol's opinion of Slender's weakness.

Labras-lips; "word of denial in thy labras," is equivalent to "the lie in thy teeth."

* The nuthook was used by the thief to hook portable commodities out of a window,—and thus Nym, in his queer fashion, means, "if you say I'm a thief."

Fap-a cant word for drunk.

⚫ Careers. In the manège to run a career was to gallop a horse violently backwards and forwards.

SIM. Book of Riddles!' why, did you not lend it to Alice Shortcake upon Allhallowmas last, a fortnight afore Michaelmas?

SHAL. Come, coz; come, coz; we stay for you. A word with you, coz: marry, this, coz; There is, as 't were, a tender, a kind of tender, made afar off by sir Hugh here:-Do you understand me?

SLEN. Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable; if it be so, I shall do that that is

reason.

SHAL. Nay, but understand me.

SLEN. So I do, sir.

EVA. Give ear to his motions, master Slender: I will description the matter to you, if you be capacity of it.

SLEN. Nay, I will do as my cousin Shallow says: I pray you, pardon me; he's a justice of peace in his country, simple though I stand here.

EVA. But that is not the question; the question is concerning your marriage. SHAL. Ay, there's the point, sir.

EVA. Marry, is it; the very point of it; to mistress Anne Page.

SLEN. Why, if it be so I will marry her, upon any reasonable demands.

EVA. But can you affection the 'oman? Let us command to know that of your mouth or of your lips; for divers philosophers hold that the lips is parcel of the mouth-Therefore, precisely, can you carry your good will to the

maid?

SHAL. Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?

SLEN. I hope, sir,—I will do as it shall become one that would do reason. EVA. Nay, Got's lords and his ladies, you must speak possitable, if you can carry her your desires towards her.

SHAL. That you must: Will you, upon good dowry, marry her?

SLEN. I will do a greater thing than that, upon your request, cousin, in any

reason.

SHAL. Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz; what I do is to pleasure you, coz: Can you love the maid?

SLEN. I will marry her, sir, at your request; but if there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and have more occasion to know one another: I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt; but if you say, "marry her," I will marry her, that I am freely dissolved, and dissolutely.

EVA. It is a fery discretion answer; save, the faul' is in the 'ort dissolutely : the 'ort is, according to our meaning, resolutely;-his meaning is good. SHAL. Ay, I think my cousin meant well.

SLEN. Ay, or else I would I might be hanged, la.

Re-enter ANNE Page.

SHAL. Here comes fair mistress Anne :-Would I were young for your sake, mistress Anne!

a Contempt. The folio reads content-the word which Slender meant to use. But the poor soul was thinking of his copy-book adage-" too much familiarity breeds contempt."

ANNE. The dinner is on the table; my father desires your worship's company. SHAL. I will wait on him, fair mistress Anne.

EVA. Od's plessed will! I will not be absence at the grace.

[Exeunt SHALLOW and Sir H. EVANS.

ANNE. Will 't please your worship to come in, sir?

SLEN. No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very well.
ANNE. The dinner attends you, sir.

SLEN. I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. Go, sirrah, for all you are my man, go, wait upon my cousin Shallow : [Exit SIMPLE.] A justice of peace sometime may be beholden to his friend for a man:-I keep but three men and a boy yet, till my mother be dead: But what though? yet I live like a poor gentleman born.

ANNE. I may not go in without your worship: they will not sit till you come.
SLEN. I' faith, I'll eat nothing; I thank you as much as though I did.
ANNE. I pray you, sir, walk in.

for a

SLEN. I had rather walk here, I thank you; I bruised my shin the other day with playing at sword and dagger with a master of fence', three veneys dish of stewed prunes; and, by my troth, I cannot abide the smell of hot meat since. Why do your dogs bark so? be there bears i' the town. ANNE. I think there are, sir; I heard them talked of.

SLEN. I love the sport well; but I shall as soon quarrel at it, as any man in England :-You are afraid if you see the bear loose, are you not?

ANNE. Ay, indeed, sir.

8

SLEN. That's meat and drink to me now: I have seen Sackerson loose twenty times; and have taken him by the chain: but I warrant you, the women have so cried and shrieked at it, that it passed :-but women, indeed, cannot abide 'em; they are very ill-favoured rough things

Re-enter PAGE.

PAGE. Come, gentle master Slender, come; we stay for you.

SLEN. I'll eat nothing, I thank you, sir.

PAGE. By cock and pye, you shall not choose, sir: come, come.

SLEN. Nay, pray you, lead the way.

PAGE. Come on, sir.

SLEN. Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first.

ANNE. Not I, sir; pray you, keep on.

SLEN. Truly, I will not go first; truly, la: I will not do you that wrong.

ANNE. I pray you, sir.

SLEN. I'll rather be unmannerly than troublesome; you do yourself wrong, indeed, la.

[Exeunt.

a It passed-it surpassed; or, it passed expression—a common mode of referring to something extraordinary. Thus in Act IV., Scene 2, "this passes."

SCENE II.-The same.

Enter Sir HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE.

EVA. Go your ways, and ask of a Doctor Caius' house,-which is the way and there dwells one mistress Quickly, which is in the manner of his nurse, or his dry nurse, or his cook, or his laundry, his washer, and his wringer. SIM. Well, sir.

EVA. Nay, it is petter yet:-give her this letter; for it is a 'oman that altogether 's acquaintance with mistress Anne Page: and the letter is, to desire and require her to solicit your master's desires to mistress Anne Page: I pray you, begone; I will make an end of my dinner; there 's pippins and cheese [Exeunt.

to come.

SCENE III.—A Room in the Garter Inn.

Enter FALSTAFF, HOST, BARDOLPH, NYM, PISTOL, and ROBIN.

FAL. Mine host of the Garter,

HOST. What says my bully-rook? Speak scholarly and wisely.
FAL. Truly, mine host, I must turn away some of my followers.
HOST. Discard, bully Hercules; cashier: let them wag; trot, trot.

FAL. I sit at ten pounds a week.

HOST. Thou 'rt an emperor, Cæsar, Keisar, and Pheezar. I will entertain Bardolph; he shall draw, he shall tap: said I well, bully Hector?

FAL. Do so, good mine host.

HOST. I have spoke; let him follow: Let me see thee froth, and lived: I am at a word; follow.

[Exit HOST.

FAL. Bardolph, follow him: a tapster is a good trade: an old cloak makes a new jerkin; a withered servingman a fresh tapster: Go; adieu. BARD. It is a life that I have desired; I will thrive.

e

PIST. O base Hungarian wight! wilt thou the spigot wield?

a Of Dr. Caius' house-ask for Dr. Caius' house-ask which is the way. Laundry. Sir Hugh means to say launder, or laundress.

[Exit BARD.

Douce says that bully-rook is not derived from the rook of chess, but that it means a hectoring cheating sharper. We scarcely think that the Host would have applied such offensive terms to Falstaff, who sat "at ten pounds a-week,” and in his expense was an emperor."

66

Froth, and live. So the folio. The reading of the quarto is "froth and lime," which is interpreted to froth the beer, and lime the sack. But surely the Host would not so unblushingly avow the frauds of his calling. Steevens says the beer was frothed by putting soap in the tankard, and the sack made sparkling by lime in the glass. He does not give us his authority for these retail mysteries of the drawer's craft. The passage in the folio requires no such learned interpretation.

Hungarian. So the folio. The quarto, which has supplied the ordinary reading, gives us Gongarian. The editors have retained "Gongarian," because they find a similar epithet in one

NYM. He was gotten in drink: Is not the humour conceited? [His mind is not heroic, and there's the humour of it.a

FAL. I am glad I am so acquit of this tinder box; his thefts were too open; his filching was like an unskilful singer, he kept not time.

NYM. The good humour is to steal at a minute's rest".

PIST. Convey, the wise it call: Steal! foh; a fico for the phrase.
FAL. Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels.

PIST. Why, then let kibes ensue.

FAL. There is no remedy; I must coney-catch; I must shift.

PIST. Young ravens must have food.

FAL. Which of you know Ford of this town?

PIST. I ken the wight; he is of substance good.

FAL. My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.

PIST. Two yards, and more.

FAL. No quips now, Pistol: Indeed I am in the waist two yards about; but I am now about no waste; I am about thrift. Briefly, I do mean to make love to Ford's wife; I spy entertainment in her; she discourses, she carves, she gives the leer of invitation: I can construe the action of her familiar style; and the hardest voice of her behaviour, to be Englished rightly, is, I am sir John Falstaff's.

PIST. He hath studied her will, and translated her will, out of honesty into English.

NYM. The anchor is deep d: Will that humour pass?

FAL. Now, the report goes she has all the rule of her husband's purse; he hath a legion of angels.

PIST. As many devils entertain; and, "To her, boy," say I.

NYM. The humour rises; it is good: humour me the angels.

FAL. I have writ me here a letter to her: and here another to Page's wife; who even now gave me good eyes too; examined my parts with most judicious eyliads; sometimes the beam of her view gilded my foot, sometimes my portly belly

of the old bombast plays. Hungarian means a gipsy-and is equivalent to the Bohemian of 'Quentin Durward.' In this play the Host calls Simple a "Bohemian Tartar." Bishop Hall, in his Satires,' has a punning couplet,-

"So sharp and meagre, that who should them see

Would swear they lately came from Hungary,”

and therefore Malone says that " a Hungarian signified a hungry starved fellow."

The passage in brackets is not in the folio. The expression appears to us uncharacteristic, and was probably omitted for that reason; "he was gotten in drink" being substituted.

€

Some would read "at a minim's rest." This seems to us a crotchet.

• The ordinary reading is, “ he hath studied her well, and translated her well." The folio gives will in the two instances; and we cannot understand why Malone calls this a corruption.

The commentators give us a page of notes to explain the phrase "the anchor is deep;" and Johnson would read, "the author is deep," receiving Pistol's translated in a literary sense. Surely the phrase of the original requires neither change nor explanation.

• So the folio. The quarto reads, "she hath legions of angels." But Mrs. Ford has only the rule of the purse-not the possession of it.