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

Mrs. Ford. We burn day-light-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 swear; prais'd women's modefty: and gave fuch orderly and well-behaved reproof to all uncomeliness, that I would have fworn his disposition 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

5 What thou lieft! Sir Alice Ford !-Thefe knights, will hack; and fo thou shouldst not alter the article of thy gentry.] It is not impoffible that Shakspeare meant by thefe knight 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 fuch a ftroke of fatire might not have been unjuftly thrown in. STEEVENS.

Thefe knights will back, (that is, become cheap and vulgar,) and therefore the advifes her friend not to fully her gentry by becoming one. The whole of this difcourfe about knighthood is added fince the first edition of this play [in 1602]; and therefore I fufpect this is an ob lique reflection on the prodigality of James I. in bestowing these honours. BLACKSTONE.

Sir W. Blackstone fuppofes that the order of Baronets (created in 1611) was likewife alluded to. I have omitted that part of his note, because it appears to me highly probable that our author amplified the play before us at an earlier period. See An Attempt to ascertain the order of ShakSpeare's plays, ante, Article, Merry Wives of Windfor.

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 ftroke of fatire must have been highly relished by the audience.

Bythefe knights will hack" may have been meant,-Thefe unworthy knights of the prefent day will be degraded by having their fpurs back'd off; the punishment (as Dr. Johnson has obferved) of a recreant or undeferving knight.. MALONE.

6 We burn day light: i. c. we are wafting time in idle talk, when we ought to read the letter; refembling thofe, who waste candles by burning them in the day-time. So, in Romeo and Juliet (the quotation is Mr. Steevens's):

"We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day." MALONE.

Sleeves.

Pift. With liver burning hot: Prevent, or go thoa, Like Sir Acteon he, with Ring-wood at thy heels :O, odious is the name!

Ford. What name, Sir?

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 speaks fense?. [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 fhort and the long. My name is corporal Nym; I fpeak, and I avouch. 'Tis true :my name is Nym, and Falftaff loves your wife.-Adieu ! I love not the humour of bread and cheese; and there's the humour of it.

Adieu.

[Exit NYM. than the other; and therefore I have followed the modern editors in preferring it. MALONE.

5 Ford, perpend.] This is perhaps a ridicule on a paffage in the old comedy of Cambyfes :

"My fapient words, I fay, perpend."

Again: "My queen, perpend what I pronounce."

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

Believe it, Page; be Speaks fenfe.] Dr. Johnfon thought that the preceding word, "Nym", was only a defignation of the speaker, and that these words belonged to him. Mr. Steevens's note fhews that he was mistaken. Dr. Farmer would read-Believe it Page, he speaks; i. e. Page, believes what he fays. MALONE.

Ford and Pistol, Page and Nym, enter in pairs, each pair in feparate converfation; and while Piftol 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 bim.-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 off alone, firft affuring Page, he may depend on the truth of Nym's ftory. Believe it, Page. Nym then proceeds to tell the remainder of his tale out aloud. And this is true &c. STEEV. 81 have a fword, and it shall bite upon my neceffity.] Nym, to gain credit, fays, that he is above the mean office of carrying love-letters; he has wobler means of living; be has a fword, and upon bis necessity, that is, when bis need drives him to unlawful expedients, his sword jball kate. JORNSON.

Page.

Page. The humour 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.

Page. I will not believe fuch a Cataian', though the prieft o' the town commended him for a true man.

9 The bumour of it,] The following epigram, taken from an old collection without date, but apparently printed before the year 1600, will beft account for Nym's frequent repetition of the word bumour. Epig. 27. Afke HUMORS what a feather he doth weare,

It is his bumour (by the Lord) he'll fweare;
Or what he doth with fuch a horfe-taile locke,
Or why upon a whore he spends his stocke,-
He hath a bumour doth determine fo:
Why in the ftop-throte fashion he doth goe,
With scarfe about his necke, hat without band,-
It is his bumour. Sweet fir, understand,
What caufe his purfe is fo extreame diftreft
That oftentimes is fcarcely penny-bleft;
Only a bumour. If you queftion, why
His tongue is ne'er unfurnish'd with a lye,-
It is his bumour too he doth protest:
Or why with ferjeants he is fo oppreft,
That like to ghosts they haunt him ev'rie day;
A rafcal bumour doth not love to pay.

Object why bootes and fpurres are still in feafon,
His bumour answers, bumour is his reafon.

If you perceive his wits in wetting shrunke,

It cometh of a bumour to be drunke.

When you behold his lookes pale, thin, and poore,
The occafion is, his bumour and a whoore:

And every thing that he doth undertake,

It is a veine, for fenceless bumour's fake. STEEVENS.

1 I will not believe fuch a Cataian,] A Cataian (from Cataia or Cathay, the ancient name of China) feems to have been a cant term of reproach in our author's time, denoting a fharper. Mr. Theobald thinks it meant a boafter; Dr. Warburton a liar, from those who told incredible wonders of this new-difcovered empire:" Dr.johnfon's explanation is," This fellow hath fuch an odd appearance, is fo unlike a man civilized and taught the duties of life, that I cannot credit him on any testimony of his veracity.-To be a foreigner (he adds) was always in England, and I fuppofe every where elfe, a reafon of diflike."Mr. Steevens, with more probability, fuppofes it to mean a thief; "the Chinese, (anciently called Cataians) being faid to be the most dextrous of all the nimble-fingered tribe." MALONE.

VOL. I.

Ford.

Ford. 'Twas a good fenfible fellow': Well.
Page. How now, Meg?

Mrs. Page. Whither go you, George?-Hark you. Mrs. Ferd. How now, fweet Frank? why art thou melancholy?

Ford. I melancholy! I am not melancholy.-Get you home, go.

Mrs. Ford. 'Faith, thou haft some crotchets in thy head now. Will you go, miftrefs Page ?

Mrs. Page. Have with you. You'll come to dinner, George-Look, who comes yonder: fhe fhall be our meffenger to this paltry knight. [Afide to Mrs. Ford. Enter Miftrefs QUICKLY.

Mrs. Ford. Traft me, I thought on her she'll fit it. Mrs. Page. You are come to fee my daughter Anne? Quick. Ay, forfooth; And, I pray, how does good miftrefs Anne?

Mrs. Page. Go in with us, and fee; we have an hour's talk with you.

[Exeunt Mrs. Page, Mrs. Ford, and Mrs. Quickly. Page. How now, master Ford?

Ford. You heard what this knave told me; did you not?

Page. Yes; And you heard what the other told me ? Ford. Do you think there is truth in them?

Page. Hang 'em, flaves! I do not think the knight would offer it: but these that accufe him in his intent towards our wives, are a yoke of his discarded men; very rogues, now they be out of fervice 3.

Ford. Were they his men?

Page. Marry, were they.

Ford. I like it never the better for that. Does he lie at the Garter?

2 'Twas a good fenfible fellow :] This, and the two preceding speeches of Ford, are fpoken to himself, and have no connection with the festiments of Page, who is likewife making his comment on what had paffed, without attention to Ford. STEEVENS.

3 Very rogues, now they be out of fervice.] A rogue is a wanderer or vagabond, and, in its confequential fignification, a cbeat. JOHNSON.

Page.

Page. Ay, marry, does he. If he should intend this voyage toward my wife, I would turn her loose to him; and what he gets more of her than fharp words, let it lie on my head.

Ford. I do not mifdoubt my wife; but I would be loth to turn them together: A man may be too confident: I would have nothing lie on my head 4: I cannot be thus fatisfied.

Page. Look, where my ranting hoft of the Garter comes: there is either liquor in his pate, or money in his purse, when he looks fo merrily.-How, now, mine hoft?

Enter Hoft, and SHALLOW.

Hoft. How, now, bully-rook? thou'rt a gentleman: cavalero-justice, I say.

Shal. I follow, mine hoft, I follow. -Good even, and twenty, good master Page! Master Page, will you go with us? we have sport in hand.

Hoft. Tell him, cavalero-justice; tell him, bully-rook Shal. Sir, there is a fray to be fought, between fir Hugh the Welch priest, and Caius the French doctor.

Ford. Good mine hoft o' the Garter, a word with you. Hoft. What fay'ft thou, bully-rook? [They go afide.

Shal. Will you [to Page] go with us to behold it? My merry hoft hath had the measuring of their weapons; and, I think, hath appointed them contrary places: for, believe me, I hear, the parfon is no jefter. Hark, I will tell you what our sport shall be.

Hoft. Haft thou no fuit against my knight, my guestcavalier?

Ford. None, I proteft: but I'll give you a pottle of burnt fack to give me recourfe to him, and tell him, my name is Brooks; only for a jest.

Hoft. My hand, bully: thou fhalt have egrefs and re

4 I would have nothing lie on my bead :] Here feems to be an allufion to Shakspeare's favourite topick, the cuckold's horns. MALONE.

5

- and tell bim, my name is Brook;] The folio reads-Broom. The true name was recovered from the quarto by Mr. Theobald. MALONE.

grefs;

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