Scene F.

You moon-shine revellers, and shades of night,
You orphan-heirs of fixed destiny,
Attend your office, and your quality.1-
Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy o-yes.

Pist. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy
toys.

Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap:
Where fires thou find'st unrak'd, and hearths un-
swept,

There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry:2
Our radiant queen hates sluts, and sluttery.
Fal. They are fairies; he, that speaks to them,

Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out:
Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room;
That it may stand till the perpetual doom,
In state as wholesome, as in state 'tis fit;
Worthy the owner, and the owner it.
The several chairs of order look you scour
With juice of balm, and every precious flower:
Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest,
With loyal blazon, evermore be blest!
And nightly, meadow-fairies, look, you sing,
Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring:
The expressure that it bears, green let it be,
More fertile-fresh than all the field to see;
And, Hony soit qui mal y pense, write,
In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white;
Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,
Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee :
Fairies use flowers for their charactery.
Away; disperse: But, till 'tis one o'clock,
Our dance of custom, round about the oak
Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget.

Eva. Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves
in order set:

And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be,
To guide our measure round about the tree.
But, stay; I smell a man of middle earth.

Fal. Heavens defend me from that Welch fairy,
lest he transform me to a piece of cheese!
Pist. Vile worm, thou wast o'er-look'd even in
thy birth.

Quick. With trial-fire touch me his finger end:
If he be chaste, the flame will back descend,
And turn him to no pain; but if he start,
It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.
Pist. A trial, come.
Eva.

Lust is but a bloody fire,
Kindled with unchaste desire,
Fed in heart; whose flames aspire,

As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.
Pinch him, fairies, mutually;

Pinch him for his villany;

Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about
Till candles, and star-light, and moonshine, be gut.

During this song, the fairies pinch Falstaff. Doc.
tor Caius comes one way, and steals away a fairy
in green; Slender another way, and takes off a
fairy in white; and Fenton comes, and steals
away Mrs. Anne Page. A noise of hunting is
made within. All the fairies run away. Falstaff
pulls off his buck's head, and rises.

Enter Page, Ford, Mrs. Page, and Mrs. Ford.
They lay hold on him.

Page. Nay, do not fly: I think, we have watch'd

Eva. Seese is not good to give putter; your pelly is all putter.

Fal. Seese and putter! Have I lived to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of English? This is enough to be the decay of lust and latewalking, through the realm.

Mrs. Page. Why, sir John, do you think, though we would have thrust virtue out of our hearts by

(4) Horns which Falstaff had.
(5) A fool's cap of Welch materials.

the head and shoulders, and have given ourselves cozened; I ha' married un garçon, a boy; un paiwithout scruple to hell, that ever the devil could san, by gar, a boy; it is not Anne Page: by gar, I have made you our delight? am cozened.

Ford. What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax?
Mrs. Page. A puffed man?

Page. Old, cold, withered, and of intolerable

entrails.

Mrs. Page. Why, did you take her in green? Caius. Ay, be gar, and 'tis a boy: be gar, I'll raise all Windsor. [Exit Caius

Ford. This is strange: Who hath got the right

Ford. And one that is as slanderous as Satan? Anne?
Page. And as poor as Job?

Ford. And as wicked as his wife?

Eva. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack, and wine, and metheglins, and to drinkings, and swearings, and starings, pribbles and prabbles?

Fal. Well, I am your theme: you have the start of me; I am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welch flannel; ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me: use me as you will.

Ford. Marry, sir, we'll bring you to Windsor,
to one master Brook, that you have cozened of
money, to whom you should have been a pander:
over and above that you have suffered, I think, to
repay that money will be a biting affliction.
Mrs. Ford. Nay, husband, let that go to make
amends:

Forgive that sum, and so we'll all be friends.
Ford. Well, here's my hand; all's forgiven at

last.

Page. Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset to-night at my house; where I will desire thee to laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee: Tell her, master Slender hath married her daughter. Mrs. Page. Doctors doubt that: If Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, doctor Caius' wife. [Aside.

Enter Slender.

Sten. Whoo, ho! ho! father Page! Page. Son! how now? how now, son? have you despatched?

Slen. Despatched-I'll make the best in Glocestershire know on't; would I were hanged, la, else. Page. Of what, son?

Page. My heart misgives me: Here comes master Fenton.

Enter Fenton and Anne Page.

How now, master Fenton ?

Anne. Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon!

Page. Now, mistress? how chance you went not with master Slender?

Mrs. Page. Why went you not with master doctor, maid?

Fent. You do amaze1 her: Hear the truth of it.
You would have married her most shamefully,
Where there was no proportion held in love.
The truth is, she and I, long since contracted,
Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us."
The offence is holy, that she hath committed:
And this deceit loses the name of craft,
Of disobedience, or unduteous title;
Since therein she doth evitates and shun
A thousand irreligious cursed hours,
Which forced marriage would have brought upon
her.

Ford. Stand not amaz'd: here is no remedy :-
In love, the heavens themselves do guide the state;
Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.

Fal. I am glad, though you have ta'en a special stand to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced. Page. Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy! What cannot be eschew'd, must be embrac❜d. Fal. When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chas'd.

Eva. I will dance and eat plumbs at your wed ding.

Slen. I came yonder at Eton to marry mistress
Anne Page, and she's a great lubberly boy: If it
had not been i' the church, I would have swinged Heaven give you many, many merry days'
him, or he should have swinged me. If I did not Good husband, let us every one go home,
think it had been Anne Page, would I might never And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire;
stir, and 'tis a post-master's boy.

Mrs. Page. Well, I will muse no further:-
Master Fenton,

Page. Upon my life then, you took the wrong. Sten. What need you tell me that? I think so, when I took a boy for a girl: If I had been married to him, for all he was in woman's apparel, I would not have had him.

Page. Why, this is your own folly, Did not I tell you, how you should know my daughter by her garments?

Slen. I went to her in white, and cry'd mum, and she cry'd budget, as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was not Anne, but a post-master's boy. Eva. Jeshu! Master Slender, cannot you see but marry poys?

Sir John and all."
Ford.

Let it be so:-Sir John, To master Brook you yet shall hold your word; For he, to-night, shall lie with Mrs. Ford.

[Exeunt.

Of this play there is a tradition preserved by Mr. Rowe, that it was written at the command of Queen Elizabeth, who was so delighted with the character of Falstaff, that she wished it to be difPage. O, I am vexed at heart: What shall I do? fused through more plays; but suspecting that it Mrs. Page. Good George, be not angry: I might pall by continued uniformity, directed the knew of your purpose; turned my daughter into poet to diversify his manner, by showing him in green; and, indeed, she is now with the doctor at love. No task is harder than that of writing to the the deanery, and there married.

Enter Caius.

Caius. Vere is mistress Page? By gar, I am (1) Confound her by your questions. (2) Avoid.

ideas of another. Shakspeare knew what the queen, if the story be true, seems not to have known, that by any real passion of tenderness, the selfish craft, the careless jollity, and the lazy luxury of Falstaff, must have suffered so much abatement, that little of his former cast would have remained. Falstaff could not love, but by ceasing to be Falstaff. He

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

could only counterfeit love, and his professions of forming ridiculous characters can confer praise could be prompted, not by the hope of pleasure, only on him who originally discovered it, for it rebut of money. Thus the poet approached as near quires not much of either wit or judgment; its as he could to the work enjoined him; yet having success must be derived almost wholly from the perhaps in the former plays completed his own player, but its power in a skilful mouth, even he idea, seems not to have been able to give Falstaff that despises it, is unable to resist. The conduct of this drama is deficient; the acall his former power of entertainment. This comedy is remarkable for the variety and tion begins and ends often, before the conclusion, number of the personages, who exhibit more cha- and the different parts might change places with racters appropriated and discriminated, than per-out inconvenience; but its general power, that power by which all works of genius shall finally haps can be found in any other play. Whether Shakspeare was the first that produced be tried, is such, that perhaps it never yet had upon the English stage the effect of language dis-reader or spectator who did not think it too soon torted and depraved by provincial or foreign pro- at the end. nunciation, I cannot certainly decide. This model

JOHNSON

TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, WHAT YOU WILL.
And so is now,

Or was so very late; for but a month
Ago I went from hence; and then 'twas fresh
In murmur (as, you know, what great ones do,
The less will prattle of,) that he did seek
The love of fair Olivia.

73

Mar. He hath, indeed,-almost natural: for, be-
sides that he's a fool, he's a great quarreller; and,
but that he hath the gift of a coward to allay the
gust he hath in quarrelling, 'tis thought among
the prudent, he would quickly have the gift of a
grave.

Sir To. By this hand, they are scoundrels, and
substractors, that say so of him. Who are they?
ly in your company.
Mar. They that add moreover, he's drunk night-

Sir To. With drinking healths to my niece; I'll
drink to her, as long as there is a passage in my
throat, and drink in Illyria: he's a coward and a
coystril, that will not drink to my niece, till his
brains turn o' the toe, like a parish-top. What,
wench? Castiliano vulgo; for here comes sir An-
drew Ague-face.

Enter Sir Andrew Ague-cheek.

Sir And. Sir Toby Belch! how now, sir Toby
Belch?

Sir To. Sweet sir Andrew?

Sir And. Bless you, fair shrew.

Mar. And you too, sir.

Sir To. Accost, sir Andrew, accost.

Sir And. What's that?

Sir To. My niece's chamber-maid.

Sir And. Good mistress Accost, I desire better acquaintance.

Mar. My name is Mary, sir.

Sir And. Good mistress Mary Accost,Sir To. You mistake, knight: accost, is, front her, board her, woo her, assail her.

Sir And. By my troth, I would not undertake her in this company. Is that the meaning of accost? Mar. Fare you well, gentlemen.

Sir To. An thou let part so, sir Andrew, 'would thou might'st never draw sword again.

Sir And. An you part so, mistress, I would I think you have fools in hand? might never draw sword again. Fair lady, do you

Mar. Sir, I have not you by the hand.

Sir And. Marry, but you shall have; and here's my hand.

Mar. Now, sir, thought is free; I pray you, bring Sir And. Wherefore, sweetheart? what's your your hand to the buttery-bar, and let it drink. metaphor?

Sir And. Why, I think so; I am not such an ass, but I can keep my hand dry. But what's your jest? Mar. A dry jest, sir.

Mar. Ay, sir; I have them at my fingers' ends: Sir And. Are you full of them? marry, now I let go your hand, I am barren. [Exit Maria Sir To. O knight, thou lack'st a cup of canary when did I see thee so put down?

Sir And. Never in your life, I think; unless you see canary put me down: methinks, sometimes 1 have no more wit than a Christian, or an ordinary man has: but I am a great eater of beef, and, 1 believe, that does harm to my wit. Sir To. No question.

Sir And. An I thought that, I'd forswear it. I'll ride home to-morrow, sir Toby.

Sir To. Pourquoy, my dear knight?

Sir And. What is pourquoy? do or not do? I would I had bestowed that time in the tongues, that I have in fencing, dancing, and bear-baiting! 10, had I but followed the arts!

(3) Keystril, a bastard hawk.
K