Eva. But this 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!

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. [Exe. SHAL. 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 [Ex. SIMP.] 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.

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' for a 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.

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 pass'd: 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.

[1] i. e. three venues, Fr. Three different set-to's, bouts, (or hits, as Mr. Malone, perhaps more properly, explains the word,) a technical term. STE.

[2] It pass'd or this passes, was a way of speaking customary heretofore, to signify the excess, or extraordinary degree of any thing. The sentence completed would be, This passes all expression, or perhaps, This passes all things. We still use passing well, passing strange. WARBURTON.

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.

SCENE II.

The same.

Enter Sir HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE.

Eva. Go your ways, and ask of Dr. 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, be gone; I will make an end of my dinner; there's pippins and cheese to come. [Exeunt.

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 PheeI will entertain Bardolph; he shall draw, he shall tap said I well, bully Hector?

zar.

[3] The latter part of this compound title is taken from the rooks at the game of chess. STEEVENS.-Bully-rook seems to have been the reading of some editions: in others it is bully-rock. Mr. Steevens's explanation of it as alluding to. chess-men, is right. But Shakespeare might possibly have given it bully-rock, as rock is the true name of these men, which is softened or corrupted into rook. There 19 seemingly more humour in bully-rock. WHALLEY. 22

VOL. I.

1

Fal. Do so, good mine host.

Host. I have spoke; let him follow: Let me see thee froth, and lime : I am at a word; follow. [Exit. 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. [Ex. Pist. O base Gongarian wight! wilt thou the spigot wield ?5

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

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 English'd rightly, is, I am sir John Falstaff's.

Pist. He hath studied her well, and translated her well; out of honesty into English.

?

Nym. The anchor is deep: Will that humour pass Fal. Now, the report goes, she has all the rule of her husband's purse; she hath legions of angels.

[4] Frothing beer, and liming sack, were tricks practised in the times of Shakespeare. The first was done by putting soap into the bottom of the tankard when they drew the beer; the other, by mixing lime with the sack (i. e. sherry) to make it sparkle in the glass. STEEVENS.

[5] This is a parody on a line in one of the old bombast plays.

STEEV.

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, examin'd my parts with most judicious eyliads :. sometimes the beam of her view gilded my foot, sometimes my portly belly.

Pist. Then did the sun on dung-hill shine.

Nym. I thank thee for that humour.

Fal. O, she did so course o'er my exteriors with such a greedy intention, that the appetite of her eye did seem to scorch me up like a burning glass !-Here's another letter to her she bears the purse too; she is a region in Guiana, all gold and bounty. I will be 'cheaters to them both, and they shall be exchequers to me; they shall be my East and West Indies, and I will trade to them both.—Go, bear thou this letter to mistress Page; and thou this to mistress Ford ::-we will thrive, lads, we will thrive.

Pist. Shall I sir Pandarus of Troy become,

And by my side wear steel? then, Lucifer take all! Nym. I will run no base humour: here, take the humour letter; I will keep the 'haviour of reputation. Fal. Hold, sirrah, bear you these letters tightly; Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores. [TO ROB. -Rogues, hence, avaunt! vanish like hail-stones, go; Trudge, plod, away, o' the hoof; seek shelter, pack! Falstaff will learn the humour of this age. French thrift, you rogues; myself, and skirted page. [Exeunt FALSTAFF and ROBIN.

[6] What distinguishes the language of Nym, from that of the other attendants on Falstaff, is the constant repetition of this phrase. In the time of Shakespeare such an affectation seems to have been sufficient to mark a character. STEEVENS.

[7] If the tradition be true, (as I doubt not but it is,) of this play being wrote at queen Elizabeth's command, this passage, perhaps, may furnish a probable conjecture that it could not appear till after the year 1598. The mention of Guiana, then so lately discovered to the English, was a very happy compliment to Sir Walter Raleigh, who did not begin his expedition for South America till 1595, and returned from it in 1596, with an advantageous account of the great wealth of Guiana. Such an address of the poet was likely, I imagine, to have a proper impression on the people, when the intelligence of such a golden country was fresh in their minds, and gave them expectations of immense gain. THEOBALD.

[8] The same joke is intended here, as in The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, Act II: I will bar no honest man my house, nor no cheater."-By which is meant Escheator, an officer in the Exchequer, in no good repute with the common people WARBURTON.