villain: do not say, they be fled; Germans are honest men.

Enter Sir HUGH EVANS.

Era. Where is mine host?
Hest. What is the matter, Sir?

Era. Have a care of your entertainments : there is a friend of mine come to town, tells me, there is three couzin germans, that has cozened all the hosts of Readings, of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, of horses and money. I tell you for good-will, look you : you are wise, and full of gibes and vlouting-stogs; and 'tis not convenient you should be cozened: Fare you well. [Exit.

Enter Doctor Caius.

Caius. Vere is mine Host de Jarterre. Host. Here, master doctor, in perplexity, and doubtful dilemma.

Caius. I cannot tell vat is dat : but it is tella me, dat you make grand preparation for a duke de Jarmany: by my trot, dere is no duke, dat the court is know to come; I tell you for good vill: adieu. [Exit. Host. Hue and cry, villain, go-assist me, knight; I am undone:-fly, run, hue and cry, villain! I am undone !

[Exeunt Host and BARDOLPH. Fa. 1 would, all the world might be cozened; for I have been cozen'd and beaten too. If it should come to the ear of the court, how I have been transformed and how my transformation hath been washed and cudgelled, they would melt me out of my fat, drop by drop, and liquor fishermen's boots with me; I warrant, they would whip me with their fine wits, till I were as crest-fallen as a dried pear. I never prospered since I forswore myself at Primere. Well, if my wind were but long enough to say my prayers, I would repent.

Enter Mrs. QUICKLY.

Now! whence come you?

Quick. From the two parties, forsooth. Fal. The devil take one party, and his dam the other, and so they shall be both bestowed! I have suffered more for their sakes, more, than the villanous inconstancy of man's disposition is able to bear.

Quick. And have not they suffered? Yes, I warrant; speciously one of them; mistress Ford, good heart, is beaten black and blue, that you cannot see a white spot about her.

Fal. What tell'st thou me of black and blue? I was beaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow, and I was like to be apprehended for the witch of Brentford; but that my admirable dexterity of wit, my counterfeiting the action of an old woman, deliver'd me, the knave constable had set me i' the stocks, i' the common stocks, for a witch.

Quick. Sir, let me speak with you in your chamber: you shall hear how things go; and, 1 warrant, to your content. Here is a letter will say somewhat. Good hearts, what ado here is to bring you together! Sure, one of you does not serve heaven well, that you are so crossed. Fal. Come up into my chamber. [Exeunt. SCENE VI.-Another Room in the Garter Inn. Enter FENTON and Host.

Host. Master Fenton, talk not to me; my mind is heavy, I will give over all. [purpose, Fent. Yet here me speak: Assist me in my A game at cards.

And, as I am a gentleman, I'll give thee
A hundred pound in gold, more than your loss.
Host. I will hear you, master Fenton; and
I will, at the least, keep your counsel.

Fent. From time to time I have acquainted you

With the dear love I bear to fair Anne Page;
Who, mutually, hath answer'd my affection
(So far forth as herself might be her chooser,)
Even to my wish: I have a letter from her
Of such contents as you will wonder at ;
The mirth whereof so larded with my matter,
That neither, singly, can be manifested,
Without the show of both ;-wherein fat Fal-
staff

Hath a great scene: the image of the jest.
[Showing the letter.
I'll show you here at large. Hark, good mine
host:
[one,
To-night at Herne's oak, just 'twixt twelve and
Must my sweet Nan present the fairy queen;
The purpose why, is here; in which disguise,
While other jests are something rank on foot,
Her father hath commanded her to slip
Away with Slender, and with him at Eton
Immediately to marry: she hath consented:
Now, Sir,

Her mother, even strong against that match,
And firm for doctor Caius, hath appointed
That he shall likewise shuffle her away,
While other sports are tasking of their minds,
And at the deanery, where a priest attends,
Straight marry her: to this her mother's plot
She, seemingly obedient, likewise hath
Made promise to the doctor;-Now, thus it
Her father means she shall be all in white;
And in that habit, when Slender sees his time
To take her by the hand, and bid her go,
She shall go with him :-her mother hath in-
tended,

rests:

The better to denote her to the doctor, (For they must all be mask'd and vizarded,) That, quaint t in green, she shall be loose en.rob'd,

With ribbands pendant, flaring 'bout her head; And when the doctor spies his vantage ripe, To pinch her by the hand, and, on that token, The maid hath given consent to go with him. Host. Which means she to deceive? father or mother?

Fent. Both, my good host, to go along with

SCENE 1.-A Room in the Garter Inn.

Enter FALSTAFF and Mrs. QUICKLY. Fal. Pr'ythee, no more prattling ;--go.I'll hold : This is the third time; I hope, good luck lies in odd numbers. Away, go; they say, there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death.-Away.

Quick. I'll provide you a chain; and I'll do what I can to get you a pair of horns.

* In the letter. Fantastically. Keep to the time.

Pist. Elves, list your names; silence, you

airy toys.

Cricket, to Windsor chimnies shalt thou leap: Where fires thou find'st unrak'd, and hearths unswept,

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

I'll wink and couch: No man their works must eye. [Lies down upon his face. Eta. Where's Pede?-Go you, and where you find a maid,

That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,

Raise up the organs of her fantasy,
Sleep she as sound as careless infancy;

But those as sleep, and think not on their sins, Pinch them, arms, legs, back, shoulders, sides, and shins.

Quick. About, about;

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.t
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: your-
selves 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 Welsh 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

Pinch him, fairies, mutually; Pinch him for his villany; Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him abou", Till candles, and star-light, and moonshine be out. During this song, the fairies pinch FALSTAFF. Doctor 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 you now;

Will none but Herne the hunter serve your

turn?

Mrs. Page. I pray you, come; hold up the jest no higher

Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives? [yokes* See you these, husband? do not these fair Become the forest better than the town?

Ford. Now, Sir, who's a cuckold now?Master Brook, Falstaff's a knave, a cuckoldly knave; here are his horns, master Brook: And, master Brook, he hath enjoyed nothing of Ford's but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of money; which must be paid to master Brook; his horses are arrested for it, master Brook.

Mrs. Ford. Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never meet. I will never take you

for my love again, but I will always count you my deer.

Fal. I do begin to perceive that I am made

an ass.

Ford. Ay, and an ox too; both the proofs are extant.

Fal. And these are not fairies? I was three fairies: and yet the guiltiness of my mind, the or four times in the thought, they were not sudden surprise of my powers, drove the grossness of the foppery into a received belief, in despite of the teeth of all rhyme and reason, be made a Jack-a-lent, when 'tis upon ill emthat they were fairies. See now, how wit may ployment.

Eva. Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you. Ford. Well said, fairy Hugh.

Eva. And leave you your jealousies too, I pray you.

Ford. I will never mistrust my wife again, till thou art able to woo her in good English.

Fal. Have I laid my brain in the sun, and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross o'er-reaching as this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? Shall I have a coxcomb of frize ?t 'tis time I were choked with a piece of

toasted cheese.

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 late-walking, through the realm.

Mrs. Page. Why, Sir John, do you think, though we would have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders, and have given ourselves without scruple to hell, that

*Horns which Falstaff had.

+ A fool's cap of Welsh materials.

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

Ford. And as wicked as his wife?

Mrs. Page. Good George, be not angry: I knew of your purpose; turned my daughter into green; and, indeed, she is now with the doctor at the deanery, and there married.

Enter CAIUS.

Fal. Well, I am your theme: you have the start of me; I am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh 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 [Aside.

Caius' wife.

Enter SLENDER.

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

Slen. Despatched-I'll make the best in Gloucestershire know on't; would I were hanged, la, else.

Page. Of what, son?

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 him, or he should have swinged me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir, and 'tis a post-master's boy.

Page. Upon my life then you took the wrong. Slen. 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 cried mum, and she cried budget, as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was not Anne, but a postmaster's boy.

Eva. Jeshu! Master Slender, cannot you see but marry boys?

Page. O, I am vexed at heart: What shall I

do?

gar, I am cozened.

Mrs. Page. Why, did you take her in green ?

I'll raise all 'Windsor.
Caius. Ay, be gar, and 'tis a boy be gar,
[Exit CAIUS.
Ford. This is strange: Who hath got the

right Anne?

Page. My heart misgives me: Here comes

master Fenton.

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 plums at your wedding.

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

Heaven give you many, many merry days!
Good husband, let us every one go home,
And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire;
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.

* Confound her by your questions.

[Exeunt.

+ Avoid.