house I am sure he is my intelligence is true: my jealoufy is reasonable: Pluck me out all the linen. MRS. FORD. If you find a man there, he fhall die a flea's death.

PAGE. Here's no man,

SHAL. By my fidelity, this is not well, master Ford; this wrongs you."

9

EVA. Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the imaginations of your own heart: this is jealoufies.

FORD. Well, he's not here I feek for.

PAGE. No, nor no where else, but in your brain. FORD. Help to search my house this one time: if I find not what I feek, fhow no colour for my extremity, let me for ever be your table-fport; let them fay of me, As jealous as Ford, that fearch'd a hollow walnut for his wife's leman. Satisfy me once more; once more fearch with me.

MRS. FORD. What hoa, mistress Page! come you, and the old woman down; my husband will come into the chamber.

FORD. Old woman! What old woman's that? MRS. FORD. Why, it is my maid's aunt of Brentford.

FORD. A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does fhe? We are fimple men; we do not know what's brought to pafs under the profeffion

9 - this wrongs you, ] This is below your character, unworthy of your understanding, injurious to your honour. So, in The Taming of the Shrew, Bianca, being ill treated by her rugged sister, fays:

3

"You wrong me much, indeed you wrong yourself.”

JOHNSON.

his wife's leman.] Leman, i. e. lover, is derived from

leef, Dutch, beloved, and man. STEAVENS.

4

of fortune-telling. She works by charms,' by spells, by the figure, and fuch daubery as this is; beyond our element we know nothing.. Come down, you witch, you hag you; come down, I fay.

MRS. FORD. Nay, good, fweet husband ;-good gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman.'

Enter FALSTAFF in women's clothes, led by Mrs.
PAGE.

MRS. PAGE. Come, mother Prat, come, give me your hand.

3 She works by charms, &c.] Concerning fome old woman of Brentford, there are feveral ballads; among the reft, Julian of Brentford's laft Will and Teftament, 1599. STEEVENS.

This without doubt was the perfon here alluded to; for in the early quarto Mrs. Ford fays" my maid's aunt, Gillian of Brentford, hath a gown above." So alfo, in Weftward Hoe, a comedy, 1607: "I doubt that old hag, Gillian of Brentford, has bewitch'd me." MALONE.

Mr. Steevens, perhaps, has been misled by the vague expreffion of the Stationers' book. Iyl of Breyntford's Teftament, to which he feems to allude, was written by Robert, and printed by William Copland, long before 1599. But this, the only publication, it is believed, concerning the above lady, at present known, is certainly no ballad.

RITSON.

Julian of Brainford's teflament is mentioned by Laneham in his letter from Killingworth Castle, 1575, amongst many other works of established notoriety. HENLEY.

4 -fuch daubery] Dauberies -are counterfeits; difguifes. So, in King Lear, Edgar fays: I cannot daub it further." Again, in K. Kichard III:

"So finooth he daub'd his vice with fhew of virtue."

STEEVENS.

Perhaps rather fuch grofs falfhood, and impofition. In our author's time a dauber and a plasterer were fynonymous. See Minfheu's DICT. in v. To lay it on with a trowel" was a phrafe of that time, applied to one who uttered a grofs lie. MALONE.

- let him not ftrike the old woman. Not, which was inadvertently omitted in the first folio, was fupplied by the fecond.

MALONE.

FORD. I'll prat her:Out of my door, you witch! [beats him.] you rag, you baggage, you polecat, you ronyon!'out! out! Ill conjure you, I'll fortune-tell you. [Exit FALSTAFF.

MRS. PAGE. Are you not afhamed? I think, you have kill'd the poor woman.

MRS. FORD. Nay, he will do it: 'Tis a goodly credit for you.

FORD. Hang her, witch!

EVA. By yea and no, I think, the'oman is a witch indeed: I like not when a'oman has a great peard; Ifpy a great peard under her muffler.

6

you rag,] This opprobrious term is again used in Timon - thy father, that poor rag-." Mr. Rowe unneof Athens: ceffarily difmiffed this word, and introduced hag in its place.

7

MALONE.

ronjon!] Ronyon, applied to a woman, means, as far as can be traced, much the fame with fcall or ftab spoken of a man.

From Rogneux, Fr. So, in Macbeth:

"Aroint thee, witch, the rump fed ronyon cries."

Again, in As you like it: the roynifh clown.”

8

STEEVENS.

JOHNSON

I Spy a great peard under her muffler.] One of the marks of a fuppofed witch was a beard.

So, in The Duke's Mistress, 1638 :

a chin, without all controverfy, good "To go a fishing with; a witches beard on't.”

See alfo Macbeth, A& I. fc. iii.

The muffler (as I have learnt fince our laft sheet was worked off) was a thin piece of linen that covered the lips and chin. See the figures of two market-women, at the bottom of G. Hoefnagel's curious plate of Nonfuch, in Braunii Civitates Orbis Terrarum ; Part V. Plate I. See likewife the bottom of the view of Shrewfbury, &c. ibid. Part VI. Plate II. where the female peafant feems to wear the fame article of drefs. See alfo a country-woman at the corner of Speed's map of England. STEEVENS. As the fecond ftratagem, by which Falfaff escapes, is much the groffer of the two, I wish it had been practised fift. very unlikely that Ford, having been fo deceived before, and knowing that he had been deceived, would fuffer him to escape in fo flight a difguife. JOHNSON.

It is

FORD. Will you follow, gentlemen? I befeech you, follow; fee but the iffue of my jealoufy: if I cry out thus upon no trail, never truft me when I open again.

PAGE. Let's obey his humour a little further: Come, gentlemen.

[Exeunt PAGE, FORD, SHALLOW, and EVANS. MRS. PAGE. Truft me, he beat him moft pitifully. MRS. FORD. Nay, by the mafs, that he did not; he beat him moft unpitifully, methought.

MRS. PAGE. I'll have the cudgel hallow'd, and hung o'er the altar: it hath done meritorious fervice.

MRS. FORD. What think you? May we, with the warrant of woman-hood, and the witness of a good confcience, pursue him with any further revenge ?

MRS. PAGE. The spirit of wantonnefs is, fure, fcared out of him; if the devil have him not in feefimple, with fine and recovery,' he will never, I think, in the way of wafte, attempt us again.

MRS. FORD. Shall we tell our hufbands how we have ferved him?

2

cry out thus upon no trail,] The expreffion is taken from the hunters. Trail is the fcent left by the paffage of the game. cry out, is to open or bark. JOHNSON.

So, in Hamlet:

"How cheerfully on the falfe trail they cry i

"Oh! this is counter, ye falfe Danish dogs!" STEEVENS. 3 if the devil have him not in fee-fimple, with fine and recovery,] Our author had been long enough in an attorney's office to learn that fee-fimple is the largest eftate, and fine and recovery the frongest affurance, known to English law. RITSON.

4 - in the way of walte, attempt us again.] i. e. he will not make further attempts to ruin us, by corrupting our virtue, and destroying our reputation. STEEVENS.

MRS. PAGE. Yes, by all means; if it be but to fcrape the figures out of your husband's brains. If they can find in their hearts, the poor unvirtuous fat knight fhall be any further afflicted, we two will ftill be the minifters.

MRS. FORD. I'll warrant, they'll have him pub lickly fhamed: and, methinks, there would be no period to the jest, should he not be publickly fhamed:

MRS. PAGE. Come, to the forge with it theii, fhape it: I would not have things cool. Exeunt.

SCENE III.

A Room in the Garter Inn.

Enter HOST and BARDOLPH.

BARD. Sir, the Germans defire to have three of your horfes the duke himself will be to-morrow at court, and they are going to meet him.

HOST. What duke fhould that be, comes fo fecretly? I hear not of him in the court: Let me speak with the gentlemen; they fpeak English? BARD. Ay, fir; I'll call them to you.'

HOST. They fhall have my horfes; but I'll make pay, I'll fauce them they have had : my houfes

them

4 no period -] Shakspeare feems, by no period, to mean, no proper catastrophe. Of this Hanmer was fo well perfuaded, that he thinks it necessary to read no right period. STEEVENS.

--

Our author often ufes period, for end or conclufion. So, in King Richard III:

66

O, let me make the period to my curfe." MALONE.

-I'll call them to you.] Old Copy-I'll call him. Correded in the third folio. MALONE.