Than thee with wantonnefs: now doth thy honour ftand, In him that was of late an heretick,

As firm as faith.

Page.

'Tis well, 'tis well; no more.

Be not as extreme in submission,

As in offence;

But let our plot go forward: let our wives
Yet once again, to make us publick sport,
Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow, ́
Where we may take him, and disgrace him for it.

Ford. There is no better way than that they spoke of. Page. How! to fend him word they'll meet him in the park at midnight! fie, fie; he'll never come.

Eva. You fay, he has been thrown in the rivers; and has been grievously peaten, as an old 'oman: methinks, there fhould be terrors in him, that he should not come ; methinks, his flesh is punish'd, he shall have no defires. Page. So think I too.

Mrs. Ford. Devife but how you'll use him when he comes, And let us two devife to bring him thither.

Mrs. Page. There is an old tale goes, that Herne the hunter,

Sometime a keeper here in Windfor foreft,

Doth all the winter time, at ftill midnight,
Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns;
And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle ;3
And makes milch-ine yield blood, and shakes a chain
In a moft hideous and dreadful manner :

You have heard of such a spirit; and well you know,

"Shall the bleffed fun of heaven prove a micher ?"

The

I have not, however, difplaced Mr. Rowe's emendation; as a zeal to preferve old readings, without diftinction, may fometimes prove as injurious to our author's reputation, as a defire to introduce new ones, without attention to the quaintnefs of phrafeology then in ufe. STEEVENS.

So, in Wiftward for Smelts, a pamphlet which Shakspeare certainly had read: anfwere in the behalte of one, who is as free from difloyaltie, as is the funne from darkness, or the fire from COLD." A husband is fpeaking of his wife. MALONE.

3 To take, in Shakspeare, fignfies to feize or ftrike with a disease, to blaft. So, in Lear:

66 -Strike her young bones,

"Ye taking airs, with lameness." JOHNSON.

The fuperftitious idle-headed eld4
Receiv'd, and did deliver to our age,
This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth.

Page. Why, yet there want not many, that do fear
In deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak:
But what of this?

Mrs. Ford. Marry, this is our device;

That Falstaff at that oak fhall meet with us,
Difguis'd like Herne, with huge horns on his head.
Page. Well, let it not be doubted but he'll come,
And in this fhape; When you have brought him thither,
What fhall be done with him? what is your plot?

Mrs. Page. That likewife have we thought upon, and thus:

Nan Page my daughter, and my little fon,

And three or four more of their growth, we'll dress
Like urchins, ouphes, and fairies, green and white,
With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,
And rattles in their hands; upon a fudden,

As Falstaff, fhe and I, are newly met,
Let them from forth a faw-pit rush at once
With fome diffused fong; upon their fight,
We two in great amazednefs will fly :

Then let them all encircle him about,

And,

4 Eld feems to be ufed here, for what our poet calls in Macbeth-the olden time. It is employed in Measure for Measure, to exprefs age and

decrepitude: 66- -doth beg the alms

"Of palfied eld." STEEVENS.

I rather imagine it is ufed here for old perfons. MALONE.

5 The primitive fignification of urchin is a hedge-hog. In this fenfe it is ufed in The Tempest. Hence it comes to fignify any thing little and dwarfish. Oupb is the Teutonick word for a fairy or goblin. STEEVENS.

6 A diffufed fong fignifies a fong that ftrikes out into wild fentiments beyond the bounds of nature, fuch as those whofe fubject is fairy land. WARBURTON.

Diffufed may mean confused. So, in Stowe's Chronicle, p. 553: Rice quoth he, (i. e. Cardinal Wolfey,) fpeak you Welch to him: I doubt not but thy fpeech fhall be more diffuse to him, than his French shall be to thee.' TOLLET.

By difffed fong, Shakspeare may mean fuch unconnected ditties as mad

N. 2

people

And, fairy-like, to-pinch the unclean knight ;*
And ask him, why, that hour of fairy revel,
In their fo facred paths he dares to tread,

In fhape prophane.

Mrs. Ford.

Let the fuppofed fairies pinch him sound,

And burn him with their tapers.

Mrs. Page.

And till he tell the truth,

The truth being known,

Ford.

We'll all prefent ourselves; dif-horn the spirit,

And mock him home to Windfor.

people fing. Kent, in K. Lear, when he has determined to affume an appearance foreign to his own, declares his refolution to diffuse bis speech, i. e. to give it a wild and irregular turn. STEEVENS.

With fome diffufed fong ;] i. e. wild, irregular, discordant. That this was the meaning of the word, I have shown in a note on another play by a paffage from one of Greene's pamphlets, in which he calls a dress of which the different parts were made after the fafhions of different countries, "a diffufed attire." MALONE.

7 This ufe of to in compofition with verbs, is very common in Gower and Chaucer, but must have been rather antiquated in the time of Shak Speare. See, Gower, De Confeffione Amantis, B. IV. fol. 7:

"All to-tore is myn araie."

And Chaucer, Reeve's Tale, 1169:

"mouth and nose to-broke."

The conftruction will otherwife be very hard. TYRWHITT.

I add a few more inftances, to show that this ufe of the prepofition to was not entirely antiquated in the time of our author. So, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. IV. c. 7:

With briers and bushes all to-rent and fcratched."

Again, B. V. c. 8:

"With locks all loose, and raiment all to-tore."

Again, B. V. c. 9:

"Made of ftrange ftuffe, but all to-worne and ragged,
"And underneath the breech was all to-torre and jagged."

Again, in The Three Lords of London, 1590;

"The poft at which he runs, and all to-burns it.'

Again, in Arden of Feverfbam, 1592:

"Watchet fattin doublet, all to-torn,"

STEEVENS.

The editor of Gawin Douglas's Tranßation of the Æneid, fol. Edinb. 1710, observes in his General Rules for the Understanding the Language, that to prefixed, in antient writers, has little or no fignificancy, but with all put before it, fignifies altogether. Since, Milton has were all to-ruffled. See Comus, v. 380. Warton's edit. It is not likely that this practice was become antiquated in the time of Shakspeare, as Mr. Tyrwhitt fuppofes. HOLT WHITE.

6

The children muft

Ford.
Be practis'd well to this, or they'll ne'er do't..

Eva. I will teach the children their behaviours; and I will be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the knight with my taber.

Ford. That will be excellent. I'll go buy them vizards. Mrs. Page. My Nan fhall be the queen of all the fairies, Finely attired in a robe of white.

Page. That filk will I go buy ;-and in that time? Shall mafter Slender steal my Nan away,

[Afide And marry her at Eton.- -Go, fend to Falftaff ftraight, Ford. Nay, I'll to him again in name of Brook: He'll tell me all his purpofe: Sure, he'll come.

Mrs. Page. Fear not you that: Go, get us properties,2 And tricking for our fairies.3

Eva. Let us about it: It is admirable pleafures, and fery honeft knaveries. [Exeunt PAGE, FORD, and EVANS. Mrs. Page. Go, miftrefs Ford, Send Quickly to fir John, to know his mind.

[Exit Mrs. FOR D.

I'll to the doctor; he hath my good will,
And none but he, to marry with Nan Page.
That Slender, though well landed, is an ideot ;
And he my husband best of all affects:

The doctor is well money'd, and his friends

N 3

Potent

• The idea of this ftratagem, &c. might have been adopted from part of the entertainment prepared by Thomas Churchyard for Queen Elizabeth at Norwich: "And these boyes, &c. were to play by a deuife and degrees the Phayries, and to daunce (as neere as could be ymagined) like the Pbayries. Their attire, and comming fo ftrangely out, I know made the Queenes highneffe fmyle and laugh withall, &c. I ledde the yong foolifhe Phayries a daunce, &c. and as I heard faid, it was well taken." STEEVENS.

9 Mr. Theobald, referring that time to the time of buying the filk, alters it to tire. But there is no need of any change; that time evidently relating to the time of the mafk with which Falstaff was to be entertained, and which makes the whole fubject of this dialogue. Therefore the common reading is right. WARBURTON.

2 Properties are little incidental neceffaries to a theatre, exclufive of cenes and dreffes. So, in The Taming of a fhrew; "a shoulder of mutton for a property." STEEVENS.

3 To trick, is to drefs out. STEEVENS.

Potent at court; he, none but he, fhall have her,

Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her. [Exit,

SCENE V.

A Room in the Garter Inn.

Enter Hoft and SIMPLE.

Hoft. What would'st thou have, boor? what, thick-skin 4 fpeak, breathe, difcufs; brief, fhort, quick, fnap.

Sim. Marry, fir, I come to speak with fir John Falstaff from mafter Slender.

Hoft. There's his chamber, his houfe, his caftle, his ftanding-bed, and truckle-bed; 5 'tis painted about with the story of the prodigal, fresh and new: Go, knock and call; he'll fpeak like an Anthropophaginian 6 unto thee: Knock, I fay.

Simp. There's an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into his chamber; I'll be fo bold as ftay, fir, till fhe come down ; I come to fpeak with her, indeed.

Hoft. Ha! a fat woman! the knight may be robbed: I'll call.-Bully knight! Bully fir John! fpeak from thy lungs military Art thou there? it is thine hoft, thine Ephefian,7 calls.

Fal. [above.] How now, mine host?

Hoft.

4 I meet with this term of abufe in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, Book VI. chap. 30:

"That he, fo foul a thick-fkin, should so fair a lady catch."

STEEVENS.

5 The ufual furniture of chambers in that time was a standing-bed, under which was a trochle, truckle, or running bed. In the ftanding-bed lay the master, and in the truckle bed the fervant. So, in Hall's Account of a Servile Tutor:

"He lieth in the truckle-bed,

"While his young mafter lieth o'er his head." JOHNSON.

6 i. e. a cannibal. See Othello, A&t I. fc. iii. It is here used as a founding word to aftonish Simple. Ephefian, which follows, has no other meaning. STEEVENS.

7 This was a cant term of the time. So, in K. Henry IV. P. II. Act II. fc. ii. " P. Henry. What company? Page. Ephefian, my lord, of the old church." MALONE.