puppies,3 fifteen i' the litter and you may know by my fize, that I have a kind of alacrity in finking; if the bottom were as deep as hell, I fhould down. I had been drown'd, but that the fhore was fhelvy and shallow; a death that I abhor; for the water fwells a man; and what a thing fhould I have been, when I had been fwell'd! I fhould have been a mountain of mummy.

Re-enter BARDOLPH, with the wine.

Bard. Here's Mistress Quickly, fir, to speak with you. Fal. Come, let me pour in fome fack to the Thames water; for my belly's as cold, as if I had swallow'd fnow-balls for pills to cool the reins. Call her in.

Bard. Come in, woman.

Enter Mrs. QUICKLY.

Quick. By your leave; I cry you mercy Give your worfhip good-morrow.

Fal. Take away thefe chalices: Go brew me a pottle of fack finely.

Bar. With eggs, fir?

Fal. Simple of itfelf; I'M no pullet-fperm in my brewage. [Exit BARDOLPH.]-How now?

Quick. Marry, fir, I come to your worship from mistress Ford.

Fal. Miftrefs Ford! I have had ford enough: I was thrown into the ford; I have my belly full of ford,

Quick. Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault: the does fo take on with her men; they mistook their erection.

Fal. So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's promise.

Quick. Well, fhe laments, fir, for it, that it would yearn your heart to fee it. Her husband goes this morning a birding; fhe defires you once more to come to her between eight

and

3 The old copy reads- "a blind bitch's puppies." STEEVENS. I have ventured to tranfpofe the adjective here, against the authority of the printed copies. I know, in horfes, a colt from a blind stallion lofes much of the value it might otherwife have; but are puppies ever drown'd the fooner, for coming from a blind bitch? The author certainly wrote, as they would have drown'd a bit vo's blind puppies: THEOBALD

and nine: I muft carry her word quickly: fhe'll make you amends, I warrant you.

Fal. Well, I will visit her: Tell her fo; and bid her think, what a man is: let her confider his frailty, and then judge of my merit.

Quick. I will tell her.

Fal. Do fo. Between nine and ten, fay'st thou?

Quick. Eight and nine, fir.

Fal. Well, be gone: I will not miss her.

Quick. Peace be with you, fir.

[Exit.

Fal. I marvel, I hear not of mafter Brook; he fent me word to stay within: I like his money well.

O, here he

Fal. Now, mafter Brook? you come to know what hath pafs'd between me and Ford's wife?

Ford. That, indeed, fir John, is my business.

Fal. Mafter Brook, I will not lie to you; I was at her house the hour she appointed me.

Ford. And how fped you, fir?

Fal. Very ill-favour'dly, mafter Brook.

Ford. How fo, fir? Did the change her determination? Fal. No, mafter Brook: but the peaking cornuto her husband, master Brook, dwelling in a continual 'larum of jealoufy, comes me in the inftant of our encounter, after we had embrac'd, kifs'd, protested, and, as it were, fpoke the prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither provoked and inftigated by his distemper, and, forfooth, to search his house for his wife's love.

Ford. What, while you were there?

Fal. While I was there.

Ford. And did he search for you, and could not find

you ?

Fal. You fhall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in one miftrefs Page; gives intelligence of Ford's approach; and, by her invention, and Ford's wife's distraction, they convey'd me into a buck-basket.4

4 As it does not appear that his being convey'd into the buck-basket was owing to the fuppofed diftraction of Mrs. Ford, I have no doubt but we fhould read and Ford's wife's direction," which was the fact.

M. MASON.

Ford. A buck-basket!

Fal. By the Lord, a buck-basket: 5 ramm'd me in with foul fhirts and fmocks, focks, foul ftockings, and greafy napkins; that, mafter Brook, there was the rankest compound of villainous fmell, that ever offended noftril.

Ford. And how long lay you there?

Fal. Nay, you fhall hear, mafter Brook, what I have fuffer'd to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being thus cramm'd in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his hinds, were call'd forth by their mistress, to carry me in the name of foul clothes to Datchet-lane: they took me on their fhoulders; met the jealous knave their master in the door; who afk'd them once or twice, what they had in their basket: I quaked for fear left the lunatic knave would have search'd it; but fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold, held his hand. Well; on went he for a fearch, and away went I for foul clothes. But mark the sequel, mafter Brook: I fuffer'd the pangs of three feveral deaths: first, an intolerable fright, to be detected with a jealous rotten bell-weather; next, to be compafs'd, like a good bilbo," in the circumference of a peck,8 hilt

5 By the Lord, a buck-basket :] Thus the old quarto. The editor of the first folio, to avoid the penalty of the ftatute of King James I. readsYes, &c. and the editor of the fecond, which has been followed by the moderns, has made Falstaff defert his own character, and affume the language of a Puritan. MALONE.

The fecond folio reads-yea; and I cannot difcover why this affirmative fhould be confidered as a mark of puritanism. Yea, at the time our comedy appeared, was in as frequent ufe as-yes; and is certainly put by Shakspeare into the mouths of many of his characters whofe manners are widely different from those of canting purifts. STEEVENS.

6 So, before: "What a taking was he in, when your husband ask’d who was in the basket!" but Ford had asked no fuch question. Our author feems feldom to have revised his plays. MALONE.

Falstaff, in the prefent inftance, may purpofely exaggerate his alarms, that he may thereby enhance his merit with Ford, at whose purse his defigns are ultimately levelled. STEEVENS.

7 A bilbo is a Spanish blade, of which the excellence is flexibleness and elafticity. JOHNSON.

Bilbo, from Bilboa, a city of Biscay, where the best blades are made. STEEVENS.

8 Thus the folio. The old quarto reads-of a pack; and perhaps rightly. Pedlar's packs are fometimes of fuch a fize as to admit of Fal

staff's

hilt to point, heel to head; and then, to be ftopp'd in, like a ftrong diftillation, with ftinking clothes that fretted in their own greafe: think of that,-a man of my kidney,-think of that; that am as fubject to heat, as butter; a man of continual diffolution and thaw; it was a miracle, to 'fcape fuffocation. And in the height of this bath, when I was more than half stew'd in greafe, like a Dutch difh, to be thrown into the Thames, and cool'd, glowing hot, in that furge, like a horse-shoe; think of that,-hifing hot,-think of that, mafter Brook.

Ford. In good fadnefs, fir, I am forry that for my fake you have fuffer'd all this. My fuit then is defperate; you'll undertake her no more.

Fal. Mafter Brook, I will be thrown into Etna, as I have been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her husband is this morning gone a birding: I have received from her another embaffy of meeting; 'twixt eight and nine is the hour, mafter Brook.

Ford. 'Tis paft eight already, fir.

Fal. Is it I will then addrefs me to my appointment. Come to me at your convenient leifure, and you shall know how I fpeed; and the conclufion fhall be crown'd with your enjoying her: Adieu. You fhall have her, mafter Brook; mafter Brook, you shall cuckold Ford.

[Exit. Ford. Hum! ha! is this a vision? is this a dream? do I fleep? Mafter Ford, awake; awake, mafter Ford; there's a hole made in your best coat, master Ford.

ftaff's defcription; but who but a Lilliputian could be peck ?" MALONE,

This 'tis to be married!

compaffed in a

Falftaff defignedly exaggerates the inconveniences of his fituation. When he tells us, that formerly he was not an eagle's talon in the waift, and could have crept through an alderman's thumb-ring," are we to fuppofe he has a literal meaning?-and may not fome future critick enquire of us whether we ever faw any Pedlar's pack of fuch a fize as would contain a perfon of Falstaff's bulk?"

Befides; to try the flexibility of fwords, it might have been usual to incurvate them within a wooden circuit like that of a peck measure; but who would have thought of making the fame experiment within a pedlar's pack? STEEVENS.

9 Kidney in this phrafe now fignifies kind or qualities, but Falftaff means, a man whofe kidnies are as far as mine. JOHNSON.

2 i. c. make myself ready. STEEVINS.

married! this 'tis to have linen, and buck-baskets!-Well, I will proclaim myfelf what I am : I will now take the lecher ; he is at my house: he cannot 'fcape me; 'tis impoffible he fhould; he cannot creep into a half-penny purse, nor into a pepper-box: but, left the devil that guides him fhould aid him, I will fearch impoffible places. Though what I am I cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not, fhall not make me tame: if I have horns to make one mad, let the proverb go with me, I'll be horn mad.3

[Exit.

Enter Mrs. PAGE, Mrs. QUICKLY, and WILLIAM.

Mrs. Page. Is he at master Ford's already, think'it thou? Quick. Sure, he is by this; or will be presently: but truly, he is very courageous mad, about his throwing into the water, Miftrefs Ford defires you to come fuddenly.

Mrs. Page. I'll be with her by and by; I'll but bring my young man here to fchool: Look, where his mafter comes; 'tis a playing-day, I fee.

3 There is no image which our author appears fo fond of, as that of cuckold's horns. Scarcely a light character is introduced that does not endeavour to produce merriment by fome allufion to horned husbands. As he wrote his plays for the ftage rather than the prefs, he perhaps reviewed them feldom, and did not obferve this repetition; or finding the jeft, however frequent, ftill fuccessful, did not think correction neceffary. JOHNSON.

4 This is a very trifling scene, of no ufe to the plot, and I should think of no great delight to the audience; but Shakspeare beft knew what would pleafe. JOHNSON.

We may fuppofe this fcene to have been a very entertaining one to the audience for which it was written. Many of the old plays exhibit pedants inftructing their scholars. Marston has a very long one in his What you Will, between a schoolmafter, and Holofernes, Nathaniel, &c. his pupils. The title of this play was perhaps borrowed by Shakspeare, to join to that of Twelfth Night. What you Will appeared in 1607. Twelfth Night was firft printed in 1623. STEEVENS.

Enter