in his own grease.3 Did you ever hear the like? MRS. PAGE. Letter for letter; but that the name of Page and Ford differs!-To thy great comfort in this mystery of ill opinions, here's the twinbrother of thy letter: but let thine inherit first; for, I proteft, mine never fhall. I warrant, he hath a thousand of these letters, writ with blank space for different names, (fure more,) and these are of the fecond edition: He will print them out of doubt; for he cares not what he puts into the press,* when he would put us two. I had rather be a giantefs, and lie under mount Pelion. Well, I will find you twenty lafcivious turtles, ere one chafte man. MRS. FORD. Why, this is the very fame; the very hand, the very words: What doth he think of us? MRS. PAGE. Nay, I know not: It makes me almost ready to wrangle with mine own honesty. I'll entertain myself like one that I am not acquainted withal; for, fure, unless he knew some strain in me, that I know not myself, he would never have boarded me in this fury. 6 3 -melted him in his own greafe.] So Chaucer, in his Wif of Bathes Prologue, 6069: "That in his owen grefe I made him frie." STEEVENS. 4-prefs,] Prefs is used ambiguously, for a prefs to print, and a press to fqueeze. JOHNSON. 5 I had rather be a giantess, and lie under mount Pelion.] Mr. Warton judiciously obferves, that in confequence of English verfions from Greek and Roman authors, an inundation of claffical pedantry very foon infected our poetry, and that perpetual allufions to ancient fable were introduced, as in the prefent inftance, without the leaft regard to propriety; for Mrs. Page was not intended, in any degree, to be a learned or an affected lady. STEEVENS. 6 -fome ftrain in me,] Thus the old copies. The modern editors read—" some stain in me," but, I think, unneceffarily. A fimilar expreffion occurs in The Winter's Tale: MRS. FORD. Boarding, call you it? I'll be fure to keep him above deck. MRS. PAGE. So will I; if he come under my hatches, I'll never to fea again. Let's be revenged on him: let's appoint him a meeting; give him a fhow of comfort in his fuit; and lead him on with a fine-baited delay, till he hath pawn'd his horses to mine Hoft of the Garter. MRS. FORD. Nay, I will confent to act any villainy against him, that may not fully the chariness of our honesty." O, that my husband faw this letter! it would give eternal food to his jealousy. MRS. PAGE. Why, look, where he comes; and my good man too: he's as far from jealoufy, as I am from giving him cause; and that, I hope, is an unmeasurable distance. MRS. FORD. You are the happier woman. MRS. PAGE. Let's confult together against this greasy knight: Come hither. [they retire. Enter FORD, PISTOL, PAGE, and NYм, FORD. Well, I hope, it be not fo. PIST. Hope is a curtail dog in fome affairs: "With what encounter fo uncurrent have I And again, in Timon: 7 66 a noble nature May catch a wrench." STEEVENS. -the charinefs of our honesty.] i. e. the caution which ought to attend on it. STEEVENS. 8 O, that my husband faw this letter!] Surely Mrs. Ford does not wish to excite the jealousy of which the complains. I think we fhould read-O, if my husband, &c. and thus the copy, 1619: "O lord, if my husband should see the letter! i' faith, this would even give edge to his jealoufie." STEEVENS. 9- curtail dog-] That is, a dog that miffes his game. The tail is counted neceffary to the agility of a greyhound. JOHNSON, Sir John affects thy wife. FORD. Why, fir, my wife is not young. PIST. He wooes both high and low, both rich and poor, Both young and old, one with another, Ford; wife? PIST. With liver burning hot: Prevent, or go thou, -curtail-dog-] That is, a dog of fmall value ;-what we now call a cur. MALONE. 3 Tale: -gally-maufry ;] i. e. A medley. So, in The Winter's They have a dance, which the wenches fay is a gallimaufry of gambols." Piftol ludicrously ufes it for a woman. Thus, in A Woman never vex'd, 1632: "Let us fhow ourfelves gallants or galli-maufries." STEEVENS. The firft folio has the gallymaufry. Thy was introduced by the editor of the second. The gallymawfry may be right: He loves a medley; all forts of women, high and low, &c. Ford's reply, "Love my wife!" may refer to what Piftol had faid before: "Sir John affects thy wife." Thy gallymawfry founds however more like Piftol's language than the other; and therefore I have followed the modern editors in preferring it. MALONE. Ford, perpend.] This is perhaps a ridicule on a pompous word too often ufed in the old play of Cambyfes: My fapient words I fay perpend.” My queen perpend what I pronounce." Shakspeare has put the fame word into the mouth of Polonius. STEEVENS. Pistol again ufes it in K. Henry V.; fo does the Clown in Twelfth Night: I do not believe therefore that any ridicule was here aimed at Preston, the author of Cambyfes. MALONE. 5 With liver burning bot:] So, in Much ado about Nothing: "If ever love had intereft in his liver." The liver was anciently fuppofed to be the infpirer of amorous paffions. Thus in an old Latin diftich: Cor ardet, pulm loquitur, fel commovet iras ; Splen ridere faci, cogit amare jecur. STEEVENS, Like Sir Acteon he, with Ring-wood at thy heels:O, odious is the name! FORD. What name, fir? PIST. The horn, I fay: Farewel. Take heed; have open eye; for thieves do foot by night : Take heed, ere fummer comes, or cuckoo-birds do fing." Away, fir corporal Nym.— Believe it, Page; he speaks fenfe.' [Exit PISTOL. FORD. I will be patient; I will find out this. 6 cuckoo-birds do fing.] Such is the reading of the folio. The quartos, 1602, and 1619, read-when cuckoo-birds appear. The modern editors when cuckoo-birds affright. For this last reading I find no authority. STEEVENS. 7 Away, fir corporal Nym. Believe it, Page; he speaks fenfe.] Nym, I believe, is out of place, and we should read thus: Away, fir corporal. Nym. Believe it, Page; he speaks fenfe. JOHNSON. Perhaps Dr. Johnson is mistaken in his conjecture. He feems not to have been aware of the manner in which the author meant this scene should be reprefented. Ford and Piftol, Page and Nym, enter in pairs, each pair in feparate converfation; and while Pistol is informing Ford of Falftaff's defign upon his wife, Nym is, during that time, talking afide to Page, and giving information of the like plot against him. When Piftol has finished, he calls out to Nym to come away; but feeing that he and Page are still in clofe debate, he goes off alone, firft affuring Page, he may depend on the truth of Nym's ftory. Believe it, Page, &c. Nym then proceeds to tell the remainder of his tale out aloud. And this is true, &c. A little further on in this scene, Ford fays to Page, You heard what this knave (i. e. Piftol) told me, &c. Page replies, Yes; And you beard what the other (i. e. Nym) told me. STEEVENS. Believe it, Page; he speaks fenfe.] Thus has the paffage been hitherto printed, fays Dr. Farmer; but furely we fhould readBelieve it, Page, he speaks; which means no more than-Page, believe what he fays. This fenfe is expreffed not only in the manner peculiar to Piftol, but to the grammar of the times. STEEVENS, NYM. And this is true; [to Page.] I like not the humour of lying. He hath wrong'd me in fome humours: I fhould have borne the humour'd letter to her; but I have a fword, and it fhall bite upon my neceffity. He loves your wife; there's the fhort and the long. My name is corporal Nym; I speak, and I avouch. 'Tis true:-my name is Nym, and Falstaff loves your wife.-Adieu! I love not the humour of bread and cheese; and there's the humour of it. Adieu. [Exit NYM. PAGE. The humour of it,' quoth 'a! here's a fellow frights humour out of his wits. 8 - I have a fword, and it shall bite upon my neceffity. He loves your wife; &c.] Nym, to gain credit, fays, that he is above the mean office of carrying love-letters; he has nobler means of living; be has a fword, and upon his neceffity, that is, when his need drives him to unlawful expedients, his fword fhall bite. JOHNSON. 9 The humour of it,] The following epigram, taken from Hamor's Ordinarie, where a man may bee verie merrie and exceeding well ufed for his fixpence, quarto, 1607, will beft account for Nym's frequent repetition of the word humour. Epig. 27: "Afke HUMORS what a feather he doth weare, Why in the ftop-throte fashion he doth goe, "With scarfe about his necke, hat without band,- "Object why bootes and fpurres are fill in feason, |