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Slen. I may quarter, coz?

Shal. You may, by marrying.

Eva. It is marrying indeed, if he quarter it.
Shal. Not a whit.

Eva. Yes, pe'r-lady; if he has a quarter of your coat, there is but three skirts for yourself, in my simple conjectures: but that is all one: If Sir John Falstaff have committed disparagements unto you, I am of the church, and will be glad to do my benevolence, to make atonements and compromises between you.

Shal. The Council' shall hear it; it is a riot. Eva. It is not meet the Council hear a riot; there is no fear of Got in a riot: the Council, look you, shall desire to hear the fear of Got, and not to hear a riot; take your vizaments in that.

1 Sir, was a title forme ly applied to priests and curates generally. Dominus being the academical title of a Bachelor (bas chevalier) of Arts, was usually rendered by Sir in English, and as most clerical persons had taken that degree, it became usual to style them Sir.

2 A corruption of Custos Rotulorum. It seems doubt ful whether Shakspeare designed Shallow to make this mistake, for though be gives him folly enough, he makes him rather pedantic than illiterate. Unless we suppose, with Mr. Malone, that it might have been intended to ridicule the abbreviations used in writs, &c.

ROBIN, Page to Falstaff. SIMPLE, Servant to Slender. RUGBY, Servant to Dr. Caius.

MRS. FORD.

MRS. PAGE.

MRS. ANNE PAGE, her Daughter, in love with

Fenton.

MRS. QUICKLY, Servant to Dr. Caius.

Servants to Page, Ford, &c.

SCENE, Windsor, and the Parts adjacent.

Shal. Ha! o' my life, if I were young again, tho sword should end it.

Eva. It is petter that friends is the sword, and end it and there is also another device in my prain, which, peradventure, prings goot discretions with i: There is Anne Page, which is daughter to master George Page, which is pretty virginity.

Slen. Mistress Anne Page? 'She has brown hair, and speaks small like a woman.

just as you will desire; and seven hundred pounds Eva. It is that fery person for all the 'orld, as of moneys, and gold, and silver, is her grandsire, upon his death's bed (Got deliver to a joyful resurrections!) give, when she is able to overtake seventeen years old it were a goot motion, if we leave our pribbles and prabbles, and desire a marriage between master Abraham and mistress Anne Page. Shal. Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred pounds?

Eva. Ay, and her father is make her a petter penny. Shal. I know the young gentlewoman; she has good gifts. Eva. Seven hundred pounds, and possibilities, is good gifts.

Shal. Well, let us see honest master Page: Is Falstaff there?

Eva. Shall I tell you a lie? I do despise a liar, as I do despise one that is false; or, as I despise one that is not true. The knight, Sir John, is there; and, I beseech you, be ruled by your well-willers. I will peat the door [knocks] for master Page. What, hoa! Got pless your house here! Enter PAGE.

Page. Who's there?

Eva. Here is Got's plessing, and your friend, and justice Shallow and here young master Slender; that, peradventures, shall tell you another tale, if matters grow to your likings.

Page. I am glad to see your worships well: I thank you for my venison, master Shallow.

Shal. Master Page, I am glad to see you; Much

3 i. e. all the Shallows have done.

4 It seems that the latter part of this speech should be given to Sir Hugh. Shallow has just before said the coat is an old one; and now, that it is the luce, the fresh fish.' No, replies the parson, it cannot be old and fresh too- the salt fish is an old coat.' Shakspeare is supposed to allude to the arms of Sir Thomas Lucy, who is said to have prosecuted him for a misdemeanor in his youth, and whom he now ridiculed under the character of Justice Shallow.

5 The ourt of Star-chamber is meant 6 Advisement. 7 Soft.

Thou art a gentleman, and well deriv'd;
Take thou thy Silvia, for thou hast deserv'd her.
Val. I thank your grace; the gift hath made me
happy.

I now beseech you, for your daughter's sake,
To grant one boon that I shall ask of you.

Duke. I grant it for thine own, whate'er it be.
Val. These banish'd men, that I have kept withal,
Are men endued with worthy qualities;
Forgive them what they have committed here,
And let them be recall'd from their exile:
They are reformed, civil, full of good,
And fit for great employment, worthy lord.
Duke. Thou hast prevail'd: I pardon them, and
thee;

Dispose of them, as thou know'st their deserts.
Come, let us go; we will include all jars1
With triumphs,2 mirth, and rare solemnity.

Val. And, as we walk along, I dare be bold With our discourse to make your grace to smile: What think you of this page, my lord?

Duke. I think the boy hath grace in him; he blushes.

Val. I warrant you, my lord; more grace than boy. Duke. What mean you by that saying?

Val. Please you, I'll tell you as we pass along, That you will wonder what hath fortuned.Come, Proteus; 'tis your penance, but to hear The story of your loves discovered:

That done, one day of marriage shall be yours;
One feast, one house, one mutual happiness.

[Exeunt. This is another

1 Include is here used for conclude. of Shakspeare's Latinisms: " includo, to include, to shut in, to close in."-Cooper.

2 Triumphs are pageants, such as masks and shows.

[In this play there is a strange mixture of knowledge and ignorance, of care and negligence. The versifica tion is often excellent, the allusions are learned and just but the author conveys his heroes by sea from one inland town to another in the same country; he places the em peror at Milan, and sends his young men to attend him. but never mentions him more; he makes Proteus, after an interview with Silvia, say he has only seen her picture; and, if we may credit the old copies, he has, by mistaking places, left his scenery inextricable. The reason of all this confusion seems to be, that he took his story from a novel, which he sometimes followed, and sometimes forsook, sometimes remembered, and sometimes forgot.

That this play is rightly attributed to Shakspeare, I have little doubt. If it be taken from him, to whom shall it be given? This question may be asked of all the disputed plays, except Titus Andronicus; and it will be found more credible, that Shakspeare might sometimes sink below his highest flights, than that any other should rise up to his lowest. JOHNSON.

Johnson's general remarks on this play are just, except that part in which he arraigns the conduct of the poet, for making Proteus say he had only seen the picture of Silvia, when it appears that he had had a per sonal interview with her. This however is not a blunder

of Shakspeare's, but a mistake of Johnson's, who con. siders the passage alluded to in a more literal sense than the author intended it. Sir Proteus, it is true, had seen Silvia for a few moments; but though he could form from thence some idea of her person, he was still unacquainted with her temper, manners, and the qualities of her mind. He therefore considers himself as having seen her picture only.-The thought is just, and elegantly expressed. So, in The Scornful Lady, the elder Loveless says to her :

I was mad once, when I loved pictures;
For what are shape and colours else, but pictures

M. MASON J

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

Falstaff is disgraced in King Henry IV. Part ii. and dies in King Henry V. Yet in the Merry Wives of Windsor he talks as if he was still in favour at court. "If it should come to the ear of the court how I have been transformed," &c.: and Page discountenances Fenton's addresses to his daughter, because he kept company with the wild Prince and with Poins. These circumstances seem to favour the supposition that this play was written between the first and second parts of King Hen

A FEW of the incidents of this Comedy might have been taken from an old translation of П Pecorone di Giovanni Fiorentino. The same story is to be met with in The Fortunate, the Deceived, and the Unfortunate Lovers, 1632.' A somewhat similar one occurs in the Piacevoli Notti di Straparola. Notte iv. Favola iv. The adventures of Falstaff seem to have been taken from the story of the lovers of Pisa in 'Tarleton's Newes out of Purgatorie,' bl. 1. no date, but entered on the Stationers' books in 1590. The fishwife's tale, inry IV. But that it was not written then may be collected Westward for Smelts,' a book from which Shakspeare borrowed part of the fable of Cymbeline, probably led him to lay the Scene at Windsor.

Mr. Malone thinks that the following line in the earliest edition of this comedy, Sail like my pinnace to those golden shores,' shows that it was written after Sir Walter Raleigh's return from Guiana in 1596.

The first edition of the Merry Wives of Windsor was printed in 1602, and it was probably written in 1601, after the two parts of King Henry IV. being, as it is said, composed at the desire of Queen Elizabeth, in order to exhibit Falstaff in love, when all the pleasantry which he could afford in any other situation was exhausted.

It may not be thought so clear that it was written after King Henry V. Nym and Bardolph are both hanged in that play, yet appear in Merry Wives of Windsor. *This story seems to have been first mentioned by Dennis in the Dedication to his alteration of this play, under the title of The Comical Gallant.' This Comedy,' says he, was written at Queen Elizabeth's command, and by her direction, and she was 80 eager to see it acted that she commanded it to be finished in fourteen days; and was afterwards, as tradition tells us, very well pleased at the representation. The information probably came originally from Dryden, who, from his intimacy with Sir W. Davenant, had opportunities of learning many particulars concerning Shak

Deare.

from the tradition above mentioned. The truth, probably is, that though it ought to be read (as Dr. Johnson observed,) between the second part of Henry IV. and Henry V. it was written after King Henry V. and after Shak speare had killed Falstaff. In obedience to the royal commands, having revived him, he found it necessary at the same time to revive all those persons with whom he was wont to be exhibited; Nym, Bardolph, Pistol, and the Page: and disposed of them as he found it convenient without a strict regard to their situations or catastrophes in former plays.

Mr. Malone thinks that The Merry Wives of Windsor was revised and enlarged by the author after its first production. The old edition, in 1602, like that of Romeo and Juliet, he says, is apparently a rough draught and not a mutilated or imperfect copy. The precise time when the alterations and additions were made has not been ascertained: some passages in the enlarged copy may assist conjecture on the subject, but nothing deci sive can be concluded from such evidence.

This comedy was not printed in its present form til: 1623, when it was published with the rest of Shakspeare's plays in folio. The imperfect copy of 1602 was again printed in 1619.

Mr. Boaden thinks that the chasms which occur in the story of the drama in this old copy afford evidence that it was imperfectly taken down during the represen. tation.

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SCENE I.

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Followers of Falstaff.

ACT I.

Windsor. Before Page's House. Enter JUSTICE SHALLOW, SLENDER, and SIR' HUGH EVANS.

Shal. Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star-chamber matter of it: if he were twenty Sir

John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow,

esquire.

Slen. In the county of Gloster, justice of peace,

and corum.

Shal. Ay, cousin Slender, and Cust-alorum. Slen. Ay, and ratolorum too; and a gentleman born, master parson; who writes himself armigero; in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation, armigero.

Shal. Ay, that I do; and have done3 any time these three hundred years. Slen. All his successors, gone before him, have done't; and all his ancestors, that come after him, may: they may give the dozen white luces in their

coat.

Shal. It is an old coat.

Eva. The dozen white louses do become an old coat well; it agrees well, passant: it is a familiar beast to man, and signifies-love.

Shal. The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an old coat.4

Slen. I may quarter, coz ?

Shal. You may, by marrying.

Eva. It is marrying indeed, if he quarter it.
Shal. Not a whit.

Eva. Yes, pe'r-lady; if he has a quarter of your coat, there is but three skirts for yourself, in my simple conjectures: but that is all one: If Sir John Falstaff have committed disparagements unto you, I am of the church, and will be glad to do my benevolence, to make atonements and compromises between you.

Shal. The Council shall hear it; it is a riot. Eva. It is not meet the Council hear a riot; there is no fear of Got in a riot: the Council, look you, shall desire to hear the fear of Got, and not to hear a riot; take your vizaments in that.

1 Sir, was a title forme ly applied to priests and cu rates generally. Dominus being the academical title of a Bachelor (bas chevalier) of Arts, was usually rendered by Sir in English, and as most clerical persons had taken that degree, it became usual to style them Sir.

2 A corruption of Custos Rotulorum. It seems doubt ful whether Shakspeare designed Shallow to make this mistake, for though be gives him folly enough, he makes him rather pedantic than illiterate. Unless we suppose, with Mr. Malone, that it might have been intended to ridicule the abbreviations used in writs, &c.

ROBIN, Page to Falstaff. SIMPLE, Servant to Slender. RUGBY, Servant to Dr. Caius.

MRS. FORD.

MRS. PAGE.

MRS. ANNE PAGE, her Daughter, in love with

Fenton.

MRS. QUICKLY, Servant to Dr. Caius.

Servants to Page, Ford, &c.

SCENE, Windsor, and the Parts adjacent.

Shal. Ha! o' my life, if I were young again, the sword should end it.

:

Eva. It is petter that friends is the sword, and end it and there is also another device in my prain, which, peradventure, prings goot discretions with i: There is Anne Page, which is daughter to master George Page, which is pretty virginity. and speaks small" like a woman. Slen. Mistress Anne Page? She has brown hair,

just as you will desire; and seven hundred pounds Eva. It is that fery person for all the 'orld, as of moneys, and gold, and silver, is her grandsire, upon his death's bed (Got deliver to a joyful resurrections!) give, when she is able to overtake seventeen years old: it were a goot motion, if we leave our pribbles and prabbles, and desire a marriage between master Abraham and mistress Anne Page. Shal. Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred pounds?

penny.

Eva. Ay, and her father is make her a petter Shal. I know the young gentlewoman; she has good gifts. Eva. Seven hundred pounds, and possibilities, is good gifts.

Shal. Well, let us see honest master Page: Is Falstaff there?

Eva. Shall I tell you a lie? I do despise a liar, as I do despise one that is false; or, as I despise one that is not true. The knight, Sir John, is there; and, I beseech you, be ruled by your well-willers. I will peat the door [knocks] for master Page. What, hoa! Got pless your house here!

Enter PAGE.

Page. Who's there?

Eva. Here is Got's plessing, and your friend, and justice Shallow and here young master Slender; that, peradventures, shall tell you another tale, if matters grow to your likings.

Page. I am glad to see your worships well: I thank you for my venison, master Shallow.

Shal. Master Page, I am glad to see you; Much

3 i. e. all the Shallows have done.

4 It seems that the latter part of this speech should be given to Sir Hugh. Shallow has just before said the coat is an old one; and now, that it is the luce, the fresh fish. No, replies the parson, it cannot be old and fresh too- the salt fish is an old coat.' Shakspeare is sup posed to allude to the arms of Sir Thomas Lucy, who is said to have prosecuted him for a misdemeanor in his youth, and whom he now ridiculed under the character of Justice Shallow.

5 The ourt of Star-chamber is meant 6 Advisement.

7 Soft.

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Page. A cur, sir.

Shal. Sir, he's a good dog, and a fair dog; Can there be more said? he is good, and fair.-Is Sir John Falstaff here?

Page. Sir, he is within; and I would I could do a good office between you.

Eva. It is spoke as a christians ought to speak. Shal. He hath wrong'd me, master Page. Page. Sir, he doth in some sort confess it. Shal. If it be confess'd, it is not redress'd; is not that so, master Page? He hath wrong'd me; indeed he hath ;-at a word, he hath ;-believe me ;-Robert Shallow, esquire, saith he is wrong'd. Page. Here comes Sir John.

Eva. Fery goot: I will make a prief of it in my note-book; and we will afterwards 'ork upon the cause with as great discreetly as we can. Fal. Pistol,

Pist. He hears with ears.

Eva. The tevil and his tam! what phrase is this, He hears with ear? Why, it is affectations. Fat. Pistol, did you pick master Slender's purse? Slen. Ay, by these gloves, did he (or I would I might never come in mine own great chamber again else,) of seven groats in mill-sixpences, and two Edward shovel-boards, that cost me two shilling and twopence a-piece of Yead Miller, by these gloves.

Fal. Is this true, Pistol?

Eva. No; it is false, if it is a pick-purse.
Pist. Ha, thou mountain-foreigner!-Sir John,
and master mine,

I combat challenge of this latten bilbo :"
Word of denial in thy labras1o here;
Word of denial; froth and scum, thou liest.

Slen. By these gloves, then 'twas he.

Nym. Be avised, sir, and pass good humours: I will say, marry, trap, with you, if you run the nuthook's humour on me that is the very note of it. Slen. By this hat, then he in the red face had it: for though I cannot remember what I did when you Enter SIR JOHN Falstaff, BARDOLPH, NYм, made me drunk, yet I am not altogether an ass.

and PISTOL.

Fal. Now, master Shallow; you'll complain of me to the king?

Shal. Knight, you have beaten my men, killed my deer, and broke open my lodge.

Fal. But not kiss'd your keeper's daughter? Shal. Tut, a pin! this shall be answer'd. Fal. I will answer it straight ;-I have done all this:-That is now answer'd.

Shal. The Council shall know this. Fal. "Twere better for if it were known in you, counsel you'll be laugh'd at. Eva. Pauca verba, Sir John, good worts. Fal. Good worts 3 good cabbage.-Slender, I broke your head; What matter hare you against me? Slen. Marry, sir, I have matter in my head against you; and against your coney-catching rascals, Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol. They carried me to the tavern, and made me drunk, and afterwards picked my pocket.

Bar. You Banbury cheese!"
Slen. Ay, it is no matter.

Pist. How now, Mephostophilus ?
Slen. Ay, it is no matter.

Nym. Slice, I say! pauca, pauca; slice! that's my humour.

Slen. Where's Simple, my man? can you tell,

cousin?

Eva. Peace: I pray you! Now let us understand: There is three umpires in this matter, as I understand that is-master Page, fidelicet, master Page; and there is myself, fidelicet, myself; and the three party is, lastly and finally, mine host of the Garter.

Page. We three, to hear it, and end it between them.

1 First folio. I thank. The reading in the text is from the 4to. 1619.

2 The Cotswold Hills in Gloucestershire, famous for their fine turf, and therefore excellent for coursing. 3 Worts was the ancient term for all the cabbage kind.

4 A common name for cheats and sharpers in the time of Elizabeth. By a metaphor taken from those that rob warrens and conie grounds.'-Minshew's Dict. 5 Said in allusion to the thin carcass of Slender. So, in Jack Drum's Entertainment, 1601. "Put off your clothes, and you are like a Banbury Cheese, nothing but paring."

6 The name of a spirit, or familiar, in the old story book of Faustus: to whom there is another allusion Act ii. Sc. 2. It was a cant phrase, probably, for an ugly fellow.

7 Few words.

8 Mill sixpences were used as counters; and King Edward's shillings used in the game of shuffle-board.

Fal. What say you, Scarlet and John? Bard. Why, sir, for my part, I say, the gentleman had drunk himself out of his five sentences. Eva. It is his five senses: fie, what the ignorange is !

Bard. And being fap,12 sir, was, as they say, cashier'd; and so conclusions pass'd the careires.1

Slen. Ay, you spake in Latin then too; but 'tis no matter: I'll ne'er be drunk whilst I live again, but in honest, civil, godly company, for this trick: If I be drunk, I'll be drunk with those that have the fear of God, and not with drunken knaves.

Eva. So Got 'udge me, that is a virtuous mind. Fal. You hear all these matters denied, gentlemen; you hear it.

Enter MISTRESS ANNE PAGE, with wine; MisTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE following. drink within. Page. Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we'll [Exit ANNE PAGE. Slen. O heaven! this is mistress Anne Page. Page. How now, mistress Ford? Fal. Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well met by your leave, good mistress.

[kissing her.

Page. Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome :come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all Come, we have a hot venison pasty to dinner;

unkindness.

[Exeunt all but SHAL. SLENDER, and EVANS. Slen. I had rather than forty shillings I had my book of Songs and Sonnets14 here :

Enter SIMPLE.

How now, Simple! where have you been? I must wait on myself, must I? You have not The Book of Riddles about you, have you?

9 Latten, from the Fr. Laiton, Brass. Bilbo, from Bilboa in Spain where fine sword blades were made. Pistol therefore calls Slender a weak blade of base metal, as one of brass would be.

10 Lips.

11 Metaphorically a bailiff or constable, who hooks or seizes debtors or malefactors with a staff or otherwise. The meaning apparently is, if you try to bring me to justice.'

12 Fap was evidently a cant term for Foolish. It may have been derived from the Italian Vappa, which Florio explains "any wine that hath lost his force : used also for a man or woman without wit or reason." In Hutton's Dict. 1583, one of the meanings of the Latin Vappa is a Dissard or foolish man, &c.

13 A military phrase for running the charge in a tour nament or attack; here used metaphorically.

14 Slender means a popular book of Shakspeare's time, "Songes and Sonnettes, written by the Earle of Surrey and others," and published by Toue) in 1557

Sim. Book of Riddles! why, did you not lend it | Go, sirrah, for all you are my man, go, wait upon to Alice Shortcake upon Allhallowmas last, a fortnight afore Michaelmas ?1

Shal. Come, coz; come, coz; we stay for you. A word with you, coz: marry this, coz: There is, as 'twere, a tender, a kind of tender, made afar off by Sir Hugh here;-Do you understand me? Slen. Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable; if it be so, I shall do that that is reason.

Shal. Nay, but understand me.
Slen. So I do, sir.

Eva. Give ear to his motions, master Slender: I will description the matter to you, if you be capacity of it.

Slen. Nay, I will do as my cousin Shallow says: I pray you, pardon me; he's a justice of peace in his country, simple though I stand here.

Eva. But this is not the question; the question is concerning your marriage.

Shal. Ay, there's the point, sir.

Eva. Marry, is it; the very point of it; to mistress Anne Page.

Slen. Why, if it be so, I will marry her upon any reasonable demands.

Eva. But can you affection the 'oman? Let us command to know that of your mouth, or of your lips; for divers philosophers hold that the lips is parcel of the mouth ;-Therefore, precisely, can you carry your good will to the maid?

Shal. Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?

Slen. I hope, sir,-I will do as it shall become one that would do reason.

Eva. Nay, Got's lords and his ladies, you must speak possitable, if you can carry her your desires towards her.

Shal. That you must: Will you, upon good dowry, marry her?

Slen. I will do a greater thing than that, upon your request, cousin, in any reason.

Shal. Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz ; what I do is to pleasure you, coz: Can you love the maid?

Slen. I will marry her, sir, at your request; but if there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are married, and have more occasion to know one another: I hope upon familiarity will grow more contempt: but if you say, marry her, I will marry her, that I am freely dissolved, and dissolutely.

Eva. It is a fery discretion answer; save the faul' is in the 'ort dissolutely: the 'ort is, according to our meaning, resolutely;-his meaning is good. Shal. Ay, I think my cousin meant well. Slen. Ay, or else I would I might be hanged, la. Re-enter ANNE PAGE.

Shal. Here comes fair mistress Anne:-Would I were young for your sake, mistress Anne!

Anne. The dinner is on the table; my father desires your worships' company.

the

Shal. I will wait on him, fair mistress Anne.
Eva. Od's plessed will! I will not be absence at

grace.

[Exeunt SHALLOW and SIR H. EVANS. Anne. Will't please your worship to come in, sir? Slen. No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very well.

Anne. The dinner attends you, sir.

Slen. I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth:

1 This is an intended blunder. Theobald would in sober sadness have corrected it to Martlemas.

2 i. e. part, a law term, often used in conjunction with its synonyme.

3 It was formerly the custom in England for persons to be attended at dinner by their own servants wherever they dined.

my cousin Shallow [Exit SIMPLE.] A justice of peace sometimes may be beholden to his friend for a man:-I keep but three men and a boy yet, till my mother be dead: But what though? yet I live like a poor gentleman born.

Anne. I may not go in without your worship: they will not sit till you come.

Slen. I'faith, I'll eat nothing; I thank you as much as though I did.

Anne. I pray you, sir, walk in.

I

Slen. I had rather walk here, I thank you: bruised my shin the other day with playing at sword and dagger with a master of fence, three veneys" for a dish of stewed prunes; and, by my troth, I cannot abide the smell of hot meat since. Why do your dogs bark so? be there bears i' the town?

Anne. I think there are, sir; I heard them talked of.

Slen. I love the sport well; but I shall as soon quarrel at it as any man in England :-You are afraid if you see the bear loose, are you not?

Anne. Ay, indeed, sir.

Slen. That's meat and drink to me now: I have seen Sackerson loose twenty times; and have taken him by the chain: but, I warrant you, the women have so cried and shriek'd at it, that it pass'd :-but women, indeed, cannot abide 'em; they are very ill-favour'd rough things.

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house, which is the way: and there dwells one misEva. Go your ways, and ask of Doctor Caius' tress Quickly, which is in the manner of his nurse, or his dry nurse, or his cook, or his laundry, his washer, and his wringer. Simp. Well, sir. Eva. Nay, it is petter yet:: -give her this letter; for it is a 'oman that altogether's acquaintance with mistress Anne Page; and the letter is, to desire and require her to solicit your master's desires to mistress Anne Page: I pray you, be gone. I will make an end of my dinner; there's pippins and cheese to come. [Exeunt.

SCENE III. A Room in the Garter Inn. Enter FALSTAFF, HOST, BARDOLPH, NYM, PISTOL, and ROBIN.

Fal. Mine host of the Garter,

Host. What says my bully-rook? Speak scholarly, and wisely.

of

Fal. Truly, mine host, I must turn away some my followers.

grome of her majesty's chamber.' The unfortunate Robert Greene played his master's prize at Leadenhall with three weapons, &c. The MS. from which this information is derived is a Register belonging to some of the Schools of the noble Science of Defence, among the Sloane MSS.-Brit. Mus. No. 2530, xxvi. D.

5 Veney, or Venue, Fr. a touch or hit in the body at

6 The name of a bear exhibited at Paris Garden, ia Southwark.

7 i. e. passed all expression.

4 Master of fence here signifies not merely a fencing-fencing, &c. master, but a person who had taken his master's degree in the science. There were three degrees, a maser's, a provost's, and a scholar's. For each of these a prize was played with various weapons, in some open place or square. Tarlton the player was allowed a master' on the 23d of October, 1587, he being ordinary

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8 By cock and pye was a popular adjuration 880 Note on Henry IV. P. 2, Act Sc. 1.

9 i. e. launder, from the Fr Lavandiere.

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