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Mrs. Ford. Mistress Page. Away, away. [The women run out. Fal. I think, the devil will not have me damn'd, left the oil that is in me should fet hell on fire; he would never else cross me thus.

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Enter fir Hugh dress'd like a fatyr, Quickly and others like fairies, with tapers.

Quic. Fairies, black, gray, green, and white, You moon-fhine revellers, and fhades of night, You ouphen-heirs of fixed destiny,

Attend your office, and your quality.

Crier hobgoblin, make the fairy o-yes.

Eva. Elves, lift your names; filence, you airy toys. [To be Spoken with a Welch accent. Cricket, to Windfor chimneys fhalt thou leap: Where fires thou find'ft unrak'd, and hearths unfwept, There pinch the maids as blue as bilbery. Our radiant queen hates fluts, and fluttery.

Fal. They're fairies; he that speaks to them shall die. I'll wink, and couch; no man their works must eye.

[Lyes down upon his face.

Eva. Where's Bede? go you, and where you find a maid

[With a Welch accent.

That ere she sleep hath thrice her prayers said,

Rein up the organs of her fantasy,

Sleep fhe as found as careless infancy!

But those that sleep and think not on their fins,

Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, fhoulders, fides, and fhins.

Quic. About, about;

Search Windfor castle, elves, within and out.

Strew good luck, ouphes, on every facred room,
That it may stand 'till the perpetual doom,

In fite as wholfome, as in ftate 'tis fit;
Worthy the owner, as the owner it.
The feveral chairs of order look you

fcour

With juice of balm and ev'ry precious flow'r;
Each fair inftalment coat and fev'ral crest
With loyal blazon evermore be blest!
And nightly-meadow-fairies, look you fing,
Like to the garter-compass, in a ring:
Th' expreffure that it bears, green let it be,
More fertile fresh than all the field to fee;
And, Hony foit qui mal-y-penfe, write

In emerald tuffs, flow'rs purple, blue, and white,
Like faphire-pearl, and rich embroidery,
Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee;
Fairies use flow'rs for their charactery.
Away, difperfe; but 'till 'tis one o'clock
Our dance of cuftom round about the oak
Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget.

Eva. Lock hand in hand, yourselves in order set:

}

[With a Welch accent.

And twenty glow-worms fhall our lanthorns be
To guide our measure round about the tree.
But stay, I smell a man of middle earth.

Fal. Heav'ns defend me from that Welch fairy, left he transform me to a piece of cheese !

Eva. Vile worm, thou waft o'er-look'd even in thy birth. Quic. With trial-fire touch me his finger end;

If he be chafte, the flame will back descend,

And turn him to no pain; but if he start,

It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.

Eva. A trial, come.

[They burn him with their tapers, and pinch him. Come, will this wood take fire?

Fal. Oh, oh, ho!

Quic. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in defire!
About him, fairies, fing a scornful rhime.
And, as you trip, ftill pinch him to your time.

The

The SON G.

Fie on fimple fantafy!
Fie on luft, and luxury!
Luft is but i' th' blood a fire,
Kindled with unchafte defire,

Fed in the heart, whofe flames afpire,
As thoughts do blow them higher and higher.
Pinch him, fairies, mutually;

Pinch him for his villany;

Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,

'Till candles, and ftar-light, and moon-shine be out.

SCENE V.

[He offers to run out.

Enter Page, Ford, &c. They lay hold on him.

Page. Nay, do not fly; I think, I've watch'd you now; Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn?

Mrs. Page. I pray you, come, hold up the jeft no higher. Now, good fir John, how like you Windfor wives?

See you these, husbands? do not these fair oaks

Become the foreft better than the town?

[Pointing to the horns.

Ford. Now, fir, who's a cuckold now? mafter Brook, Falstaff's a knave, a cuckoldy knave, here are his horns, mafter Brook; and, master Brook, he hath enjoy'd nothing of Ford's but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of money, which must be pay'd to mafter Brook; his horses are arrested for it, mafter Brook.

Mrs. Ford. Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never meet. I will never take you for my love again, but I will always count you my deer.

Fal. I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.
Ford. Ay, and an ox too: both the proofs are extant.

Fal. And these are not fairies? I was three or four times in the

thought

thought they were not fairies; and yet the guiltiness of my mind, with the fudden furprize of my powers, drove the groffnefs of the foppery into a receiv'd belief, in despite of the teeth of all rhime and reason, that they were fairies. See now how wit may be made a jack-a-lent, when 'tis upon ill employment.

Eva. Sir John Falstaff, serve got, and leave your defires, and fairies will not pinse you.

Ford. Well faid, fairy Hugh.

Eva. And leave you your jealoufies too, I pray you.

Ford. I will never mistrust my wife again, 'till thou art able to woo her in good English.

Fal. Have I lay'd my brain in the fun, and dry'd it, that it wants matter to prevent fo grofs o'er-reaching as this? am I ridden with a Welch goat too? fhall I have a coxcomb of frize? 'tis time I were chok'd with a piece of toasted cheese.

Eva. Seefe is not good to give putter; your pelly is all putter. Fal. Seefe and putter! have I liv'd to stand in the taunt of one that makes fritters of English? this is enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking, through the realm.

Mrs. Page. Why, fir John, do you think, though we would have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and fhoulders, and have given ourselves without fcruple to hell, that ever the devil could have made you our delight?

Ford. What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax?

Mrs. Page. A puft man?

Page. Old, cold, wither'd, and of intolerable entrails?
Ford. And one that is as flanderous as Satan?

Page. And as poor as Job?.

Ford. And as wicked as his wife?

Eva. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and facks, and wines, and metheglins, and to drinkings, and swearings, and starings, pribbles and prabbles?

Fal. Well, I am your theme; you have the start of me; I am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welch flannel; ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me; ufe me as you will.

Ford. Marry, fir, we'll bring you to Windfor to one master

VOL. I.

Brook,

Brook, that you have cozen'd of money, to whom you should have been a pander: over and above that you have suffer'd, I think, to repay that money will be a biting affliction.

Page. Yet be cheerful, knight; thou shalt eat a posset to-night at my house, where I will defire thee to laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee. Tell her, mafter Slender hath marry'd her daughter.

Mrs. Page. Doctors doubt that; if Anne Page be my daughter, fhe is, by this, doctor Caius's wife.

SCENE VI.

Enter Slender.

Slend. What hoe! hoe! father Page!

Page. Son, how now? how now, fon; have you dispatch'd? Slen. Difpatch'd! I'll make the beft in Gloucefterfire know on't; would I were hang'd la, else.

Page. Of what, fon ?

Slen. I came yonder at Eaton to marry miftrefs Anne Page, and she's a great lubberly boy. If it had not been i' th' church, I would have fwing'd him, or he should have swing'd me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would, I might never ftir, and 'tis a post-master's boy.

Page. Upon my life, then you took the wrong.

Slen. What need you tell me that? I think fo, when I took a boy for a girl: if I had been marry'd to him, for all he was in woman's apparel, I would not have had him.

Page. Why, this is your own folly. Did I not tell you how you should know my daughter by her garments?

Slen. I went to her in white, and cry'd, mum, and she cry'd, budget, as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was not Anne, but a post-master's boy.

Mrs. Page. Good George, be not angry; I knew of your purpose, turn'd my daughter into green, and, indeed, fhe is now with the doctor at the deanery, and there marry'd.

SCENE

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