the mind, therefore precisely, can you carry your good Will to the maid?

Shal. Coufin Abraham Slender, can you love her? Slen. I hope, Sir, I will do, as it shall become one that would do reafon.

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

Shal. That you must: will you, upon good dowry, marry her? Slen. I will do a greater thing than that upon your requeft, coufin, in any reafon.

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 heav'n may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are marry'd, and have more occasion to know one another: I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt: but if you fay, marry her, I will marry her, that I am freely diffolved, and diffolutely.

Eva. It is a ferry difcretion answer, fave, the fall is in th'ort diffolutely: the ort is, according to our meaning, refolutely; his meaning is good.

Shal. Ay, I think, my cousin meant well.

Shen. Ay, or else I would I might be hang'd, la,

!

SCENE V.

Enter Mistress Anne Page.

Shal. Here comes fair mistress Anne: 'would, I were young for your fake, mistress Anne!

Anne. The dinner is on the table; my father defires your worship's company.

Shal. I will wait on him, fair mistress Anne. Eva. Od's plessed will, I will not be abfence at the Grace. [Ex. Shallow and 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. Go, Sirrah, for all you are my man, go wait upon my coufin Shallow: [Ex. Simple.] A Justice of peace sometime may be beholden to his friend for a man. keep but three men and a boy yet, 'till my mother be dead; but what though, yet I live like a poor gentleman born.

I

Anne. I may not go in without your worship; they will not fit, '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.

Slen. I had rather walk here, I thank you: I bruis'd my shin th'other day with playing at fword and dagger with a master of fence, three veneys for a dish of stew'd prunes; and, by my troth, I cannot abide the fmell of hot meat since. Why do your dogs bark fo? be there bears i'th' town?

Anne. I think, there are, Sir; I heard them talk'd

of.

Slen. I love the sport well, but I shall as foon quarrel

rel at it as my man in England. You are afraid, if you fee the bear loofe, are you not?

Anne. Ay, indeed, Sir.

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

Enter Mr. Page.

Page. Come, gentle Mr. Slender, come; we stay for you.

Slen. I'll eat nothing, I thank you, Sir.

Page. By cock and pye, you shall not chuse, Sir;

come; come.

Slen. Nay, pray you, lead the way.

Page. Come on, Sir.

Slen. Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first.

Anne. Not I, Sir; pray you, keep on.

Slen. Truly, I will not go first, truly-la: I will not

do you that wrong.

Anne. I pray you, Sir.

Slen. I'll rather be unmannerly, than troublesome;

you do yourself wrong, indeed-la.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VI.

Re-enter Evans and Simple.

Eva. Go your ways, and afk of Doctor Caius' house which is the way; and there dwells one mistress Quickly, which is in the manner of his nurse, or his dry

5

that it past:-) It

past, or this paffes, was a way of speaking customary heretofore, to fignify the excess, or extraordinary degree of any thing. The

sentence completed would be, This passes all expreffion, or perhaps, This passes all things. We till use passing well, passing strange.

WARBURTON. nurfe,

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 altogethers acquaintance with miftress Anne Page; and the letter is to defire and require her to follicit your master's defires 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 feverally.

SCENE VII.

Changes to the Garter-Inn.

Enter Falstaff, Host, Bardolph, Nym, Pistol and Robin.

Fal.

INE host of the garter.

Hoft. What says my bully Rock? speak

schollarly, and wifely.

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

Hoft. Difcard, bully Hercules, cashier; let them wag: trot, trot.

Fal. I fit at ten pounds a week.

Hoft. Thou'rt an Emperor, Cafar, Keifar an dPheazar. I will entertain Bardolph, he shall draw, he shall tap: faid I well, bully Hector?

Fal. Do so, good mine hoft.

Hoft. I have fpoke, let him follow; let me fee thee froth, and live: I am at a word; follow. (Exit Hoft.

Fal. Bardolph, follow him; a tapfter is a good trade: an old cloak makes a new jerkin; a wither'd fervingman, a fresh tapster; go, adieu.

Bard. It is a life that I have defir'd: I will thrive.

[Exit Bard.

Pist. O base Hungarian wight, wilt thou the spigot

wield?

Nym.

:

Nym. He was gotten in drink, is not the humour conceited? His mind is not heroick, and there's the humour of it.

Fal. I am glad, I am fo quit of this tinderbox; his thefts were too open; his filching was like an unskilful finger, he kept not time.

Nym. The good humour is to steal at a minute's

reft.

Pift. Convey, the Wife it call: steal? foh; a fico for the phrafe !

Fal. Well, Sirs, I am almost out at heels.

Pist. Why then let kibes ensue.

Fal. There is no remedy: I must cony-catch, I

must shift.

Pift. Young ravens must have food.

Fal. Which of you know Ford of this Town?
Pift. I ken the wight, he is of substance good.
Fal. My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.
Pist. Two yards and more.

Fal. No quips now, Pistol: indeed, I am in the waste two yards about; but I am now about no waste, I am about thrift. Briefiy, I do mean to make love to Ford's wife: I spy entertainment in her; the difcourses, she carves, the gives the leer of invitation: I can conftrue the action of her familiar stile, and the hardest voice of her behaviour, to be english'd right, is, I am Sir John Falstaff's.

Pist. He hath study'd her well, and translated her well; out of honesty into English.

6

Nym. The anchor is deep; will that humour pass?

- at a minute's rest.]

It was very judiciously suggested
to me by a young gentleman
who knows more of musick than
I, that our authour probably
wrote at a minim's rest.

The anchor is deep; will that
humour pass?] 1 see not what

relation the anchor has to tranfiation. Perhaps we may read the authour is deep; or perhaps the line is out of its place, and should be inferted lower after Falstaff has faid,

Sail like my pinnace to those golden fhores.

Fal