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In recompence whereof he hath married her.
How with a sportful malice it was follow'd,
May rather pluck on laughter than revenge,
If that the injuries be juftly weigh'd,

That have on both fides pafs'd.

Oli. Alas, poor fool! how have they baffled thee?

Clo. Why, fome are born great, fome atchieve greatnefs, and fome have greatness thrust upon them. I was one, Sir, in this interlude; one Sir Topas, Sir; but that's all one by the Lord, fool, I am not mad ;-but do you remember, Madam,- -why laugh you at fuch a barren rafcal? an you smile not, he's gagg'd: and thus the whirl-gigg of time brings in his revenges.

Mal. I'll be reveng'd on the whole pack of you.

[Exit.

Oli. He hath been most notoriously abus'd.
Duke. Purfue him, and intreat him to a peace :
He hath not told us of the captain yet;
When that is known, and golden time convents,
A folemn combination fhall be made

Of our dear fouls. Mean time, sweet sister,
We will not part from hence.-Cefario, come;
(For fo you fhall be, while you are a man ;)
But when in other habits you are feen,
Orfino's miftrefs, and his fancy's queen. [Exeunt.
Clown fings.

When that I was a little tiny boy,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain:

A foolish thing was but a toy,

For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came to man's estate,

With hey, ho, &c.

'Gainft knaves and theives men but their gate,

For the rain, &c.

But when I came, alas! to wive,

With hey, ho, &c.

By fwaggering could I never thrive,
For the rain, &c.

ous.

But when I came unto my beds,

With hey, ho, &c.

With tofs-pots ftill had drunken heads,
For the rain, &c.

A great while ago the world begun,

With hey, ho, &c.

But that's all one, our play is done;

And we'll ftrive to please you every day.

[Exit *. This play is, in the graver part, elegant and easy, and in fome of the lighter fcenes, exquifitely humourAgue-cheek is drawn with great propriety; but his character is, in a great measure, that of natural fatuity, and is, therefore, not the proper prey of a fatirift. The foliloquy of Malvolio is truly comic; he is betrayed to ridicule merely by his pride. The marriage of Olivia, and the fucceeding perplexity though well enough contrived to divert on the ftage, wants credibility, and fails to produce the proper inftruction required in the drama, as it exhibits no juft picture of life. Johnson.

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Sir HUGH EVANS, a Welch parfon.
Dr CAIUS, a French doctor.

Hoft of the Garter.

BARDOLPH.

PISTOL.

NYM.

ROBIN, page to Falstaff.

WILLIAM PAGE, a boy, fon to Mr Page.

SIMPLE, fervant to Slender.

RUGBY, fervant to Dr Caius.

Mrs PAGE.

Mrs FORD.

Mrs ANN PAGE, daughter to Mr Page, in love with

Fenton.

Mrs QUICKLY, fervant to Dr Caius.

Servants to Page, Ford, &.

SCENE, Windfor: and the parts adjacent.

THE

MERRY

WIVES*

O F

WINDSOR.

ACT I.

SCENE I.

Before Page's Houfe in Windfor.

Enter Justice Shallow, Slender, and Sir Hugh Evans.

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Shallow.

IR Hugh, perfuade me not. I will make a Star-chamber matter of it. If he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs, he fhall not abuse Robert Shallow, Efq;

Slen. In the county of Gloucester, justice of peace, and coram.

Shal. Ay, coufin Slender, and cuftalorum.

Slen. Ay, and rato-lorum too; and a gentleman born, mafter parfon, who writes himself armigero

* Queen Elizabeth was fo well pleafed with the admirable character of Falstaff in the two parts of Henry IV. that, as Mr Rowe informs us, fhe commanded Shakespeare to continue it for one play more, and to thew him in love. To this command we owe the Merry Wives of Windfor: which, Mr Gildon fays, he was very well affured our author finished in a fortnight. But this must be meant only of the first imperfect sketch of this comedy, an old quarto edition whereof I have feen, printed in 1602; which fays, in the title page As it hath been divers times acted both before her Majefty and elsewhere. Pope. Theobald.

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