The several chairs of order look you scour
With juice of balm, and every precious flower:
Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest,
With loyal blazon, evermore be blest!
And nightly, meadow-fairies, look, you sing,
Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring:
The expressure that it bears, green let it be,
More fertile - fresh than all the field: to see;
And, Hony Soit Qui Mal y Pense, write,
In emerald tufts, flowers, purple, blue, and white;
Like saphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,
Buckled below) fair knighthood's bending knee:
Fairies use flowers for their charactery.
Awway; disperse But, till 'tis one o'clock,
Our dance of custom, round about the oak *
Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget.

Eva. Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set:

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

Fal. Heavens defend me from that Welch fairy! lest he transform me to a piece of cheese!

Pist.

Vile worm, thou wast o'er look'd even in thy birth.

Quick. With trial-fire touch me his finger-end : If he be chaste, the flame will back descend, And turn him to no pain; but if he start,

It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.

Pist. A trial, come.

Eva. Come, will this wood take fire?

[They burn him with their tapers.

Fal Oh, oh, oh!.

Quick Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire! About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhime: And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.

Eva. It is right; indeed he is full of lecheries

Fie on sinful fantasy!'

Fie on lust and luxury!
Lust is but a bloody fire,

Kindled with unchaste desire,

Fed in heart; whose flames aspire,

As thoughts do blow them, higher
and higher.

Pinch him, fairies, mutually;

Pinch him for his villainy;

Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him

about,

During this song, the fairies pinch Falstaff. Doctor Caius comes one way, and steals away a fairy in green; Slender another way, and takes off a fairy in white; and Fenton comes, and steals away Mrs. Anne Page. A noise of hunting is made within. All the fairies run away. Falstaff pulls off his buck's head, and

rises.

Enter PAGE, FORD, Mrs. PAGE, and Mrs. FORD. They lay hold on him.

Page. Nay, do not fly: I think, we have watch'd you now; Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn? Mrs. Page. I pray you, come; hold up the jest no higher:

Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives?

1 Page. Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset to-night at my house; where I will desire thee to laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee: Tell her, Master Slender hath married her daughter.

Mrs. Page. Doctors doubt that: If Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius wife. [Aside!

Slen! Whoo, ho ho! father Page!

911

Page. Son! how now? how now, son? have

you despatch'd?'

Slen. Despatch'd!

cestershire know on't la, else.

“.་,

I'll make the best in Glo

would I were hanged,

Page. Of what, son? Slen. I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Antie Page, and she's a great lubberly boy: "If it had not been i the church, I would have swinged him, or he should have swinged me. If I did not think it had beeli Afine Page, would I might never stir, and tis à post-master's boy.1 ́ "Page. Upon my life then you' took the wrong. Slen. What need you tell me that? I think so, when I took a boy for a girl: If I had been married to him, for all he was in woman's appa rel, I would not have had him.

Page. Why, this is your own folly. Dit not I 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.

Eva. Jeshu! but marry boys?

Master Slender, cannot you see

Page. 0, I am vex'd at heart: What shall I do? Mrs. Page. Good George, be not angry: I knew of your purpose; turned my daughter into green; and, indeed, she is now with the doctor at the deanery, and there married.

Enter CAIUS.

Caius. Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened; I ha' married un garçon, a boy; un pai san by gár, á boy; it is not Anne Page: by går, I am cozened.

Mrs. Page. Why, did you take her in green ? Caius. Ay, be gar, and 'tis a boy be gar, I'll raise all Windsor. [Exit CAIUS Ford. This is strange: Who hath got the right Anne?

Page. My heart misgives me: Here comes Master Fenton.

Enter FENTON and, ANne Page.

How now, Master Fenton ?.

Anne. Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon!

Page. Now, Mistress how chance you went not with master Slender ?.

t

Mrs. Page. Why went you not with Master Doctor, maid?

Fent. You do amaze her; Hear the truth of it. You would have married her most shamefully, Where there was no proportion held in love. The truth is, She and I, long since contracted, Are now so sure, that nothing can dissolve us. The offence is holy, that she hath committed: And this deceit loses the name of craft,

Of disobedience, or unduteous title;
Since therein she doth evitate and shun

A thousand irreligious cursed hours,

Which forced marriage would have brought upon her.

Ford. Stand not amaz'd: here is no remedy: In love, the heavens themselves do guide the state; Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate;

Fal. I am glad, though you have ta'en a special stand to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced.

-Page, Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy!

What cannot be eschew'd, must be embrac'd. Fal. When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chas'd.

Eva. I will dance and eat plums at your wedding.

Mrs. Page. Well, I will muse no further:
Master Fenton,
Heaven give you many, many merry days!
Good husband, let as every one go home,
And laugh this sport o'er by a country, fire:
Sir John and all.

Ford. Let it be so: Sir John,

To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word; For he, to night, shall lie with Mistress Ford.

[Exeunt.