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SCENE III.

The Street in Windsor.

Enter Mrs. PAGE, Mrs. FORD, and Dr. CAIUS.

Mrs. Page. Master doctor, my daughter is in green: when you see your time, take her by the hand, away with her to the deanery, and despatch it quickly: Go before into the park; we too must go together.

Caius. I know vat I have to do; Adieu.

Mrs. Page. Fare you well, sir. [Exit CAIUS.] My husband will not rejoice so much at the abuse of Falstaff, as he will chafe at the doctor's marrying my daughter: but 'tis no matter; better a little chiding, than a great deal of heart-break.

Mrs. Ford. Where is Nan now, and her troop of fairies? and the Welch devil, Hugh?5

Mrs. Page. They are all couched in a pit hard by Herne's oak, with obscured lights; which, at the very

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berry says: "God's a good man." Again, in an Epitaph, part of which has been borrowed as an absurd one, by Mr. Pope and his associates, who were not very well acquainted with ancient phraseology:

"Do all we can,
"Death is a man

"That never spareth none."

Again, in Jeronimo, or The First Part of the Spanish Tragedy,

1605:

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"You 're the last man I thought on, save the devil." Steevens. and the Welch devil, Hugh?] The former impressions read-the Welch devil, Herne? But Falstaff was to represent Herne, and he was no Welchman. Where was the attention or sagacity of our editors, not to observe that Mrs. Ford is inquiring for [Sir Hugh] Evans by the name of the Welch devil. Dr. Thirlby likewise discovered the blunder of this passage.

Theobald.

I suppose only the letter H. was set down in the MS. and therefore, instead of Hugh, (which seems to be the true reading) the editors substituted Herne. Steevens.

So, afterwards: "Well said, fairy Hugh." Malone.

6 in a pit hard by Herne's oak,] An oak, which may be that alluded to by Shakspeare, is still standing close to a pit in Windsor forest. It is yet shown as the oak of Herne. Steevens.

instant of Falstaff's and our meeting, they will at once display to the knight.

Mrs. Ford. That cannot choose but amaze him.

Mrs. Page. If he be not amazed, he will be mocked; if he be amazed, he will every way be mocked. Mrs. Ford. We 'll betray him finely.

Mrs. Page. Against such lewdsters, and their lechery, Those that betray them do no treachery.

Mrs. Ford. The hour draws on; To the oak, to the

oak!

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV.

Windsor Park.

Enter Sir HUGH EVANS, and Fairies.

Eva. Trib, trib, fairies; come; and remember your parts: be pold, I pray you; follow me into the pit; and when I give the watch-ords, do as I pid you; Come, come; trib, trib. [Exeunt.

SCENE V.

Another part of the Park.

Enter FALSTAFF disguised, with a buck's head on.

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Fal. The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute draws on: Now, the hot-blooded gods assist me:" Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa; love set on thy horns.-O powerful love! that, in some respects makes a beast a man; in some other, a man a beast. You were also, Jupiter, a swan, for the love of Leda ;-0, omnipotent love! how near the god drew to the complexion of a goose?-A fault done first in the form of a beast;-O Jove, a beastly fault! and then another fault in the semblance of a fowl; think on 't, Jove; a foul fault.-When gods have hot backs, what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a Windsor stag; and the fattest, I think, i' the forest: Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow? Who comes here? my doe?

Enter Mrs. FORD and Mrs. PAGE.

Mrs. Ford. Sir John? art thou there, my deer? my male deer?

Fal. My doe with the black scut?-Let the sky rain potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Green Sleeves; hail kissing-comfits, and snow eringoes; let there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here.

[Embracing her. Mrs. Ford. Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.

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Fal. Divide me like a bribe-buck, each a haunch: I will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am I a woodman?? ha! Speak I like Herne the hunter? Why, now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes restitution. As I am a true spirit, welcome? [Noise within.

Divide me like a bribe-buck,1 i. e. (as Mr. Theobald ohserves) a buck sent for a bribe. He adds, that the old copies, mistakingly, read-brib'd-buck. Steevens.

Cartwright, in his Love's Convert, has an expression somewhat similar:

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"Put off your mercer with your fee-buck for that season." M. Mason.

my shoulders for the fellow of this walk,] Who the fellow is, or why he keeps his shoulders for him, I do not understand.

Johnson.

A walk is that district in a forest, to which the jurisdiction of a particular keeper extends. So, in Lodge's Rosalynde, 1592: "Tell me, forester, under whom maintainest thou thy walke?" Malone.

To the keeper the shoulders and humbles belong as a perquisite.

So, in Friar Bacon, and Friar Bungay, 1599;

Grey.

"Butter and cheese, and humbles of a deer, "Such as poor keepers have within their lodge." Again, in Holinshed, 1586, Vol. I, p. 204: "The keeper, by a custom-hath the skin, head, umbles, chine and shoulders." Steevens.

9 a woodman ?] A woodman (says Mr. Reed, in a note on Measure for Measure, Act IV, sc. iii,) was an attendant on the officer, called Forester. See Manwood on the Forest Laws, 4to. 1615, p. 46. It is here, however, used in a wanton sense, for one who chooses female game as the object of his pursuit.

In its primitive sense I find it employed in an ancient MS. entitled The Boke of Huntyng, that is cleped Mayster of Game:

Mrs. Page. Alas! what noise?

Mrs. Ford. Heaven forgive our sins!
Fal. What should this be?

Mrs. Ford.

Mrs. Page.

Away, away.

[They run off.

Fal. I think, the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that is in me should set hell on fire; he would never else cross me thus.

Enter Sir HUGH EVANS, like a satyr; Mrs. QUICKLY, and PISTOL; ANNE PAGE, as the Fairy Queen, attended by her brother and others, dressed like fairies, with waxen tapers on their heads.

Quick. Fairies, black, grey, green, and white, You moon-shine revellers, and shades of night, You orphan-heirs of fixed destiny,1

Attend your office, and your quality.2.

"And wondre ye not though I sey wodemanly, for it is a poynt of a wodemannys crafte. And though it be wele fittyng to an hunter to kun do it, yet natheles it longeth more to a wodemannys crafte," &c. A woodman's calling is not very accurately defined by any author I have met with. Steevens.

1 You orphan-heirs of fixed destiny,] But why orphan-heirs? Destiny, whom they succeeded, was yet in being. Doubtless the poet wrote:

"You ouphen heirs of fixed destiny."

i. e. you elves, who minister, and succeed in some of the works of destiny. They are called in this play, both before and afterwards, ouphes; here ouphen; en being the plural termination of Saxon nouns. For the word is from the Saxon Alpenne, lamia, dæmones. Or it may be understood to be an adjective, as wooden, woollen, golden, &c. Warburton.

Dr. Warburton corrects orphan to ouphen; and not without plausibility, as the word ouphes occurs both before and afterwards. But, I fancy, in acquiescence to the vulgar doctrine, the address in this line is to a part of the troop, as mortals by birth, but adopted by the fairies: orphans in respect of their real parents, and now only dependent on destiny herself. A few lines from Spenser will sufficiently illustrate this passage: "The man whom heavens have ordaynd to bee "The spouse of Britomart is Arthegall.

"He wonneth in the land of Fayeree,
"Yet is no Fary borne, ne sib at all

"To elfes, but sprong of seed terrestriall,
"And whilome by false Faries stolen away,

"Whiles yet in infant cradle he did crall," &c.

Edit. 1590, B. III, st. 26. Farmer.

Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy o-yes.

Pist. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys." Cricket, to Windsor chimnies shalt thou leap:

Where fires thou find'st unrak'd, and hearths unswept,
There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry:5
Our radient queen hates sluts, and sluttery.

Fal. They are fairies; he, that speaks to them, shall die: I'll wink and couch: No man their works must eye. [Lies down upon his face. Eva. Where's Bede ?6-Go you, and where you find a maid,

That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,
Raise up the organs of her fantasy,"

Sleep she as sound as careless infancy;

Dr. Warburton objects to their being heirs to Destiny, whe was still in being. But Shakspeare, I believe, uses heirs, with his usual laxity, for children. So, to inherit, is used in the sense of to possess. Malone.

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quality.] i. e. fellowship. See The Tempest: "Ariel, and all his quality." Steevens.

3 Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy o-yes.

Pist. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys.] These two lines were certainly intended to rhyme together, as the preceding and subsequent couplets do; and accordingly, in the old editions, the final words of each line are printed, oyes and toyes. This, therefore, is a striking instance of the inconvenience, which has arisen from modernizing the orthography of Shakspeare. Tyrwhitt.

• Where fires thou find'st unrak'd,] i. e. unmade up, by cover. ing them with ashes, so that they may be found alight in the morning. This phrase is still current in several of our midland counties. So, in Chapman's version of the sixteenth Book of Homer's Odyssey:

66 still rake up all thy fire

"In fair cool words:-" Steevens.

5 -as bilberry:] The bilberry is the whortleberry. Fairies were always supposed to have a strong aversion to sluttery. Thus, in the old song of Robin Good-Fellow. See Dr. Percy's Reliques, &c. Vol. III:

"When house or hearth doth sluttish lye,

"I pinch the maidens black and blue," &c. Steevens. 6 Eva. Where's Bede? &c.] Thus the first folio. The quartos-Pead.-It is remarkable that, throughout this metrical business, Sir Hugh appears to drop his Welch pronunciation, though he resumes it as soon as he speaks in his own character. As Falstaff, however, supposes him to be a Welch Fairy, his

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