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Enter FORD.

FORD. Well met, mistress Page: Whither go you? MRS. PAGE. Truly, fir, to fee your wife: Is the at home?

FORD. Ay; and as idle as fhe may hang together, for want of company: I think, if your husbands were dead, you two would marry.

MRS. PAGE. Be sure of that,-two other husbands. FORD. Where had you this pretty weather-cock? MRS. PAGE. I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my husband had him of: What do you call your knight's name, firrah?

ROB. Sir John Falstaff.

FORD. Sir John Falstaff!

MRS. PAGE. He, he; I can never hit on's name.— There is fuch a league between my good man and he! Is your wife at home, indeed?

FORD. Indeed, fhe is.

MRS. PAGE. By your leave, fir;—I am fick, 'till I fee her. [Exeunt Mrs. PAGE and ROBIN.

FORD. Has Page any brains? hath he any eyes? hath he any thinking? Sure they fleep; he hath no use of them. Why, this boy will carry a letter twenty miles, as eafy as a cannon will fhoot pointblank twelve fcore. He pieces-out his wife's inclination; he gives her folly motion, and advantage: and now fhe's going to my wife, and Falftaff's boy with her. A man may hear this fhower fing in the wind! '—and Falstaff's boy with her!-Good plots! -they are laid; and our revolted wives fhare damnation together. Well; I will take him, then tor

9 A man may hear this shower fing in the wind!] This phrafe has already occurred in The Tempeft, Act II. fc. ii: "I hear it fing in the wind." STEEVENS,

ture my wife, pluck the borrowed veil of modefty from the so seeming mistress Page, divulge Page himself for a fecure and wilful Actæon; and to these violent proceedings all my neighbours shall cry aim.' [Clock firikes.] The clock gives me my cue, and my affurance bids me search; there I fhall find Falstaff: I shall be rather praised for this, than mocked; for it is as positive as the earth is firm, that Falftaff is there: I will go.

Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, SLENDER, Hoft, Sir HUGH EVANS, CAIUS and RUGBY.

SHAL. PAGE, &c. Well met, master Ford. FORD. Trust me, a good knot: I have good cheer at home; and, I pray you, all go with me.

SHAL. I must excufe myself, master Ford.

SLEN. And fo muft I, fir; we have appointed to dine with mistress Anne, and I would not break with her for more money than I'll speak of.

SHAL. We have linger'd' about a match between

2fo feeming miftrefs Page,] Seeming is fpecious. So, in K.

Lear:

If ought within that little feeming fubftance." Again, in Meafure for Measure, A&t I. fc. iv:

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Hence fhall we fee,

"If power change purpofe, what our feemers be." STEEVENS. ball cry aim.] i. e. fhall encourage. So, in K. John, A& II. fc. i:

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"It ill befeems this prefence, to cry aim

"To thefe ill-tuned repetitions.'

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The phrafe, as I have already observed, is taken from archery. See note on the laft fcene of the preceding act, where Dr. Warburton would read-cry aim, instead of—"cry'd game." STEEVENS.

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as the earth is firm,] So, in Macbeth:

· Thou fure firm-set earth." MALONE.

We have linger'd-] They have not linger'd very long. The match was propofed by Sir Hugh but the day before. JOHNSON.

Anne Page and my coufin Slender, and this day we fhall have our answer.

SLEN. I hope, I have your good-will, father Page. PAGE. You have, mafter Slender; I ftand wholly for you:-but my wife, master doctor, is for you altogether.

CAIUS. Ay, by gar; and de maid is love-a me; my nursh-a Quickly tell me fo mush.

HOST. What say you to young master Fenton? he capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verfes, he speaks holiday,' he smells April and May: he will carry't, he will carry't; 'tis in his buttons; he will carry't.

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Shallow reprefents the affair as having been long in hand, that he may better excufe himself and Slender from accepting Ford's invitation on the day when it was to be concluded. STEEVENS.

She writes verfes, he speaks holiday,] i. e. in an highflown, fuftian ftile. It was called a holy-day ftile, from the old custom of acting their farces of the myfteries and moralities, which were turgid and bombaft, on holy-days. So, in Much Ado about Nothing: I cannot woo in feftival terms." And again, in The Merchant of Venice:

"Thou spend'ft fuch high-day wit in praifinghim."

WARBURTON.

I fufpect that Dr. Warburton's fuppofition that this phrafe is derived from the feafon of acting the old myfteries, is but an boli day hypothefis; and have preferved his note only for the fake of the paffages he quotes. Fenton is not represented as a talker of bombaft.

He fpeaks holiday, I believe, means only, his language is more curious and affectedly chofen than that used by ordinary men.

So, in King Henry IV. P. I:

MALONE.

"With many holiday and lady terms." STEEVENS. To Speak holiday muft mean to speak out of the common road, fuperior to the vulgar; alluding to the better drefs worn on fuch days. RITSON.

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he fmells April and May:] This was the phrafeology of the time; not "he fmells of April," &c. So, in Mcafure for

PAGE. Not by my confent, I promise you. The gentleman is of no having: he kept company with the wild prince and Poins; he is of too high a region, he knows too much. No, he fhall not knit a knot in his fortunes with the finger of my fubstance: if he take her, let him take her fimply; the wealth I have waits on my confent, and my consent goes not that way.

Meafure:-" he would mouth with a beggar of fifty, though the Smelt brown bread and garlick." MALONE.

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-'tis in his buttons;] Alluding to an ancient custom among the country fellows, of trying whether they fhould fucceed with their miftreffes, by carrying the batchelor's buttons (a plant of the Lychnis kind, whofe flowers refemble a coat button in form) in their pockets. And they judged of their good or bad fuccefs by their growing, or their not growing there. SMITH.

Greene mentions thefe batchelor's buttons in his Quip for an upfart Courtier:-" I faw the batchelor's buttons, whose virtue is, to make wanton maidens weep, when they have worne them forty weeks under their aprons," &c.

The fame expreffion occurs in Heywood's Fair Maid of the Weft, 1631:

"He wears batchelor's buttons, does he not?”

Again, in The Conftant Maid, by Shirley, 1640:

"I am a batchelor.

"I pray, let me be one of your buttons ftill then."

Again, in A Fair Quarrel, by Middleton and Rowley, 1617: "I'll wear my batchelor's buttons still.”

Again, in A Woman never Vex'd, comedy, by Rowley, 1632: "Go, go and reft on Venus' violets; fhew her

"A dozen of batchelors' buttons, boy."

Again, in Weftward Hoe, 1606: "Here's my husband, and no batchelor's buttons are at his doublet." STEEVENS.

of no having:] Having is the fame as eftate or fortune.

So, in Macbeth:

"Of noble having, and of royal hope."

Again, Twelfth Night:

My having is not much;

"I'll make divifion of my prefent with you :

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Hold, there is half my coffer." STEEVENS,

JOHNSON.

FORD. I beseech you, heartily, fome of you go home with me to dinner: befides your cheer, you fhall have sport; I will show you a monster.Mafter doctor, you fhall go;-fo fhall you, master Page;-and Page; and you, Sir Hugh.

SHAL. Well, fare you well:-we fhall have the freer wooing at mafter Page's.

[Exeunt SHALLOW and SLENDER. CAIUS. Go home, John Rugby; I come anon.

[Exit RUGBY. Hosr. Farewell, my hearts: I will to my honeft knight Falstaff, and drink canary with him.

[Exit HOST. FORD. [Afide.] I think, I fhall drink in pipe-wine first with him, I'll make him dance. Will you go, gentles?

9 Hoft. Farewell, my hearts: I will to my honeft knight Falstaff, and drink canary with him.

Ford. [Afide.] I think, I shall drink in pipe-wine firft with him; I'll make him dance.] To drink in pipe-wine is a phrafe which I cannot understand. May we not fuppofe that Shakspeare rather wrote, I think I shall drink HORN-PIPE wine first with him: I'll make him dance?

Canary is the name of a dance, as well as of a wine. Ford lays hold of both fenfes; but, for an obvious reason, makes the dance a horn-pipe. It has been already remarked, that Shakspeare has frequent allufions to a cuckold's horns. TYRWHITT.

So, in Pafquil's Night-cap, 1612. p. 118:

"It is great comfort to a cuckold's chance

"That many thousands doe the Hornepipe dance.”

STEEVENS.

Pipe is known to be a veffel of wine, now containing two hogfheads. Pipe-wine is therefore wine, not from the bottle, but the pipe and the jeft confifts in the ambiguity of the word, which fignifies both a cafk of wine, and a musical inftrument. JOHNSON.

The jeft here lies in a mere play of words. "I'll give him pipewine, which fhall make him dance." Edinburgh Magazine, Nov. 1786. STEEVENS.

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