Th' offence is holy that she hath committed;
And this deceit loses the name of craft,
Of disobedience, or unduteous guile;
Since therein she doth evitate and shun

A thousand irreligious cursèd hours,

Which forced marriage would have brought upon her.
Ford. Stand not amazed; 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,21 that your arrow hath glanced.

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

What cannot be eschew'd must be embraced.

Fal. When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased Mrs. Page. Well, I will muse no further.- Master Fenton, Heaven give you many, many merry days !· Good husband, let us every one go home, And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire; Sir John and all.

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

[Exeunt.

21 "Deer-shooting," says Staunton, "was a favourite sport of both sexes in the time of Shakespeare, and, to enable ladies to enjoy it in safety and without fatigue, stands, or standings, with flat roofs, ornamented and concealed by boughs and bushes, were erected in many parks. Here, armed with the cross-bow or bow and arrows, the fair huntresses were wont to take aim at the animal which the keepers compelled to pass before them."Though seems to be used here rather in a causal than in a concessive sense; that is, for since or inasmuch as. Repeatedly so. See vol. v., page 184,

note 21.

CRITICAL NOTES.

ACT I., SCENE 1.

Page 9. There is Anne Page, which is daughter to Master George Page. The folio has "Thomas Page "; evidently wrong, as he is repeatedly called George. Not in the quartos 1602, 1619.

P. 10. Shal. Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred Pounds? Not in the quartos 1602, 1619. The folio assigns this and also Shallow's next speech to Slender. Corrected by Capell.

P. 17. I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt.-The folio has content. The change was made by Theobald, and has been generally received, though I am not sure it ought to have been. Not in the quartos 1602, 1619.

ACT I., SCENE 3.

P. 20. Let me see thee froth and lime. -So the quartos. The folio has "froth and live." The quartos are undoubtedly right, as frothing of beer and liming of sack were notorious tricks of tapsters in the Poet's time. See foot-note 3.

P. 21. To steal at a minim's rest. - The old copies have “a minutes rest." The correction was proposed by Mr. Bennet Langton, and is found in Collier's second folio. See foot-note 5.

P. 22. He hath studied her well and translated her ill. Instead of well and ill, the folio has will in both places. The quartos have merely "Hee hath studied her well." As Dyce points out, the old copies repeatedly misprint will for well. The correction ill was proposed by the Cambridge Editors.

P. 23. Hold, sirrah, bear you these letters tightly;

Sail like my pinnace to the golden shores.— So the quartos. The folio has "these golden shores"; these being repeated wrongly from the preceding line.

So the quartos

P. 24. I will discuss the humour of this love to Page. Pist. And I to Ford shall eke unfold, &c.· 1602, 1619. The folio has, in the first of these lines, Ford instead of Page, and the same in Nym's next speech. Also, in the second line, it has Page instead of Ford.

P. 24. For this revolt of mine is dangerous. · The folio has "for the revolt"; which, as Dyce remarks, "is manifestly wrong, and cannot signify my revolt.'" Theobald reads "the revolt of mien," and Walker proposes "the revolt of mind"; neither of them very happy, I should say. The reading in the text is Pope's. Not in the quartos 1602, 1619.

ACT I., SCENE 4.

P. 26. Go and vetch me in my closet un boitier vert.— has unboyteene. Corrected by Rowe.

- The old text

P. 26. You are John Rugby, and you are Jack Rugby.—So in the folio; and I quite fail to understand why Mr. White should print "John Rugabie" and "Jack Rogue-by." As Dyce notes, "Jack was a common term of contempt, and Caius uses it with a quibble.”

P. 27. Vat is in my closet? villain! larron! - The quarto of 1630 has villain, the folio villanie, and both have La-roone. Not in the other quartos.

P. 28. I'll do for your master what good I can. folio. The first has yoe instead of for.

P. 30. Will I? i'faith, that I will; and I will tell, &c.—So Hanmer and Collier's second folio. The old text has " that we will."

P. 30. What, have I

ACT II., SCENE 1.

-

So the quarto of

'scaped love-letters, &c. 1630. The folio omits I. Not in the other quartos.

P. 30. Though Love use Reason for his physician, &c.— Not in the quartos 1603, 1619. The folio has “Reason for his precisian”; which Walker dismisses with a "Bah!" The reading in the text is Johnson's, and is given in Collier's second folio.

P. 30. If the love of a soldier can suffice. — So the third folio. The earlier editions omit a.

P. 31. What unweighed behaviour hath this Flemish drunkard pick'd out of my conversation, &c. Not in the quartos 1602, 1619.

The folio reads "What an unwaied behaviour." Corrected in the third folio. Capell and White read "What one unweighed behaviour." A strange reading, surely.

P. 31. I'll exhibit a Bill in the Parliament for the putting-down of fat men. So Theobald. The old text omits fat. But Mrs. Ford says afterwards, "I shall think the worse of fat men, as long as I have an eye." And in the quartos 1602, 1619, Mrs. Page, a little after reading the letter, says, "Well, I shall trust fat men the worse, while I live, for his sake." This is enough to justify the insertion of fat; and some qualifying word is obviously required.

P. 32. But they do no more adhere and keep pace together than the Hundredth Psalm, &c.- Not in the quartos 1602, 1619. The folio has hundred Psalms. Corrected by Rowe. The folio also has place instead of pace, which was proposed by Capell. Dyce notes, “The misprint place for pace occurs also in Troilus and Cressida, iii. 3.”

P. 33. O, that my husband saw this letter! it would give eternal food to his jealousy. Several editors have stumbled at this, as expressing, or seeming to express, the opposite of what Mrs. Ford intends. But her thought, as I take it, is, to torment her husband by feeding his passion into greater violence. Mr. White, I think, construes the matter rightly: "When we remember Mrs. Ford's character, and that after Falstaff is carried out in the buck-basket she says, 'I know not which pleases me better, that my husband is deceived or Sir John'; that she immediately takes measures to deceive her good man yet again; we must admit the correctness of the authentic text, and attribute Mrs. Ford's wish to mingled merriment and malice."