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Page. The night is dark; light and spirits will become it well. Heaven, prosper our sport! No man means evil but the devil, and we shall know him by his horns. Let's away; follow me. [Exeunt.

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 two 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?

Mrs. Page. They are all couched in a pit hard by Herne's oak, with obscured lights; which, at the very instant of Falstaff's and our meeting, they will at once display to the night.

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. [lechery, Mrs. Page. Against such lewdsters, and their 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. 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 :-O, 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, er 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 Sterres; 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.

Fal. Divide me like a bribe-buck, each a haunch :

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lest the oil that is in me should set hell on fire; he Fal. I think, the devil will not have me damned, 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.

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Quick. Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,
You moon-shine revellers, and shades of night,
You orphan-heirs of fixed destiny,
Attend your office, and your quality.
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 :
Our radiant 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 Pede ?-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;
But those as sleep, and think not on their sins,
Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and
shins.

Quick. About, about;

Search Windsor-castle, elves, within and out:
Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room;
That it may stand till the perpetual doom,
In state as wholesome, as in state 'tis fit;
Worthy the owner, and the owner it.
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 sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,
Buckled below fair knight-hood's bending knee
Fairies use flowers for their charactery.
Away; 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. Heaven defend me from that Welch fairy! lest he transform me to a piece of cheese! Pist. Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'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.

Fal. Oh, oh, oh!

Come, will this wood take fire? [They burn him with their tapers.

Quick. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire! About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme; And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time. Eva. It is right; indeed he is full of lecheries and iniquity.

SONG.-Fye on sinful fantasy!

Fye 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, Till candles, and star-light, and moon-shine be out. 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? See you these, husband? do not these fair yokes Become the forest better than the town?

Ford. Now, sir, who's a cuckold now ?-Master Brook, Falstaff's a knave, a cuckoldy knave; here are his horns, master Brook: And, master Brook, he hath enjoyed nothing of Ford's but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of money; which must be paid to master Brook; his horses are arrested for it, master Brook.

Mrs. Ford. Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never meet. I will never take you for my love again, but I will always count you my deer.

Fal. I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass. Ford. Ay, and an ox too; both the proofs are extant. Fal. And these are not fairies? I was three or four times in the thought, they were not fairies: and yet

Eva. Seese is not good to give putter; your pelly is all putter.

Fal. Seese and putter! have I lived to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of English? This is enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking, through the realm.

Mrs. Page. Why, sir John, do you think, though we would have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders, and have given ourselves without scruple to hell, that ever the devil could have made you our delight?

Ford. What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax?
Mrs. Page. A puffed man?

Page. Old, cold, withered, and of intolerable entrails?

Ford. And one that is as slanderous as Satan?
Page. And as poor as Job?

Ford. And as wicked as his wife?

sack, and wine, and metheglins, and to drinkings, and Eva. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and swearings, and starings, pribbles and prabbles?

Fal. Well, I am your theme: you have the start Welch flannel: ignorance itself is a plummet o'er of me; I am dejected; I am not able to answer the me; use me as you will.

Ford. Marry, sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, to one master Brook, that you have cozened of money, to whom you should have been a pander: over and above that you have suffered, I think, to repay that money will be a biting affliction.

Mrs. Ford. Nay, husband, let that go to make amends:

Forgive that sum, and so we'll all be friends.

Ford. Well, here's my hand; all's forgiven at last. 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

Enter SLENDer.

Slen. Whoo, ho! ho! father Page!

[Aside.

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

Sten. Despatched!-I'll make the best in Glocestershire know on't; would I were hanged, la, else. Page. Of what, son?

Slen. I came yonder at Eton to marry mistress Anne 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 been Anne Page, would I might never stir, and 'tis a post-master's boy.

Page. Upon my life then you took the wrong. Slen. What need you tell me that? I think so, when the guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my I took a boy for a girl: If I had been married to powers, drove the grossness of the foppery into a re-him, for all he was in woman's apparel, I would not ceived belief, in despite of the teeth of all rhyme and have had him. reason, that they were fairies. See now, how wit may be made a Jack-a-lent, when 'tis upon ill employment. Eva. Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you.

Ford. Well said, fairy Hugh.

Eva And leave you your jealousies too, I pray you. Ford. I will never mistrust my wife again, till thou art able to woo her in good English.

Fal. Have I laid my brain in the sun, and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross o'er-reaching as this? Am I ridden with a Welch goat too? Shall I have a coxcomb of frize? 'Tis time I were choaked with a piece of toasted cheese.

Page. Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you, how you should know my daughter by her garments?

and

Slen. I went to her in white, and cry'd mum, and she cry'd budget, as Anne and I had appointed; yet it was not Anne, but a post-master's boy. Eva. Jeshu! master Slender, cannot you see but marry boys?

Page. O, I am vexed 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.

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Mrs. Page. Why, did you not 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?

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
thousand irreligious cursed hours,
Which forced marriage would have brought up
upon
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.

her.

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 us 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.

Of this play there is a tradition preserved by Mr. Rowe, that it was written at the command of queen Elizabeth, who was so delighted with the character of Falstaff, that she wished it to be diffused through more plays; but suspecting that it might pail by continued uniformity, directed the poet to diversify his manner, by shewing him in love. No task is harder than that of writing to the ideas of another. Shakspeare knew what the queen, if the story be true, seems not to have known-that by my real passion of tenderness, the selfish craft, the careless yuty, and the lazy luxury of Falstaff must have suffered so much abatement, that little of his former cast would have remanet. Falstaff could not love, but by ceasing to be Falstaff. He could only counterfeit love, and his professions could be prompted, not by the hope of pleasure, but of money. Thus the poet approached as near as he could to the work enjoined him; yet having, perhaps, in the former plays, completed his own idea, seems not to have been able to give Falstaff all his former power of entertainment.

This comedy is remarkable for the variety and number of the personages, who exhibit more characters appropriated and discriminated, than perhaps can be found in any other play. Whether Shakspeare was the first that produced upon the English stage the effect of language distorted and depraved by provincial or foreign pronunciation, I cannot certainly decide. This mode of forming ridiculous characters can confer praise only on him who originally discovered it, for it requires not much of either wit or judgment: its success must be derived almost wholly from the player, but its power in a skilful mouth, even he that despises it, is unable to resist.

The conduct of this drama is deficient; the action begins and ends often, before the conclusion, and the different parts might change places without inconvenience; but its general power, that power by which all works of genius shall finally be tried, is such, that perhaps it never yet had reader or spectator who did not think it too soon at the end.-JOHNSON,

TWELFTH NIGHT:

OR,

WHAT YOU WILL.

THERE is no edition of this play earlier than the first folio in 1623. Mr. Malone supposes, that it was produced in the year 1607; but there is no evidence either to support, or refute such a supposition. Mr. Chalmers conceives that it was written in 1613.-If any probable conjecture respecting its date may be derived from the merits of the work, I should have little hesitation in ranking this among our author's latest productions. It is marked by the ease and certainty of an experienced hand. There is nothing superfluous. Every passage tends to the effect designed. No part could be abstracted without material injury to the beauty of the whole. The serious portion of the comedy may have been taken from the seventh history of the fourth volume of Belleforest's Histoires Tragiques. The comic scenes and characters ap

pear to have been entirely Shakspeare's own. The com mentators have discovered that Ben Jonson designed to ridicule Twelfth Night, in Every Man out of his Humour.-Mitis says in Act 3. of that play," The argument of this comedy might have been of some other nature, as of a Duke to be in love with a Countess, and this Countess to be in love with the Duke's son, and the son in love with the lady's waitingmaid some such cross wooing, with a clown to their servingman, &c."-Where Mr. Steevens found the point of this passage, I am unable to say-in Twelfth Night there is no Countess in love with a Duke's son, nor any Duke's son in love with a waiting-maid.-"What is more to the purpose," says Mr. Gifford, Ben Jonson's play was written at least a dozen years before Twelfth Night appeared."

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

ORSINO, Duke of Illyria.

SEBASTIAN, a young gentleman, brother to Viola.
ANTONIO, a sea captain, friend to Sebastian.
A sea captain, friend to Viola.

VALENTINE, CURIO, gentlemen attending on the Duke.
Sir TOBY BELCH, uncle of Olivia.
Sir ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK.
MALVOLIO, Steward to Olivia.
FABIAN, Clown, servants to Olivia.

OLIVIA, a rich Countess.

VIOLA, in love with the Duke.
MARIA, Olivia's woman.

Lords, Priests, Sailors, Officers, Musicians,
and other Attendants.

SCENE, A City in ILLYRIA; and the Sea-coast near it.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-An Apartment in the Duke's Palace. Enter DUKE, CURIO, Lords; Musicians attending. Duke. If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die.That strain again ;-it had a dying fall: O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south, That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing, and giving odour.-Enough; no more; "Tis not so sweet now, as it was before. O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou! That, notwithstanding thy capacity

Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,

Of what validity and pitch soever,

But falls into abatement and low price,

Even in a minute! so full of shapes is fancy,
That it alone is high-fantastical.

Cur. Will you go hunt, my lord?
Duke.

What, Curio?

The hart.

Cur. Duke. Why, so I do, the noblest that I have: O when mine eyes did see Olivia first, Methought, she purg'd the air of pestilence;

That instant was I turn'd into a hart;

And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, [her?
E'er since pursue me.-How now? what news from
Enter VALENtine.

But from her handmaid do return this answer :
Val. So please my lord, I might not be admitted,
The element itself, till seven years' heat,
Shall not behold her face at ample view;
But, like a cloistress, she will veiled walk,
And water once a day her chamber round
With eye-offending brine: all this, to season
A brother's dead love, which she would keep fresh,
And lasting, in her sad remembrance.

Duke. O, she, that hath a heart of that fine frame,
To pay this debt of love but to a brother,
How will she love, when the rich, golden shaft,
Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else
That live in her! when liver, brain, and heart,
These sovereign thrones, are all supplied, and fill'd,
(Her sweet perfections,) with one self king!-
Away before me to sweet beds of flowers;
Love-thoughts lie rich, when canopied with bowers.

SCENE II.-The Sea-coast.
Enter VIOLA, Captain, and Sailors.

Vio. What country, friends, is this?
Cap.

[Exeunt.

Illyria, lady.

Vio. And what should I do in Illyria? My brother he is in Elysium. [sailors? Perchance, he is not drown'd.-What think you, Cap. It is perchance, that you yourself were saved. Vio. O my poor brother! and so, perchance, may [chance,

he be.
Cap. True, madam: and, to comfort you with
Assure yourself, after our ship did split,
When you, and that poor number saved with you,
Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother,
Most provident in peril, bind himself

(Courage and hope both teaching him the practice)
To a strong mast, that lived upon the sea;
Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back,
I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves,
So long as I could see.

Vio.

For saying so, there's gold:

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Cap. A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count That died some twelvemonth since; then leaving her In the protection of his son, her brother, Who shortly also died: for whose dear love, They say, she hath abjured the company And sight of men.

Vie.

O, that I served that lady :
And might not be delivered to the world,
Till I had made mine own occasion mellow,
What my estate is.

That were hard to compass;
Cap.
Because she will admit no kind of suit,
No, not the duke's.

Vie. There is a fair behaviour in thee, captain; And though that nature with a beauteous wall Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee I will believe, thou hast a mind that suits With this thy fair and outward character. I pray thee, and I'll pay thee bounteously, Conceal me what I am; and be my aid For such disguise as, haply, shall become The form of my intent. I'll serve this duke; Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him, It may be worth thy pains; for I can sing, And speak to him in many sorts of music, That will allow me very worth his service. What else may hap, to time I will commit; Only shape thou thy silence to my wit.

Cap. Be you his eunuch, and your mute I'll be; When my tongue blabs, then let mine eyes not see! Fio. I thank thee: Lead me on. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.-A Room in Olivia's House.

Enter Sir TOBY BELCH, and MARIA.

Sir To. What a plague means my niece, to take the death of her brother thus? I am sure, care's an enemy to life.

Mar. By my troth, sir Toby, you must come in earlier o'nights; your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours.

Sir To. Why, let her except before excepted. Mar. Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits of order.

Sir To. Confine? I'll confine myself no finer than I am: these clothes are good enough to drink in, and so be these boots too; an they be not, let them hang themselves in their own straps.

Mar. That quaffing and drinking will undo you: I heard my lady talk of it yesterday; and of a foolish knight, that you brought in one night here, to be

her wooer.

Sir To. Who? Sir Andrew Ague-cheek?

Mar. Ay, he.

Sir To. He's as tall a man as any's in Illyria. Mar. What's that to the purpose?

Sir To. Why he has three thousand ducats a year. Mar. Ay, but he'll have but a year in all these ducats; he's a very fool, and a prodigal.

Sir To. Fye, that you'll say so! he plays o' the viol-de-gambo, and speaks three or four languages word for word without book, and hath all the good gifts of nature.

Mar. He hath, indeed,-almost natural: for, besides that he's a fool, he's a great quarreller; and, but that he hath the gift of a coward to allay the gust he hath in quarrelling, 'tis thought among the prudent, he would quickly have the gift of a grave. Sir To. By this hand, they are scoundrels, and substractors, that say so of him. Who are they? Mar. They that add moreover, he's drunk nightly in your company.

Sir To. With drinking healths to my niece; I'll drink to her, as long as there is a passage in my throat, and drink in Illyria: He's a coward, and a coystril, that will not drink to my niece, till his brains turn o' the toe like a parish-top. What, wench? Castiliano-volto; for here comes Sir Andrew Ague-face.

Enter Sir ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK.

Sir And. Sir Toby Belch! how now, sir Toby
Sir To. Sweet sir Andrew?

Sir And. Bless you, fair shrew.
Mar. And you too, sir.

Sir To. Accost, sir Andrew, accost.

Sir And. What's that?

Sir To. My niece's chamber-maid.

[Belch?

Sir And. Good mistress Accost, I desire better acquaintance.

Mar. My name is Mary, sir.

Sir And. Good mistress Mary Accost,

Sir To. You mistake, knight: accost, is, front

her, board her, woo her, assail her.

Sir And. By my troth, I would not undertake her in this company. Is that the meaning of accost? Mar. Fare you well, gentlemen.

Sir To. An thou let part so, Sir Andrew, 'would thou might'st never draw sword again.

Sir And. An you part so, mistress, I would I might never draw sword again. Fair lady, do you think you have fools in hand?

Mar. Sir, I have not you by the hand.

Sir And. Marry, but you shall have; and here's my hand.

Mar. Now, sir, thought is free: I pray you, bring your hand to the buttery-bar, and let it drink. Sir And. Wherefore, sweet heart? what's your metaphor?

Mar. It's dry, sir.

Sir And. Why, I think so; I am not such an ass, but I can keep my hand dry. But what's your jest? Mar. A dry jest, sir.

Sir And. Are you full of them?

Mar. Ay, sir; I have them at my fingers' ends: marry, now I let go your hand, I am barren.

[Exit MARIA. Sir To. O knight, thou lack'st a cup of canary: When did I see thee so put down?

Sir And. Never in your life, I think, unless you see canary put me down: Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian, or an ordinary man has: but I am a great eater of beef, and, I believe,

that does harm to wit. my Sir To. No question.

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