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PERSONS REPRESENTED.

Sir JOHN FALSTAFF

FENTON.

SHALLOW, a country justice

SLENDER, cousin to Shallow.
Mr. FORD,

Mr. PAGE, S

two gentlemen dwelling at Windsor.

WILLIAM PAGE, a boy, son to Mr. Page.
Sir HUGH EVANS, a Welch parson.
Dr. CAIUS, a French physician.

Host of the Garter Inn.

BARDOLPH,

[blocks in formation]

Mrs. ANNE PAGE, her daughter, in love with Fenton. Mrs. QUICKLY, servant to Dr. Caius.

Servants to Page, Ford, &c.

SCENE, Windsor; and the parts adjacent.

[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small]

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-Windsor. Before PAGE's house.

Enter Jus

tice SHALLOW, SLENDER, and Sir HUGH EVANS.

Shallow.

SIR Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star-chamber matter of it: If he were twenty sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, Esquire.

Slen. In the county of Gloster, justice of peace, and

coram.

Shal. Ay, cousin Slender, and Cust-alorum.

Slen. Ay, and ratolorum too; and a gentleman born, master parson; who writes himself armigero; in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation, armigero.

Shal. Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three hundred years.

Slen. All his successors, gone before him, have done't; and all his ancestors, that come after him, may they may give the dozen white luces in their coat.

Shal. It is an old coat.

Eva. The dozen white louses do become an old coat well; it agrees well, passant: it is a familiar beast to man, and signifies-love.

Shal. The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an old coat.'

Slen. I may quarter, coz ?

Shal. You may, by marrying.

[1] Our author here alludes to the arms of Sir Thomas Lucy, who is said to have prosecuted him in the younger part of his life for a misdemeanor, and who is supposed to be pointed at under the character of Justice Shallow. The text, however, by some carelesness of the printer or transcriber, has been so corrupted, that the passage, as it stands at present, seems inexplicable. MALONE.

Mr. William Oldys (Norrøy King at Arms, and well known from the share he had in compiling the Biographia Britannica, among the collections which he left for a Life of Shakespeare) observes, that there was a very aged gentleman living in the neighbourhood of Stratford, (where he died fifty years since) who had not only heard, from several old people in that town, of Shakespeare's transgression, but could

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