Eva. Elves, lift your names; filence, you airy toys Cricket, to Windfor chimneys fhalt thou leap: Where fires thou find'st unrak'd, and hearths unswept, There pinch the maids as blue as bilbery.

Our radiant Queen hates fluts and fluttery.

Fal. They're fairies; he, that speaks to them, fhall die.

I'll wink and couch; no man their works muft eye. [Lyes down upon his face. Eva. Where's Pede? go you, and where you find

a maid,

That, ere she sleep, hath thrice her prayers faid,
Rein up the organs of her fantasy ';
Sleep the as found as careless infancy;

But

commended themselves to the protection of heaven. So Shakepeare makes one, on his lying down, fay,

From fairies, and the tempters of the night,

Protect us, heav'n!

As this is the fenfe, let us fee how the common reading expreffes it;

Raife up the organs of her fantafie,

i. e. inflame her imagination with fenfual ideas; which is just the contrary to what the Poet would have the speaker fay. We cannot therefore but conclude he wrote,

REIN up the organs of her fan

tafie,

i. e. curb them, that he be no more difturbed by irregular imaginations, than children in their fleep. For, he adds immediately,

Sleep fhe as found as careless infancy. So in the Tempest,

But thofe, that fleep, and think not on their fins,

Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, fhoulders, fides and

fhins.

Quic. About, about;

Search Windfor caftle, elves, within and out.
Strew good luck, ouphes, on every facred room,
That it may ftand 'till the perpetual Doom,
In ftate as wholfom, as in ftate 'tis fit;
Worthy the owner, as the owner it 3.

The feveral chairs of Order look your fcour,
With juice of balm and ev'ry precious flow'r :
Each fair Inftalment Coat and fev'ral Creft,
With loyal blazon evermore be bleft!
And nightly-meadow-fairies, look, you fing,
Like to the Garter-compass, in a ring :
Th' expreffure that it bears, green let it be,
More fertile-fresh than all the field to fee;
And, Hony Soit Qui Mal y Penfe write,

In emrold-tuffs, flow'rs purple, blue and white,

Like

Give not dalliance too much the till the general deftruction. But

wholfom here fignifies integer. He wishes the caftle may ftand in its prefent flate of perfection, which the following words plainly fhew,

as in flate 'tis fit. WARBURTON. 3 Worthy the owner, AND the owner it.] And cannot be the true reading. The context will not allow it; and his court to Queen Elizabeth directs us to another,

Like faphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,
Buckled below fair Knight-hood's bending knee;
Fairies ufe flow'rs for their charactery 4.
Away, difperfe; but, 'till 'tis one o'clock,
Our dance of cuftom round about the Oak
Of Herne, the hunter, let us not forget.

}

Eva. Pray you, lock hand in hand, yourselves in order fet:

And twenty glow-worms fhall our lanthorns be,
To guide our measure round about the tree.
But ftay, I fmell a man of middle earth .

Fal. Heav'ns defend me from that Welch fairy, left he transform me to a piece of cheese!

Eva. Vild worm, thou waft o'er-look'd ev'n in thy birth.

PLE, blue and white, Like faphire, pearl, AND rich embroidery,] These lines are most miferably corrupted. In the words,-Flowers purple, blue and white,the purple is left uncompared. To remedy this, the Editors, who feem to have been fenfible of the imperfection of the comparison, read, AND rich embroidery; that is, according to them, as the blue and white flowers are compared to faphire and pearl, the purple is compared to rich embroidery. Thus inftead of mending one falfe flep they have made two, by bringing faphire, pearl and rich embroidery under one predi

cament.

4 The lines were wrote

thus by the Poet,

In emrold-tuffs, flow'rs PUR-
FLED, blue and white,
Like faphire, pearl, IN rich em-
broidery,

i. e. let there be blue and white
flow'rs worked on the green-
fword, like faphire and pearl in

5 --

of middle earth.] Spirits are fuppofed to inhabit the ethereal regions, and fairies to dwell under ground; men therefore are in a middle station.

Quic. With trial-fire touch me his finger-end;
If he be chafte, the flame will back defcend,
And turn him to no pain; but if he start,
It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.

Eva. A trial, come.

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

Fal. Oh, oh, oh!

Quic. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in defire; About him, fairies, fing a fcornful rhime:

And, as you trip, ftill pinch him to your time.

6

Eva. It is right, indeed; he is full of leacheries and iniquity.

8

The SON G.

Fie on finful phantafy,

Fie on luft and luxury!
Luft is but a bloodish fire",
Kindled with unchafte defire,

Fed in heart, whofe flames afpire,
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 ftar-light, and moon-fhine be out.

During this Song, they pinch him. Doctor Caius comes one way, and fteals away a boy in green; Slender another way, and he takes away a boy in white;

Eva. It is right, indeed,-] This fhort Speech, which, is very much in Character for Sir Hugh, I have inferted from the old Quarto's.

Luft is but a bloody fire,] So the old copies. I once thought it fhould be read,

Luft is but a cloudy fire, but Sir T. Hanmer reads with lefs violence,

Luft is but i'th' blood a fire. 8 During this Song,] This Direction I thought proper to infert from the old Quarto's.

Nn4

THEOBALD.

and

and Fenton comes, and steals way Mrs. Ann Page. A noife of hunting is made within. All the Fairies run away. Falstaff pulls off his Buck's head, and rifes.

SCENE V.

Enter Page, Ford, &c. They lay hold on him. Page. Nay, do not fly; I think, we've watcht you

now;

Will none but Herne the hunter ferve your turn? Mrs. Page. I pray you, come; hold up the jeft no

higher.

Now, good Sir John, how like you Windfor wives? See you thefe, hufbands? do not these fair Yoaks 2 Become the Foreft better than the Town?

Ford. Now, Sir, who's a cuckold now? mafter Brook, Falstaff's a knave, a cuckoldly knave, here are his horns, mafter Brook; and, mafter Brook, he hath enjoy'd nothing of Ford's but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of mony, which must be paid to mafter Brook; his horfes are arrested for it, mafter 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 afș.

9 See you these hufbands? Do not thefe fair Oaks Become the Foreft better than the Town] What Oaks, in the Name of Nonfepfe, do our fagacious Editors make Mrs. Page talk of? The Oaks in the Park? But there was no Intention of tranfplanting them into the Town.

Talis infcitie me quidem pudet, pigetque. The firft Folio reads, as the Poet intended, Yoaks: and

Mrs. Page's Meaning is this. She fpeaks it to her own, and Mrs. Ford's Hufband, and as them, if they fee the Horns in Falstaff's Hand; and then, alluding to them as the Types of Cuckoldom, puts the Queftion, whether thofe Yoaks are not more proper in the Forefts than in the Town, i. e. than in their Families, as a Reproach to them. THEOBALD.

Ford.