Believe it, Page, he speaks fenfe. [Exit Piftol. Ford. I will be patient; I will find out this. Nym. And this is true: I like not the humour of lying; he hath wrong'd me in fome humours: I fhould have born the humour'd letter to her; but I have a fword, and it fhall bite upon my neceffity 'He loves your wife; there's the fhort and the long.My name is Corporal Nym; I fpeak, and I avouch; 'tis true-my name is Nym, and Falstaff loves your Wife. Adieu; I love not the humour of bread and cheefe: adieu. [Exit Nym. Page. The humour of it, quoth a'! here's a fellow, frights humour out of its wits. Ford. I will feck out Falstaff. Page. I never heard fuch a drawling, affecting rogue. Ford. If I do find it: well. 2 Page. I will not believe fuch a Cataian, tho' the prieit o' th' town commended him for a true man. Ford. 'Twas a good fenfible fellow-well. Away, Sir corporal. I have a fword, and it shall he loves your wife, &c.] WARBURTON. I do not fee the difficulty of this paffage: no phrafe is more com SCENE mon than you may, upon a need, thus. Nym, to gain credit, fays, that he is above the mean office of carrying love-letters; he has nobler means of living; be bas a ford, and upon his neceffity, that is, when his need drives him to unlawful expedients, his sword shall bite. 2 I will not believe fuch a Cataian.] Mr. Theobald has here a pleasant note, as ufual. This is a piece of fatire that did not want its force at the time of this play's appearing; tho' the biftory on which it is grounded is become obfolete. And then tells a long ftory of Martin Frobisher attempting the north-west paffage, and bringing home a black-ftone, as SCENE IV. Mrs. Page and Mrs. Ford come forwards. Page. How now, Meg? Mrs. Page. Whither go you, George?-hark you. Mrs. Ford. How now, fweet Frank, why art thou melancholy? Ford. I melancholy! I am not melancholy.-- Get you home, go. Mrs. Ford. Faith, thou haft fome crotchets in thy head now-Will you go, mistress Page? Mrs. Page. Have with you. You'll come to din as he thought, full of gold-ore: that it proved not fo, and that therefore Cataians and Frobishers became by-words for vain boafters.- -The whole is an idle dream. All the mystery of the term Cataian, for a liar, is only this. China was anciently called Cataia or Cathay, by the first adventurers that travelled thither; fuch as M. Paulo, and our Mandeville, who told fuch incredible wonders of this new difcovered empire, (in which they have not been outdone even by the Jefuits themselves, who followed them) that a notorious liar was ufually called a Cataian. WARBURTON. Mr. Theobald and Dr. Warburton have both told their stories with confidence, I am afraid, very difproportionate to any evidence that can be produced. That Cataian was a word of hatred or contempt is plain, but that it fignified a boafter or a liar has not been proved. Sir Toby in Twelfth-Night fays of the Lady Olivia to her maid thy Lady's a Cataian; but there is no reafon to think he means to call her liar. Befides, Page intends to give Ford a reason why Piftol fhould not be credited. He therefore does not fay, I would not believe fuch a liar: for that he is a liar is yet to be made probable: but he says, I would not believe fuch a Cataian on any teflimony of his veracity. That is: This fellow has fuch an odd appearance; is fo unlike a man civi lized, and taught the duties of life, that I cannot credit him. To be a foreigner was always in England, and I fuppofe every where elfe, a reason of diflike. So Pifiol calls Slender in the first act, a mountain foreigner; that is, a fellow uneducated and of grofs behaviour; and again in his anger calls Bardolph, Hungarian wight. ner, ner, George?-Look, who comes yonder: fhe fhall be our meffenger to this paultry Knight. [Afide to Mrs. Ford. Enter Miftrefs Quickly. Mrs. Ford. Truft me, I thought on her, fhe'll fit it. Mrs. Page. You are come to fee my daughter Anne? Quick. Ay, forfooth; and, I pray, how does good miftrefs Anne? Mrs. Page. Go in with us, and fee; we have an hour's talk with you. [Ex. Mrs, Page, Mrs. Ford, and Mrs. Quickly. SCENE V. Page. How now, mafter Ford? Ford. You heard what this knave told me, did you not? Page. Yes; and you heard what the other told me? Ford. Do you think there is truth in them? Page. Hang 'em, flaves; I do not think, the Knight would offer it; but these, that accufe him in his intent towards our wives, are a yoak of his difcarded men; very rogues, now they be out of fer vice. 3 Ford. Were they his men? Page. Marry, were they. Ford. I like it never the better for that. Does he lye at the Garter? Page. Ay, marry, does he. If he fhould intend his voyage towards my wife, I would turn her loofe to him; and what he gets more of her than fharp words, let it lye on my head. Ford. I do not mifdoubt my wife, but I would be 3 Very rogues, now they be out of fervice.] A rogue is a wanderer or vagabond, and, in its confequential fignification, a cheat. loth loth to turn them together; a man may be too confident; I would have nothing lye on my head; I cannot be thus fatisfy'd. Page. Look, where my ranting Host of the Garter comes; there is either liquor in his pate, or money in his purfe, when he looks fo merrily. How now, mine Hoft? SCENE VI. Enter Hoft and Shallow. Hoft. How, now, bully Rock? thou'rt a gentleman; cavalero-justice, I say. Shal. I follow, mine Hoft, I follow. Good even, and twenty, good master Page. Master Page, will you go with us? we have sport in hand. Hoft. Tell him, cavaliero-juftice; tell him, bully Rock. Shal. Sir, there is a fray to be fought between Sir Hugh the Welsh priest, and Caius the French doctor. Ford. Good mine Hoft o' th' Garter, a word with you. Hoft. What fay'ft thou, bully Rock? [They go a little afide. Shal. [To Page.] Will you go with us to behold it? my merry Hoft hath had the measuring of their Weapons, and, I think, he hath appointed them contrary places; for, believe me, I hear, the parfon is no jester. Hark, I will tell you what our sport shall be. Hoft. Haft thou no fuit against my Knight, my gueft-cavalier? 4 Ford. None, I proteft; but I'll give you a pottle of burnt fack to give me recourfe to him, and tell im, my name is Brook; only for a jest. Hoft. Quarto's; and thus moft certainly the Poet wrote. We need no íi better Hoft. My hand, bully. Thou fhalt have egrefs and regrefs; faid I well? and thy name fhall be Brook. It is a merry Knight. Will you go an-heirs? Shal. Have with you, mine hoft. Page. I have heard, the Frenchman hath good skill in his rapier. Shal. Tut, Sir, I could have told you more. In thefe times you ftand on distance, your paffes, ftoccado's, and I know not what. 'Tis the heart, mafter Page; 'tis here, 'tis here. I have seen the time with my long fword, I would have made you four tall fellows skip like rats. Hoft. Here, boys, here, here: fhall we wag? Page. Have with you; I had rather hear them fcold than fight. [Exeunt Hoft, Shallow and Page. Ford. Tho' Page be a fecure fool', and ftand fo firmly better Evidence, than the Pun that Falstaff anon makes on the Name, when Brook fends him fome burnt Sack. Such Brooks are welcome to me, that overflow with fuch Liquor. The Players, in their Editions, altered the Name to Broom. THEOBALD. 5 Will you go AN HEIRS?] This nonfenfe is fpoken to Shal low. We fhould read, Will you go ON, HERIS? i. e. Will you go on, Mafter. Heris, an old Scotch word for mafter. WARBURTON. 6 My long fword.] Not long before the introduction of rapiers, the fwords in ufe were of an enormous length, and fometimes raised with both hands. Shallow, with an old man's vanity, cenfures the innovation by which lighter weapons were in troduced, tells what he could once. have done with his long feverd, and ridicules the terms and rules of the rapier. And fand fo firmly on Lis Wife's Frailty.] No furely; Page food tightly to the opinion of her Honefty, and would not entertain a Thought of her being frail. I have therefore ventúred to fubftitute a Word corefpondent to the Senfe requir'd; . and, one, which our Poet frequently ufes, to fignify conjugal faith. THEOBALD. fland fo firmly on bis wife's frailty.] Thus all the copies. But Mr. Theobald has no concep tion how any man could ftand firmly on his wife's frailty. And why? Because he had no conception how he could ftand upon it. without knowing what it was. But if I tell a ftranger, that the bridge he is about to cross is rot ten, |