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" Mrs. Page is a sprightly, sensible, quick-witted woman, who
deserves her husband's confidence — and has it — by her faithful,
true-hearted allegiance to him ; who secures and preserves his
love by her cheerful spirits, and blithe good-humour ; and who
seconds her husband in all his hospitable, peace-making schemes ;
for, at the end of the play, she says, ' Let us every one go home,
and laugh this sport o'er by a country fire — Sir John and all.' In
short, they are a perfectly worthy couple — worthy of each other, in
their good temper, good faith, and excellent good sense.
" Slender comes out in this play with extraordinary force. He
and Falstaff are the persons who at once present themselves to the
imagination, when it is referred to. What a speaking portrait we
have of Slender in the conversation between Mrs. Quickly and his
man Simple ! His * little wee face, with a little yellow beard — a
cane-coloured beard.' He is a 'tall fellow, too, of his hands, as
any is, between this and his head.' The humorous, quaint, and
witty old Fuller says : * Your men that are built six stories high have
seldom much in their cockloft.' But Master Slender hath earned
a reputation, at all events, with his serving-man ; he hath * fought
with a warrener.' And he doth not hide his pretensions to valour,
especially from the women, or his station in society. He takes
care that Anne Page shall know he * keeps three men and a boy,
till his mother be dead ; ' and that he lives like a ' poor gentleman
born.' He says this before Anne, not to her.
" It is interesting to note the distinction that Shakespeare has
made in drawing the two fools. Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Master
Slender. The difference between them seems to be that Andrew
is stupid, awkward, and incompetent, and fails in all cases from
lack of ideas to help him in his need : if he had these, his stock of
conceit would carry him through and over anything ; but he is a
coward as w^ell as a fool. Slender possesses not only the deficien-
cies of Aguecheek, but he is bashful, even to sheepishness. This
quality makes him uniformly dependent on one or another for sup-
port, .. . and yet, withal, in little non-essentials of conduct and
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