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- 214 Appendix
laughing-stogs to other men's humours ; I desire you in friendship,
and I will one way or other make you amends. He has made us
his vlouting-stog ; and let us knog our prains together, to be re-
venge on this same scall, scurvy, cogging companion, the host of
the Garter.' And the way in which he revenges himself is — like
a practical teacher of the 'Sermon on the Mount' — to come and
put the host on his guard against trusting the Germans with his
horses. . . .
" Dame Quickly makes herself necessary to all, by reason of her
fussiness, and conspicuous by reason of her folly. . . . She med-
dles in every one's affair : she acts the go-between for Falstaff with
the two merry wives ; she courts Anne Page for her master, under-
taking the same office for Slender. She favours the suit of Fenton ;
and if the Welsh parson had turned an eye of favour upon the yeo-
man's pretty daughter, she would have played the hymeneal Hebe
to him too. Her whole character for mere busy-bodying is com-
prised inthat one speech when Fenton gives her the ring for his
* sweet Nan.' After he has gone out, she says : 'Now heaven send
thee good fortune ! A kind heart he hath ; a woman would run
through fire and water for such a kind heart. But yet, I would my
master had Mistress Anne ; or I would Master Slender had her ; or,
in sooth, I would Master Fenton had her. I will do what I can for
them all three : for so I have promised, and I will be as good as my
word ; but speciously for Master Fenton.' . . . Like a true potterer,
she interferes in every conversation, and elbows herself in wherever
she sees business going on. Sir Hugh cannot even examine the
little boy Page in his Latin exercise but she must put in her com-
ments. .. .
" 7"he Merry Wives of Windsor is all movement and variety from
the first scene to the very last ; and the last ends in a rich piece of
romance. Dr. Johnson is right in his estimate when he says, ' Its
general power, that power by which 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 an end.' "
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