He is like a
person recalled to the stage to perform an unaccustomed and
ungracious part; and in which we perceive only 'some faint sparks of
those flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the hearers in a
roar'. But the single scene with Doll Tearsheet, or Mrs. Quickly's
account of his desiring 'to eat some of housewife Keach's prawns',
and telling her 'to be no more so familiarity with such people', is
worth the whole of the MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR put together. Ford's
jealousy, which is the mainspring of the comic incidents, is
certainly very well managed. Page, on the contrary, appears to be
somewhat uxorious in his disposition; and we have pretty plain
indications of the effect of the characters of the husbands on the
different degrees of fidelity in their wives. Mrs. Quickly makes a
very lively go-between, both between Falstaff and his Dulcineas, and
Anne Page and her lovers, and seems in the latter case so intent on
her own interest as totally to overlook the intentions of her
employers. Her master, Doctor Caius, the Frenchman, and her fellow
servant Jack Rugby, are very completely described. This last-
mentioned person is rather quaintly commended by Mrs. Quickly as 'an
honest, willing, kind fellow, as ever servant shall come in house
withal, and I warrant you, no tell-tale, nor no breed-bate; his
worst fault is, that he is given to prayer; he is something peevish
that way; but nobody but has his fault.
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