How say you, reader, do not these inventions smack of Eastcheap? Are they not nimble, forgetive, evasive? Is not the humour of them elaborate, cogitabund, fanciful? Carry they not the true image and superscription of the father which begat them? Are they not steeped all over in character--subtle, profound, unctuous? Is not here the very effigies of the Knight? Could a counterfeit _Jack Falstaff_ come by these conceits? Or are you, reader, one who delights to drench his mirth in tears? You are, or, peradventure, have been a lover; a "dismissed bachelor," perchance, one that is "lass-lorn." Come, then, and weep over the dying bed of such a one as thyself. Weep with us the death of poor _Abraham Slender_. DAVY TO SHALLOW "Master Abram is dead, gone, your Worship, dead! Master Abram! Oh! good, your Worship, a's gone. A' never throve, since a' came from Windsor--'twas his death. I called him rebel, your Worship--but a' was all subject--a' was subject to any babe, as much as a king--a' turned, _like as it were the latter end of a lover's lute_--a' was all peace and resignment--a' took delight in nothing but his Book of Songs and Sonnets--a' would go to the Stroud side under the large beech tree, and sing, 'till 'twas quite pity of our lives to mark him; for his chin grew as long as a muscle.--Oh! a' sung his soul and body quite away--a' was lank as any greyhound, and had such a scent! I hid his love-songs among your Worship's law-books; for I thought, if a' could not get at them, it might be to his quiet; but a' snuffed them out in a moment. Good, your Worship, have the wise woman of Brentford secured--Master Abram may have been conjured--Peter Simple says, a' never looked up after a' sent for the wise woman.--Marry, a' was always given to look down afore his elders; a' might do it, a' was given to it--your Worship knows it; but then 'twas peak and pert with him, marry, in the turn of his heel.--A' died, your Worship, just about one, at the crow of the cock.--I thought how it was with him; for a' talked as quick, ay, marry, as glib as your Worship; and a' smiled, and looked at his own nose, and called 'Sweet Ann Page.' I asked him if a' would eat--so a' bad us commend him to his cousin Robert (a' never called your Worship so before) and bad us get hot meat, for a' would not say 'nay' to Ann again.[37] But a' never lived to touch it--a' began all in a moment to sing 'Lovers all, a Madrigall.' 'Twas the only song Master Abram ever learnt out of book, and clean by heart, your Worship--and so a' sung, and smiled, and looked askew at his own nose, and sung, and sung on, till his breath waxed shorter, and shorter, and shorter, and a' fell into a struggle and died. Alice Shortcake craves, she may make his shroud...." [37] Vide, _Merry Wives of Windsor_, latter part of 1st scene, 1st act. * * * * *