she with eyes like stars"), and the Honor monologue, a superb piece of recitative with a characteristic accompaniment in which the clarinets and bassoons fairly talk, as they give the negative to the Knight’s sarcastic questions.  The most attractive numbers of the second scene are Mistress Ford’s reading of Falstaff’s letter, which is exquisitely lyrical, a quartet, a capella, for the four women ("He’ll surely come courting"), followed by a contrasting male quartet ("He’s a foul, a ribald thief"), the act closing with the two quartets offsetting each other, and enclosing an admirable solo for Fenton.

The second act opens with the interview between Dame Quickly and Falstaff, in which the instrumentation runs the whole gamut of ironical humor.  Then follows the scene between Ford and Falstaff, in which the very clink of the money, and Falstaff’s huge chuckles, are deliberately set forth in the orchestra with a realism which is the very height of the ridiculous, the scene closing with an expressive declamation by Ford ("Do I dream?  Or, is it reality?").  The second scene of the act is mainly devoted to the ludicrous incident of the buck-basket, which is accompanied by most remarkable instrumentation; but there are one or more captivating episodes; such as Dame Quickly’s description of her visit ("’Twas at the Garter Inn”) and Falstaff’s charming song ("Once I was Page to the Duke of Norfolk").

The third act opens in the Inn of the Garter, and discloses Falstaff soliloquizing upon his late disagreeable experiences:—­

  “Ho! landlord! 
  Ungrateful world, wicked world,
  Guilty world! 
  Landlord! a glass of hot sherry. 
  Go, go thy way, John Falstaff,
  With thee will cease the type
  Of honesty, virtue, and might.”

As the fat Knight soliloquizes and drinks his sack the orchestra takes part in a trill given out by piccolo, and gradually taken by one instrument after the other, until the whole orchestra is in a hearty laugh and shaking with string, brass, and wood wind glee.  Then enters Dame Quickly, mischief-maker, and sets the trap at Herne’s Oak in Windsor Forest, into which Falstaff readily falls.  The closing scene is rich with humor.  It opens with a delightful love-song by Fenton ("From those sweet lips a song of love arises").  The conspirators enter one after the other, and at last Falstaff, disguised as the sable hunter.  The elves are summoned, and glide about to the delicious fairy music accompanying Nannetta’s beautiful song ("While we dance in the moonlight").  From this point the action hastens to the happy denouement, and the work concludes with a fugue which is imbued with the very spirit of humor and yet is strictly constructed.  While the vocal parts are extraordinary in their declamatory significance, the strength of the opera lies in the instrumentation, and its charm in the delicious fun and merriment which pervades it all and is aptly expressed in the closing lines:—­