the news to him that he already has an assignation with the lady fixed for that very afternoon.  The second scene is laid in a room in Ford’s house.  The merry wives are assembled, and soon Falstaff is descried approaching.  Mrs. Ford entertains him for a few minutes, and then, according to their arrangement, Dame Quickly runs in to say that Mrs. Page is at the door.  Falstaff hastily hides himself behind a large screen, but the jest changes to earnest when Mrs. Page herself rushes in to announce that Ford, mad with jealousy and rage, has raised the whole household and is really coming to look for his wife’s lover.  The women quickly slip Falstaff into a huge basket and cover him with dirty linen, while Nannetta and Fenton who have been indulging in another stolen interview slip behind the screen.  Ford searches everywhere for Falstaff in vain, and is beginning to despair of finding him, when the sound of a kiss behind the screen arrests his attention.  He approaches it cautiously, and thrusts it aside only to find his daughter in Fenton’s arms.  Meanwhile Mrs. Ford calls on her servants.  Between them they manage to lift the gigantic basket, and, while she calls her husband to view the sight, carry it to the window and pitch it out bodily into the Thames.  The first scene of the third act is devoted to hatching a new plot to humiliate the fat knight, and the second shows us a moonlit glade in Windsor Forest, whither he has been summoned by the agency of Dame Quickly.  There all the characters assemble disguised as elves and fairies.  They give Falstaff a mauvais quart d’heure, and end by convincing him that his amorous wiles are useless against the virtue of honest burghers’ wives.  Meanwhile Nannetta has induced her father, by means of a trick, to consent to her marriage with Fenton, and the act ends with a song of rejoicing in the shape of a magnificent fugue in which every one joins.

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about ‘Falstaff’ is that it was written by a man eighty years old.  It is the very incarnation of youth and high spirits.  Verdi told an interviewer that he thoroughly enjoyed writing it, and one can well believe his words.  He has combined a schoolboy’s sense of fun with the grace and science of a Mozart.  The part-writing is often exceedingly elaborate, but the most complicated concerted pieces flow on as naturally as a ballad.  The glorious final fugue is an epitome of the work.  It is really a marvel of contrapuntal ingenuity, yet it is so full of bewitching melody and healthy animal spirits that an uncultivated hearer would probably think it nothing but an ordinary jovial finale.  In the last act Verdi strikes a deeper note.  He has caught the charm and mystery of the sleeping forest with exquisite art.  There is an unearthly beauty about this scene, which is new to students of Verdi.  In the fairy music, too, he reveals yet another side of his genius.  Nothing so delicate nor so rich in imaginative beauty has been written since the days of Weber.