nature. Could he much lower the character of that man? Another and a feebler dramatist might have given us the Falstaff of 'The Merry Wives' as an imitation of the Falstaff of 'Henry IV.;' but Shakspere must have abided by the one Falstaff that he had made after such a wondrous fashion of truth and originality. for such an exhibition? In truth the Falstaff | different from other men, but altogether in of 'The Merry Wives,' especially as we have him in the first sketch, is not at all adroit, and not very witty. Read the very first scene in which Falstaff appears in this comedy. To Shallow's reproaches he opposes no weapon but impudence, and that not of the sublime kind which so astounds us in the 'Henry IV.' Read further the scene in which he discloses his views upon the Merry Wives to Pistol and Nym. Here Pistol is the wit: And then Justice Shallow-never to be forgotten Justice Shallow!-The Shallow "Fal. My honest lads, I will tell you what I who will bring Falstaff "before the council" is not the Shallow who with him "heard the chimes at midnight." The Shallow of the sketch of The Merry Wives' has not even Shallow's trick of repetition. In the amended Play this characteristic may be recognised; Fal. Sometimes the beam of her view gilded but in the sketch there is not a trace of it. my foot, sometimes my portly belly. For example, in the first scene of the finished Pist. Then did the sun on dunghill shine." play we find Shallow talking somewhat like There can be no doubt, however, that, when the great Shallow, especially about the fallow the comedy was remodelled, which certainly greyhound; in the sketch this passage is was done after the production of 'Henry IV.,' | altogether wanting. In the sketch he says the character of Falstaff was much heightened. | to Page, "Though he be a knight, he shall But still the poet kept him far behind the not think to carry it so away. Master Page, Falstaff of 'Henry IV.' Falstaff's descriptions, I will not be wronged." In the finished play first to Bardolph and then to Brook, of his we have, "He hath wronged me; indeed, he buckbasket adventure, are amongst the best hath; at a word he hath: believe me; things in the comedy, and they are very Robert Shallow, esquire, saith he is wronged." slightly altered from the original sketch. And Bardolph too! Could it be predicated But compare them with any of the racy that the Bardolph of a comedy which was passages of the Falstaff of the Boar's Head, produced after the 'Henry IV.' would want and after the comparison we feel ourselves those "meteors and exhalations" which in the presence of a being of far lower powers characterize the Bardolph who was a standing of intellect than the Falstaff "unimitated, joke to Falstaff and the Prince? Would his unimitable." Is this acknowledged inferiority zeal cease to "burn in his nose?" Absolutely, of the Falstaff of 'The Merry Wives' most in the first sketch, there is not the slightest easily reconciled with the theory that he was allusion to that face which ever "blushed produced before or after the Falstaff of the extempore." One mention, indeed, there is 'Henry IV.?' That Elizabeth might have in the complete play of the "red face," and suggested 'The Merry Wives,' originally, one supposed allusion of "Scarlet and John." upon some traditionary tale of Windsor- The commentators have wished to show that that it might have been acted in the gallery Bardolph in both copies is called "a tinderwhich she built at Windsor, and which still box" on account of his nose; but this is not bears her name-we can understand; but very clear. And then Pistol is not the we cannot reconcile the belief that Shakspere magnificent bully of 'The Second Part of produced the Falstaff of 'The Merry Wives' Henry IV.,' and of Henry V.' He has after the Falstaff of 'Henry IV.' with our "affectations," as Sir Hugh mentions, and unbounded confidence in the habitual power speaks "in Latin," as Slender has it;of such a poet. To him Falstaff was a thing but he is here literally "a tame cheater," of reality. He had drawn a man altogether but not without considerable cleverness. "Why, then the world's mine oyster" is essentially higher than the obscure bombast of the real Pistol. Of Mistress Quickly we have already spoken as to the circumstances in which she is placed; and these circumstances are so essentially different that we can scarcely recognise any marked similarity of character in the original sketch. Having, then, seen the great and insuperable difficulties which belong to the theory that "The Merry Wives of Windsor' was written after the histories, let us consider what difficulties, both of situation and character, present themselves under the other theory, that the comedy was produced before the histories. First, is it irreconcileable with the tradition referring to Queen Elizabeth? It is not so, if we adopt the tradition as related by Dennis -this comedy was written by Queen Elizabeth's command, and finished in fourteen days. This statement of the matter is plain and simple; because it is disembarrassed of those explanations and inferences which never belong to any popular tradition, but are superadded by ingenious persons who have a theory to establish. We can perfectly understand how 'The Merry Wives of Windsor, as we have it in the first sketch, might have been produced by Shakspere in a fortnight; -and how such a slight and lively piece, containing many local allusions, and perhaps some delineations of real characters, might have furnished the greatest solace to Elizabeth some seven or eight years before the end of the sixteenth century, after mornings busily employed in talking politics with Leicester, or in translating Boetius in her own private chamber. The manners throughout, and without any disguise, are those of Elizabeth's own time. Leave out the line in the amended play of "the mad Prince and Poins," and the line in the sketch about "the wild Prince killing his father's deer," and the whole play (taken apart from the histories) might with much greater propriety be acted with the costume of the age of Elizabeth. It is for this reason, most probably, that we find so little of pure poetry either in the sketch or the finished performance. As Shakspere placed his characters in his own country, with the manners of his own days, he made them speak like ordinary human beings, showing -deeds and language such as men do use, And persons such as Comedy would choose, When she would show an image of the times, And sport with human follies, not with crimes." We may believe, therefore, the tradition (without adopting the circumstances which make it difficult of belief), and accept the theory that 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' was written before the 'Henry IV.' Secondly, is the theory that the comedy was produced before the histories, irreconcileable with the contradictory circumstances which render the other theory so difficult of admission? Assuming that the comedy was written before the histories, it can be read without any violence to our indelible recollections of the situations of the characters in the 'Henry IV.' and 'Henry V.' It must be read with a conviction that, if there be any connection of the action at all, it is a very slight one—and that this action precedes the Henry IV.' by some indefinite period. Then, the Falstaff who in the quiet shades of Windsor did begin to perceive he was "made an ass" had not acquired the experience of the city, for before he knew Hal he "knew nothing;"-then the fair maid Quickly, who afterwards contrived to have a husband and be a poor widow without changing her name, knew no higher sphere than the charge of Dr. Caius's laundry and kitchen ;—then Pistol was not an ancient, certainly had not married the quondam Quickly, had not made the dangerous experiment of jesting with Fluellen, and occasionally talked like a reasonable being;-then Shallow had some unexplained business which took him from Glostershire to Windsor, travelled without his man Davy, had not lent a thousand pounds to Sir John Falstaff, and was not quite so silly and so delightful as when he had drunk "too much sack at supper" toasting "all the cavaleroes about London ;"—then, lastly, Bardolph was not "master corporate Bardolph," and certainly Nym and he had not been hanged. * Ben Jonson, Prologue to 'Every Man in his Humour.' Thirdly, does the theory of the production | common to the First Part of Henry IV.' of The Merry Wives of Windsor' before and 'The Merry Wives of Windsor;' for in 'Henry IV.' and 'Henry V.' furnish a proper the original copy of 'Henry IV., Part I.,' the solution of the remarkable inferiority in the person who stands amongst the modern list comedy of several of the characters which are of characters as Quickly is invariably called common to both? If we accept the opinion the Hostess. If the Falstaff, then, of 'Henry that the Falstaff, the Shallow, the Quickly, IV.' were originally Oldcastle, we have only the Pistol, Bardolph, and Nym, of 'The Bardolph left in common to the two dramas. Merry Wives,' were all originally con- Was Bardolph originally called so in 'Henry ceived by the poet before the characters IV., Part I.'? When Poins proposes to the with similar names in the 'Henry IV.' and Prince to go to Gadshill, he says, in the 'Henry V.;' and that, after they had been in original copy, "I have a jest to execute that some degree adopted in the historical plays, I cannot manage alone,-Falstaff, Harvey, Shakspere remodelled 'The Merry Wives,' Rossil, and Gadshill shall rob these men," &c. and heightened the resemblances of character We now read, "Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto, and which the resemblances of name implied,- Gadshill," &c. It has been conjectured that the inferiority in several of these characters, Harvey and Rossil were the names of actors; especially in the sketch, will be accounted but, as Oldcastle remains where we now read for, without assuming, with Johnson, that Falstaff in one place of the original copy, "the poet approached as near as he could to might not in the same way Bardolph have the work enjoined him; yet, having perhaps been originally Harvey or Rossil? This in the former play completed his own idea, point, however, is not material. If Shakspere seems not to have been able to give Falstaff were compelled, by a strong expression of all his former powers of entertainment." public opinion, to remove the name of Johnson's opinion proceeds upon the very Oldcastle from the 'First Part of Henry IV.,' just assumption that continuations are, for the name of Falstaff was ready to his hand the most part, inferior to original conceptions. as a substitute. He had drawn a knight, fat | But 'The Merry Wives' could not have been and unscrupulous, as he had represented proposed as a continuation of the 'Henry Oldcastle, but far his inferior in wit, humour, IV.' and the 'Henry V.,' even if it had been inexhaustible merriment, presence of mind, written after those plays. If it were written and intellectual activity. The transition was after the histories, the author certainly not inconsistent from the Falstaff of 'The mystified all the new circumstances as Merry Wives' to the Falstaff of 'Henry IV.' compared with those which had preceded The character, when Shakspere remodelled them, for the purpose of destroying the idea the first sketch of the comedy, required some of continuation. This appears to us too elevation;-but it still might stand at a long violent an assumption. But no other can be distance, without offence to an audience who maintained. To attribute such interminable knew that the inferior creation was first contradictions to negligence is to assume produced. With Falstaff Shakspere might that Shakspere was not only the greatest have transferred Bardolph to the First Part of poets, but of blunderers. of Henry IV.,' but materially altered. The base Hungarian wight who would "the spigot wield" had, as a tapster, made his nose a "fiery kitchen" to roast malt-worms; and he was fit to save him "a thousand marks in links and torches." When, further, Falstaff had completely superseded Oldcastle in the 'First Part of Henry IV.,' Shakspere might, have adopted Pistol, and Shallow, and Quickly in the Second Part,-but greatly changed;and, lastly, have introduced Nym to the And now we must hazard a conjecture. It has been attempted to show that the Falstaff of the 'First Part of Henry IV.' was originally called Oldcastle*. If that were the case, and the balance of evidence is in favour of that opinion, the whole matter seems to us clearer. Let it be remembered that Falstaff and Bardolph are the only characters that are *Sce Notice of Sir John Oldcastle,' a play by some attributed to Shakspere, Book VI. chap. 2. 'Henry V.' unchanged. All this being | the belief in the progression of that extraaccomplished, he would naturally have ordinary intellect, which acquired greater remodelled the first sketch of "The Merry vigour the more its power was exercised. Wives,'-making the relations between the characters of the comedy and of the histories closer, but still of purpose keeping the situations sufficiently distinct. He thus for ever connected 'The Merry Wives' with the historical plays. The Falstaff of the comedy must now belong to the age of Henry IV.; but to be understood he must, we venture to think, be regarded as the embryo Falstaff. We request that it may be borne in mind that the entire argument which we have thus advanced is founded upon a conviction that the original sketch, as published in the quarto of 1602, is an authentic production of our poet. Had no such sketch existed, we must have reconciled the difficulties of believing 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' to have been produced after 'Henry IV.' and Henry V. as we best might have done. Then we must have acknowledged that the characters of Falstaff and Shallow and Quickly were the same in the comedy and the 'Henry IV.,' though represented under different circumstances. Then we must have believed that the contradictory situations were to be explained by the determination of Shakspere boldly to disregard the circumstances which resulted from his compliance with the commands of Elizabeth-" to show Falstaff in love." But that sketch being preserved to us, it is much easier, we think, to believe that it was produced before the histories; and that the characters were subsequently heightened, and more strikingly delineated, to assimilate them to the characters of the histories. After all, we have endeavoured, whilst we have expressed our own belief, fairly to present both sides of the question. The point, we think, is of interest to the lovers of Shakspere; for, inferring that the comedy is a continuation of the history, the inferiority of the Falstaff of "The Merry Wives' to the Falstaff of 'Henry IV.' implies a considerable abatement of the poet's skill. On the other hand, the conviction that the sketch of the comedy preceded the history, that it was an early play, and that it was subsequently remodelled, is consistent with Rightly to appreciate this comedy, it is, we conceive, absolutely necessary to dissociate it from the historical plays of 'Henry IV.' and 'Henry V.' Whether Shakspere produced the original sketch of 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' before those plays, and remodelled it after their appearance,- -or whether he produced both the original sketch and the finished performance when his audiences were perfectly familiar with the Falstaff, Shallow, Pistol, Nym, Bardolph, and Mistress Quickly of 'Henry IV.' and 'Henry V.'-it is perfectly certain that he did not intend 'The Merry Wives' as a continuation. It is impossible, however, not to associate the period of the comedy with the period of the histories. For although the characters which are common to all the dramas act in the comedy under very different circumstances, and are, to our minds, not only different in their moods but in some of their distinctive features, they must each be received as identical—alter et idem. Still the connexion must be as far as possible removed from our view, that we may avoid comparisons which the author certainly was desirous to avoid, when in remodelling the comedy he introduced no circumstances which could connect it with the histories; and when he not only did not reject what would be called the anachronisms of the first sketch, but in the perfect play heaped on such anachronisms with a profuseness that is not exhibited in any other of his dramas. We must, therefore, not only dissociate the characters of 'The Merry Wives' from the similar characters of the histories, but suffer our minds to slide into the belief that the manners of the times of Henry IV. had sufficient points in common with those of the times of Elizabeth to justify the poet in taking no great pains to distinguish between them. We must suffer ourselves to be carried away with the nature and fun of this comedy, without encumbering our minds with any precise idea of the social circumstances under which the characters lived. We must not startle, therefore, at the mention of Star-chambers, and Edward shovel-boards, S and Sackerson, and Guiana, and rapiers, and | with those that have the fear of God, and Flemish drunkards, and coaches, and pen- not with drunken knaves,”—which resolve, sioners. The characters speak in the language as Evans says, shows his "virtuous mind." of truth and nature, which belongs to all In the remodelled play, too, we find the most time; and we must forget that they sometimes peculiar traces of the master-hand in Quickly, use the expressions of a particular time to such as, "His worst fault is that he is which they do not in strict propriety belong. given to prayer; he is something peevish The critics have been singularly laudatory that way;" and "The boy never need to of this comedy. Warton calls it "the most understand anything, for 't is not good that complete specimen of Shakspere's comic children should know any wickedness. Old powers." Johnson says, "This comedy is folks, you know, have discretion, as they say, remarkable for the variety and number of and know the world;" and again, “Good the personages, who exhibit more characters hearts, what ado here is to bring you appropriated and discriminated than perhaps together! Sure, one of you does not serve can be found in any other play. . . . Its heaven well that you are so crossed." Johnson general power, that power by which all works objects to this latter passage as profane; but of genius shall finally be tried, is such, that he overlooks the extraordinary depth of the perhaps it never yet had reader or spectator satire. Shakspere's profound knowledge of who did not think it too soon at the end." the human heart is as much displayed in We agree with much of this; but we certainly these three little sentences as in his Hamlet cannot agree with Warton that it is "the and his Iago. most complete specimen of Shakspere's comic powers." We cannot forget 'As You Like It,' and 'Twelfth Night,' and 'Much Ado about Nothing.' We cannot forget those exquisite combinations of the highest wit with the purest poetry, in which the wit flows from the same everlasting fountain as the poetry, --both revealing all that is most intense and profound and beautiful and graceful in humanity. Of those qualities which put Shakspere above all other men that ever existed, "The Merry Wives of Windsor' exhibits few traces. Some of the touches, however, which no other hand could give, are to be found in Slender, and we think in Quickly. Slender, little as he has to do, is the character that most frequently floats before our fancy when we think of The Merry Wives of Windsor.' Slender and Anne Page are the favourites of our modern school of English painting, which has attempted, and successfully, to carry the truth of the Dutch school into a more refined region of domestic art. We do not wish Anne Page to have been married to Slender, but in their poetical alliance they are inseparable. It is in the remodelled play that we find, for the most part, such Shaksperean passages in the character of Slender as, "If I be drunk, I'll be drunk The principal action of this comedy-the adventures of Falstaff with the Merry Wives sweeps on with a rapidity of movement which hurries us forward to the dénouement as irresistibly as if the actors were under the influence of that destiny which belongs to! the empire of tragedy. No reverses, no disgraces, can save Falstaff from his final humiliation. The net is around him, but he does not see the meshes;—he fancies himself the deceiver, but he is the deceived. He will stare Ford "out of his wits," he will "awe him with his cudgel," yet he lives "to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of butcher's offal; and to be thrown in the Thames." But his confidence is undaunted: "I will be thrown into Etna, as I have been thrown into Thames, ere I will leave her;" yet, "since I plucked geese, played truant, and whipped top, I knew not what it was to be beaten, till lately." Lastly, he will rush upon a third adventure: "This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers;" yet his good luck ends in "I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass." The real jealousy of Ford most skilfully helps on the merry devices of his wife; and with equal skill does the poet make him throw away his jealousy, and assist in the last plot against the "unclean knight." The misadventures of Falstaff are |